A Strange Place To Kneel Down Series

A strange place to kneel down. And yet on the bare floor of this stable, his knees fell to the floor. It was like the clouds opened and as the star shone down it all made sense. And Melchior fumbled in his cloak and brought Gold to bring to the King - to the King who wasn’t the sort of monarch he was expecting. And yet now it all made sense. An Epiphany. This was to be a very different sort of King.

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Gold. A Golden age of English intellectuals. Clive Staples Lewis - CS Lewis - Jack to his friends - sat among the Gold and Ivory towers of Oxford writing his books. Wise men came from the east... to Oxford. Wise men came from the North.Wise men came from the West. Wise men came from the South. From all over the intellectual cream came to Oxford, just like the Scribes and wise men had come of old to Herod’s palace. And Lewis was one of them. A great scholar of English literature. And a proud atheist in the Bertram Russell tradition.

And yet like Melchior gazing up at the night sky, Lewis couldn't help but be drawn by something. Someone - someone gave him a book by Chesterton “The Everlasting Man”. Lewis loved the book and its ideas. … and yet… Well as Lewis put it "Christianity was very sensible... 'apart from its Christianity'" There were so many things about the Christian worldview: its attitude of gratitude, it’s seeing the beauty in the little things, its concept of love - it’s radical proposal of forgiveness. It was a beautiful way of living. "Christianity was very sensible... 'apart from its Christianity'" Everything about it seemed right apart from...the God thing.

It was down the pub that the next stage on his metaphorical journey from the desert to the stable began. CS Lewis liked the Eagle and Child. It served a good pint. And he would meet with his friends there - Tolkein and Dyson and others - and chat about stories and adventures … and sometimes Jesus.

Lewis was attracted by what his friends said. But God just didn’t make sense to him. Or perhaps he didn’t want it to make sense. Like the Magi who desperately wanted the King of the Jews to be born not in stable but in a Palace, perhaps Jack wanted the universe to be the way that fitted with the way he lived. But the conversations kept gnawing at his mind drawing him ever further into that desert.

Then a journey. He was on the top floor of a double decker bus, He got on that bus pondering atheism, sure he could defend it.It was as if the clouds opened, the star shone down - an epiphany - "kicking, struggling, resentful, and darting [my] eyes in every direction for a chance to escape" Lewis “the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England” gave in to the idea of God. [1]

And Lewis, together with Tolken and TS Eliot and that golden crop of mid twentieth century intellectuals - laid the treasures of his mind at the foot of the manger. The lion the witch and the Wardrobe. The Screwtape letters. The Problem of Pain. The Great Divorce. Mere christianity. “Gold I bring to crown Him again, King for ever, Ceasing never Over us all to reign.” [2]

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A strange place to kneel down.

And yet on the bare floor of this stable, Caspar’s knees fell to the floor. For years he has been a priest - a high priest, in eastern palace offering incense to the Almighty out of a sense of duty, like former generations had done before him. Through all this God had seemed far off. Not someone you could relate to. Not someone you could touch or who could cuddle you as he sat on your lap. Caspar hadn’t expected that as the virgin Mary passed him the baby to hold - he hadn’t been expecting that. And yet on that day in the observatory as they peered through their telescopes, everything had changed. The star. “We have seen his star rising" in the east [Matthew 2:2] - And suddenly what “to former generations of humanity had been a mystery”[Eph 3:5] in an instant became clear to them. At once they saddled their camels and set off. And in a far off land they encountered a God who was much less far off than they could have imagined. An intimate God who through grace and forgiveness brought love to us. A god who would weaken himself to become a baby - because he loved you and I that much.

And Caspar fumbled in his cloak and brought out incense to bring to the King - Incense owns a deity neigh. Only this wasn’t the sort of deity he was expecting. And yet now it all made sense. An Epiphany.