A Narnia Christmas Series

11th December 05 ABC

A Narnia Christmas

Welcome (earlier in service)

Welcome to the world of Narnia. We continue a Celebrate Christmas series, something a little bit different from our normal services.

Jesus often sat down on the side of a hill or in the city. Parents would sometimes bring their children to him and he would bend down and sit with them - pray for them and bless them. It would have been pretty cool to be a kid around Jesus. But we read in the gospels that some of the big people didn’t always like that - but Jesus said that the kingdom of God belonged to people like children - humble people who trust.

Jesus also told stories. He was a great story teller. He told stories about a man attacked on the side of a road. He told of mustard seeds growing, sheep being lost and found, a bunch of day labourers getting paid more than they worked for. Jesus saw the things around him and told stories about them to teach truth to his audience. There were no DVDs, TV, movies, video games back then. I think if Jesus were here today he may well use some of these things to tell us stories about God and life and the new life to come.

Today, we step into another world, the world of Narnia. And we explore biblical truth where it intersects with the movie. Kids, or whatever you are in your costumes, there’s some seats up the front, or you can stay with your parents.

Song/ break

Sermon Introduction

How many of you here have already seen the movie, ’The Lion, Witch and Wardrobe?’ How many of you have read the book or had the book read to you?

Let me share a little of the plot with those of you that haven’t.

The Lion, Witch and Wardrobe is set in the midst of the second world war. There are four children - names? - Peter, Susan, Edmond, Lucy. (who is the oldest/ youngest?). The book was actually dedicated to ’Lucy.’ Lewis was the god-father to Lucy. So, there is a real-life story behind the movie. When Mr Lewis wrote this book, things were a little scary in our world. It was getting difficult. People were getting hurt and killed. Buildings were getting bombed. It was a scary time. In fact some would say that our world today is not all that different. Tida Swinton who plays the white witch in the movie, herself said, “All of our children are war children now.” We are starting to have scary things happening. It’s becoming an unsafe place to live.

That’s the setting the book is written in. There’s another setting. The story itself.

The children are sent to their Uncles place in the country where they are to spend the school holidays. Their uncle lives in a large old house. One day the kids are playing hide and seek. Do any of you kids play that? . . . Well so do the four kids in the book. One of them, Lucy, hides in a wardrobe. But it is different to all other wardrobes. She’s never hidden in a wardrobe like this one before. Because when she walks into it, its cold and seems to have no back. In fact, it leads her to another world called Narnia. Eventually, all the children step into this other world of Narnia. Narnia has all these different animals. But they’re all either evil and nasty. Or they’re really scared from the evil and nasty creatures. In fact Narnia is under a curse of permanent winter and run by the evil white witch. Later in the story, we come across the forces of good in the form of Aslan, a talking lion. As usual there is a battle between the good guys and the bad guys.

PLAY MOVIE PREVIEW CLIP

One of the big lines in the movie/book is that ’it is always winter and never Christmas.’

It is always winter and never Christmas in Narnia. Throughout the movie and book we keep hearing that line. The evil queen has made Narnia a place where it is always winter and never Christmas.

How many of you here like Christmas? I think I probably like it the most. I know, I know, some of the adults might think of some of the kids faces lighting up when their 5 year old gets their first bicycle or when your son gets his Spiderman suit he’s been wanting for soooo long.

But, still, I think I like Christmas the most. We have lights inside and outside. Decorations. Even Christmas plates to use for this time of the year.

But imagine a world where it is always winter and never Christmas. It’s always cold. Always damp. Never any fun. Nothing to look forward to. It’s dreary. Miserable. Hard yacker. There are no: Christmas presents, decorations, carols, Santa, trees, Charlie Brown Christmas specials, Christmas holidays. It would be a world where 25th Dec is the same as every other day - 12 July; 3 March or the 9th October. Nothing important happens to me on those days. Always winter and never Christmas. Sounds more like a winter wasteland than a winter wonder-land.