On this last Sunday of Advent, we come to the fourth and final part of our sermon series on C.S. Lewis's classic, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. I do have to admit, this fourth section initially made me a little hesitant to use this book for an Advent sermon series. The first three parts have clear Advent messages. But the fourth part is so saturated with images of Holy Week and Easter I almost backed away from the whole thing.
But then I remembered two things. First I remembered the message of our Gospel lesson from Matthew: "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins."
He will save his people. In fact the name Jesus itself means "God saves." You shall name him, "God is Salvation" for he will save his people from their sins. That is Jesus' job description from the very beginning. Even before he was born, his job description was clear. He would save us through his cross and resurrection. That's the first thing.
And the other thing I remembered was what we're all about in our worship. Every week, even on this Fourth Sunday of Advent, even on Christmas itself, we gather together to break bread, which is our way of proclaiming Jesus' death and resurrection until he comes again.
With that in mind, let us turn to this last section of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Even though it is the eve of Christmas Eve, let us consider for a moment, through C.S. Lewis's story what God has done for us in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
At the end of our last section, in chapter 13, Edmund had repented of his betrayal of his brother and sisters, and had been reunited and reconciled with them. But the White Witch comes into the camp demanding the right to take Edmund's life. She cites the Deep Magic laid down at the dawn of time. She says to Aslan,
"You know the magic which the Emperor put into Narnia at the very beginning. You know that every traitor belongs to me as my lawful prey and that for every treachery I have the right to a kill."
But then Aslan goes off to meet with the Witch secretly. We don't know what they talk about. But when they come out of the meeting, the Witch renounces her claim to Edmund's life.
As we begin our last section with chapter 14, we see a very sad Aslan returning to the Stone Table with the two sisters in tow. He leaves them in the shadows, and walks ahead and gives himself up to the Witch. It turns out that a secret deal was made that he would die in the place of Edmund.
Aslan is bound, his mane is cut off, and he is subjected to abuse and humiliation. And then, as the Witch prepares to kill him, she says these words to him:
"And now, who has won? Fool, did you think that by all this you would save the human traitor? Now I will kill you instead of him as our pact was and so the Deep Magic will be appeased. But when you are dead what will prevent me from killing him as well? And who will take him out of my hand then? Understand that you have given me Narnia forever, you have lost your own life and you have not saved his. In that knowledge, despair and die."
And with those words she kills Aslan. The Witch and her minions move on, so that they can defeat the rest of the Narnians in battle. The girls come out of hiding and mourn over the body of the dead lion. The Witch's triumph seems complete.
The girls spend the night weeping over Aslan. And then as dawn is breaking they walk off. But then they hear a loud sound behind them. They turn around and see that the Stone Table is broken in two, and Aslan's body is gone. They think the Witch has stolen the body.
But then a resurrected Aslan appears to them, golden mane and all. When they ask him how it is possible, he says this:
"Though the Witch knew the Deep Magic, there is a magic deeper still which she did not know. Her knowledge goes back only to the dawn of time. But if she could have looked a little further back, into the stillness and the darkness before Time dawned, she would have read there a different incantation. She would have known the when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor's stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backward."
And then Aslan has the girls climb on his back, and they take a high speed romp through the land of Narnia. And Aslan takes the girl to the White Witch's castle. And there he breathes on all of the stone statues, all of the Narnians that had been frozen and paralyzed by the White Witch's magic, and they are brought back to life. Aslan's new life is shared by all of those who had been under the spell of the White Witch.
And then, finally, Aslan and the freed Narnians join the other Narnians who are engaged in battle with the White Witch. And there Aslan defeats and kills her.
I probably don't need to connect all the dots for you. The Christian parallels are clear. C.S. Lewis wants us to see that in Jesus willingness to die on our behalf, the powers of sin and death were broken and defeated. And those who had been captive were freed by him. And all of us are given the gift of new life.
On this eve of Christmas Eve, how do we live into that reality? How do we celebrate the Deeper Magic?
Tomorrow night (in two nights) we will celebrate Jesus as Emmanuel, God with us. We will celebrate his birth, that in this baby God became a human being. But we also have to remember that the story didn't stop there. This baby grew up, he became a man, he taught and healed and died and rose again. The birth of the baby points ahead to something far more important.
It's easy to get stuck on the joy of Christmas. It's easy to get fixated on the baby. There's a wonderful image of this in a recent movie, the comedy Talladega Nights. In the movie, Ricky Bobby the NASCAR racer often prays. But he only prays to Baby Jesus. Ricky Bobby doesn't want to deal with Jesus the man, Jesus the savior. So he focuses on the baby. At one point he prays, "Dear 8 pounds 6 ounces baby Jesus, new born, not even spoken a word yet." Another time he prays to "Dear little baby Jesus, who's sittin' in his crib watchin the Baby Einstein videos, learnin' 'bout shapes and colors."
Like many people in our culture, Ricky Bobby forgets that the infant in the manger will later be the savior on the cross. The Deeper Magic is that the baby is born to be a willing victim, to conquer death by dying on our behalf.
One of my favorite Christmas carols is an obscure one. I'd invite you to grab a hymnal and turn to Hymn 104. The text and tune are unfamiliar, "A stable lamp is lighted," by Richard Wilbur. It's obscure, but the hymn captures beautifully the paradox and mystery of the Nativity and how it is tied to the Passion. The first verse speaks of Jesus birth:
"A stable lamp is lighted
Whose glow shall wake the sky;
The stars shall bend their voices,
And every stone shall cry.
And every stone shall cry,
And straw like gold will shine;
A barn shall harbor heaven,
A stall become a shrine."
Yet, we mustn't forget in the midst of all the warm emotional feelings surrounding Christmas the reason that God came to dwell among us in the person of Jesus Christ. In Israel, only 5 miles separate the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, the traditional sites of Jesus' birth, and Jesus' death. The second verse speaks of Jesus riding into Jerusalem:
"This child through David’s city
Shall ride in triumph by;
The palm shall strew its branches
And every stone shall cry.
And every stone shall cry,
Though heavy, dull and dumb,
And lie within the roadway
To pave his Kingdom come."
The third verse of "A stable lamp is lighted" reminds us of God's love on the cross, and the way we turn our backs on that love:
"Yet he shall be forsaken,
And yielded up to die;
The sky shall groan and darken,
And every stone shall cry.
And every stone shall cry,
For stony hearts of men;
God's blood upon the spearhead,
God's love refused again."
Thirty some odd years after his birth, the baby who is lifted gently in the arms of his mother will be lifted high upon the cross. Christmas finds its meaning in Good Friday and Easter. We sing praise to God at Christmas not because of the birth of a cuddly baby. Our praise stems from the fact that that baby is Emmanuel, God with us, and that through his death, we are reconciled to God. The fourth verse of Richard Wilbur's hymn expresses this truth beautifully:
"But now, as at the ending,
The low is lifted high;
The stars shall bend their voices,
And every stone shall cry.
And every stone shall cry,
In praises of the Child
By whose descent among us
The worlds are reconciled."
The meaning of Christmas, the deeper magic of Christmas, is that God sent his son to save us. Manger and cross, stable and tomb. It's all tied together. Tomorrow we will celebrate Jesus' birth. But the year will continue. We'll celebrate his Epiphany, his Baptism, his Temptations, his teachings, his Crucifixion, and his Resurrection. That is the Deeper Magic.
Christmas is coming. Jesus is coming. Aslan is on the move.
The Rev. James P. Haney V
Good Shepherd, Wichita
December 23, 2007
