Narnia: Door To A New Kingdom Series

What happens? The entire book is devoted to Aslan rescuing Edmund. Getting him out of the clutches of the wicked Queen and setting him free. Not just setting him free, but making him into a king. King Edmund the Just. And Aslan says to the other children after redeeming this lost boy: “Here is your brother. There is no need to talk to him about what is past.”

So if you’ve spent a lot of years treating the Christian story as half of what it is, giving Jesus a corner of your heart and no more, spending every December playing Christmas . . . he still dies for you. And today, if you’re willing to finally concede that his kingdom is real, all real, he offers you the entire miracle: eternal life, a crown, and a throne.

One of the hard, mature things we all have to do is to separate fact from fiction. I heard a cute story about a kid who finally began to face up to the fragility of his belief in the Tooth Fairy. He confronted his mother and asked her, “Mom, are you the Tooth Fairy?” Well, she gave a little sigh, now that the secret was out, and because this marked a rite of passage. The end of the innocence. But she gave a little nod and said, “Uh, yes, honey, I guess I kind of am.”

Well, the kid accepted the New Theology without freaking out. But a moment later he asked her: “Then how do you get into all the other kids’ houses?”

But just as it’s important to separate fact from fiction, it’s equally important for God’s people to separate fiction from fact. You know, if you want to dabble in fiction, you can do some great things with a door. When I was a high school missionary kid living in Singapore, we all got to take a tour once on the U.S.S. Nimitz. And I now have a sci-fi film in my collection, about a time-travel portal that opens up and allows that very aircraft carrier to go back from now to the year 1941. In fact, it’s December 6, 1941, just one day before the bombing of Pearl Harbor. What an opportunity – all of America’s awesome nuclear arsenal, with heat-seeking missiles and the latest in supersonic jet fighters and bombers . . . and the Japanese army has these little putt-putt Zeros tiptoeing toward Honolulu at 90 miles an hour with their one-propeller engines.

H. G. Wells opens the door to his time machine and goes instantly from one era to another, tracking down Jack the Ripper and falling in love with a woman who lives a century later than he does. Doors open up new dimensions, new worlds, a new matrix, a new life.

But there’s one door, and really just one, that I care about today. I care about that closet door that opens up to a world where Aslan the Lion lives. I want that door to be real; I want its promises to be true.

You see, I’m fifty years old. I’m the oldest person at Upper Room Fellowship. Last weekend I played with my granddaughter, and holding Kira made me realize that even if I’m not in the sunset years yet, I can sense the shadows and the twilight coming up. Unless someone else is unexpectedly struck down by cancer or a car crash, it’s safe to say that I’m going to be the first person at Upper Room Fellowship to walk up to the door of heaven.