Narnia: A Door To Another World Series

A DOOR TO ANOTHER WORLD

Our Music Minister, Mo and our Sunday School director, Steve, were passengers on a jet crossing the Atlantic.

The pilot came on the intercom to report trouble with engine number one that had to be shut down. The flight would last an hour longer, but there was no cause for alarm.

After a while, the pilot reported an oil leak on engine number four. Absolutely no cause for anxiety as a jumbo can fly on the two remaining, but there would be a further delay in their arrival. Some concern rippled round the passengers.

Sure enough, the pilot later reports a fuel feed problem on engine number three.

Mo turns to Steve and says: ‘Do you know what I’m thinking Steve?"

‘No, what’s that you’re thinking, Mo?’

‘Well. I’m thinking that if that other engine goes, we’ll be up here all cotton pickin’ night’.

ILLUS> When I was about seven my grandmother took me to visit a cousin that I hadn’t met before. That cousin introduced me to a world that I have never forgotten. He introduced me to the wonderful world of comic books.

He took me down into his basement where he had thousands upon thousands of comic books. We laid and read for hours, with each book taking me on a different adventure with different characters facing, and conquering different obstacles.

As we left that day he handed me a box full of comic books that would serve as a foundation for my own collection, which took me on countless adventures.

C.S. Lewis has done the same thing with his awesome fantasy, ‘The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe’. He takes us into a world where there are adventures and challenges that teach us that even Christians still have to face obstacles. In a few weeks there will be a major motion picture opening across the nation. Disney will be spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on advertising. I believe that as Christians we should take advantage of their largesse and use the opportunities that this movie provides to share our faith at work, at school and in our neighborhoods.

OPEN by explaining the basic plot of the movie. Then read the couple of pages dealing with Lucy’s first trip through the wardrobe. Explain how the wardrobe was a door not only to another world, but it was a door to adventure!

After dealing with the wardrobe as the entry point to lives filled with great adventures, ask people to turn to John 10:1-10 and join in reading:

John 10:1“Most assuredly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door, but climbs up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber. 2But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. 3To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice; and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4And when he brings out his own sheep, he goes before them; and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. 5Yet they will by no means follow a stranger, but will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.” 6Jesus used this illustration, but they did not understand the things which He spoke to them.

7Then Jesus said to them again, “Most assuredly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. 8All who ever came £before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them. 9I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. 10The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.

Now Jesus was speaking to people who understood their sheep and what it took to raise them. He first used an illustration about sheep that were kept in cities and villages. They were normally kept in a large pen, or sheepfold, where a number of shepherds would bring their flocks for the night. Someone from the village would be assigned to watch the sheep for the evening and then in the morning the shepherds would come to gather their sheep. The sheep knew the sound of their individual shepherds voice and would only respond to him.

In the country shepherds would build their own sheepfold or pen. They would use thorn bushes, branches or stones to build these temporary pens. Then after their sheep entered the fold, they would set themselves across the opening and he would literally become the door to the sheepfold.

I believe Jesus refers to both of these in this text for two distinct reasons. First, Jesus was trying to expose the false teaching of the Pharisees while secondly, He is introducing Himself as the truth of God.