Narnia: The Light Of The Lamp-Post Series

Far away, and down near the horizon, the sky began to turn grey. A light wind, very fresh, began to stir. The sky, in that one place, grew slowly and steadily paler. You could see shapes of hills standing up dark against it. All the time the Voice went on singing. (C.S. Lewis, The Magician’s Nephew)

When I think about this moment, it fires my imagination and helps me understand why C.S.Lewis, a noted Oxford scholar, would take to writing Children’s books.

Lewis was firmly convinced that we were made for another world – the one that God made before we messed it up with sin. That belief is embodied in the Narnia stories.

Lewis once said:

Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for these desires exists. A baby feels hunger; well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim; well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire; well, there is such a thing as sex.

If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other hand, never to mistake them for something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage. I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find until after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that other country and to help others do the same. (Mere Christianity, Bk. III, chap. 10, "Hope" p. 120)

So, Lewis created worlds of the imagination that addressed those longings and desires. That help us to understand both the world for which we were made and the world in which we live. I believe they were part of his effort to keep that hope, that longing alive and to help others, especially children, to do the same

It is in Jesus that we find that true life which presses on to that other country…

John 1:3-4 (NIV) 3Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4In him was life, and that life was the light of men.

The light of the lamp post brings the children into Narnia, and Jesus is the light which gives life to those who step into that light!

That life was the light of men. (NIV) The divine life embodied in Christ brought unique light to people—revealing divine truth and exposing their sin. Everywhere Christ went, he brought light (see 3:21; 8:12). Light means understanding and moral insight, spiritual vision. But more than just shining or reflecting, the light of Jesus penetrates and enlightens hearts and minds. Everyone who comes into contact with Christ can be enlightened.

Christ is the one universal light. There is no other. As Creator, Jesus not only provides light but he also makes people light sensitive. The blindness Jesus later attributes to the Pharisees (9:35-41) includes an intentional turning away from the light, pretending to “see” something else.