Narnia: Passage To A New World

15 days ago the movie “Narnia” was released.

Narnia is a mystical world full of intriguing characters, adventures, and ultimately (like any great story) a majestic battle between good and evil. Though ficticious, it parallels in many ways the world in which we live.

Most like Midwest: Narnia is cold. Blanketed by eternal winter.

I’m ok with snow in winter. But can you imagine April, May, June, July – no sun, no change, no way!!

Worst of all: There is no Christmas in Narnia. Could you imagine life with no Christmas?

Unless someone comes to their rescue, the blanket of despair that has covered this place cannot be lifted. Send the great hero!! Not so fast.

Enter a child: Eight year old Lucy happens upon a large closet of clothes

– every young girl’s dream I’m sure.

Yet this closet, this wardrobe as it’s called, is different.

She sees this light, at the time far off in the distance, and follows it into a new world.

Her tales of the New Place are fascinating, and before long the rest of her brothers and sisters find themselves transported into this new world of Narnia.

Lucy is drawn into the wardrobe – to its Promise, to its Offer of something new, exciting, and different. Reminds me of my own son and how he’s drawn light a magnet to the Christmas tree. It’s not always there, it has shiny lights and ornaments, he knows (maybe intuitively) something exciting is supposed to happen there.

I have to admit, haven’t seen the movie. I read the book when I was in 6th grade, though I thought it was a great story – I was in the dark, I didn’t get it!!

The Danger, not just at Christmas, but for our whole life – is that we go through our lives our work, our home, our faith – in the dark. The obvious may be right in front of us, and we miss it!!

What intrigues me about this story, there are many things, but that this new world is discovered by a child. Young, impressionable, innocent.

If we are honest about it, we place our Hopes in many forms: a favorable stock market, national security, a relative order of rules and laws, the presumed kindness of others.

Yet who would be daring and bold enough to place all their future Hopes on the back of a child? Who would mix that much promise and expectation into the hands of just one person?

God Would.

God Gave His very expression of His Love to us.

Not through the door of a closet – yet in the Gift of a Child.

God Gave Himself Away in the Gift of A Son.

To us a Child is Born

To us a Son is Given

There are many Names God gives to describe His Son, even going as far to give His Son the Name – Wonderful.

Wow. This Son better live up to his expectations if his name is Wonderful. I wonder how many of us with kids would be able to name our son or daughter Wonderful?

The Wonder of This Child:

The Government on His Shoulders

The people of Israel have been oppressed and the promise of this Child will set them free. Instead of weapons and enslavement, He will rule with peace and justice. This will come at a great cost to the Child – He will bear the weight of

A Cross on His Back

The Child will carry the weight of the world upon Himself. This weight will take the form of a cross - God’s expression of complete Love to Us.

The blanket of darkness & despair is lifted.

New Life Placed into His Hands SS song – “He’s got the whole world in His Hands”

Christ invites us to a new relationship (new life) in Him.

Nativity scenes: The child’s hands are raised up, in worship, and in invitation to the manger.

We always talk about going into or going toward something (follow the light to safety). The real miracle of Christmas is that God has come to us.

To us – a child is born.

To us – a son is given.

Shepherds and wise men didn’t just stumble upon some baby 2000 years ago, they were drawn there to meet the Messaiah.

Young Lucy never found the wardrobe, it found her, a child, willing to experience a new existence.

Scripture: Approach God with the attitude and openness to new things like a child.

Child-like faith is that key to the Door:

It’s not the door of some clothes closet in a great C.S. Lewis novel, or even the doors of the stable the promised Son given to us was born behind– rather, Jesus Christ Himself, The Promised Child of God both then and now, is the Door to a New World.