One of my favorite children series of books is written by Christian author C.S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia. Every two years I take these books off the shelf and re-read them and they always seem to have a different lesson for me.
The following dialogue appears in C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia (1961, New York: Macmillan, 1950, C.S. Lewis PTE. LTD.). In The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Susan and Lucy ask Mr. and Mrs. Beaver to describe Aslan. They ask if Aslan is a man. Mr. Beaver replies.
“Aslan a man? Certainly not. I tell you he is the King of the wood and the son of the great Emperor-Beyond-the-Sea. Don’t you know who is the King of Beasts? Aslan is a lion—the Lion, the great Lion.”
“Ooh!” said Susan. “I’d thought he was a man. Is he—quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.”
“That you will, dearie, and no mistake,” said Mrs. Beaver, “if there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than most or else just silly.”
“Then he isn’t safe?” said Lucy.
”Safe?” said Mr. Beaver. “Don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about being safe? ’Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”
In The Chronicles of Narnia, Aslan is C.S. Lewis’ representation of Jesus Christ. He is depicted as the great lion, the king of wild beasts, who is anything but “safe.” But, Lewis adds, he is good.
What do you think about Jesus? Have you domesticated him? Is he safe and non-threatening to you and the way you want to live your life? If you have that image of Jesus—the meek and mild Jesus who doesn’t make any demands on you, then you have a wrong image of Jesus. He is not safe. But he is good. It takes courage—a radical commitment—to follow Jesus. Christianity is not a religion for sissies. When you give your life to Christ, you put your life on the line. Are you willing?
What a way to start a sermon—Today I am not taking it lightly. Today I am hitting you right in the face with the tough questions. Today is a wiggle and squirm sermon. One where I don’t want you to feel or be comfortable.
Too often we, and that includes me, we Christians get comfortable and complacent in our seats. Too often, it’s the same people doing the same things. And too often now we have consumer ideals for the church.
It’s easy to come into the building every Sunday and sit and listen to the sermon. It’s also very easy not to get too involved because after all who are we to interfere—“they” are doing such a great job.
And it is so easy for us to say what can the church do for me—we are consumers—not what can we do for the church. If I go to such and such church they have this for me and not if I want to make a change at this church I can do….you fill in the blank. We have become consumer’s in our outlook of the church. We have become buyers and not shareholders in today’s churches. We look at the church as a product not as something that we have ownership of.
The hard part in any aspects of our lives is change…oh my how we hate change…so that word and people freeze up or they run so fast that there is smoke flying behind them…
But to grow, to move forward, to not be consumers but active and willing participants we have to change…we have to face the hard questions…we have to do more than give lip service to God…we have to make choices.
Two brothers were arguing about the wisdom of their parents. “Father is very wise,” said the first brother. “We should listen to him and do what he says.”
The second brother disagreed. “Father is not so wise! Why, we are just as smart as he is. I’ll prove it to you!”
The next day the second brother went into the woods near his home and captured a small bird. He brought the bird home and said to his brother, “Let’s go find our father. I will show you that he isn’t so smart!”
The two brothers went into their father’s study, the second one holding the small bird between his cupped hands. “Father, I have a question for you,” he said. “I hold a small bird in my hands. Tell me, is this bird dead or alive?”
The boy was confident that his father would not answer correctly because if he said that the bird was dead, the boy would simply open his hands and show that the bird was alive. If his father answered that the bird was alive, he would crush the bird between his hands and reveal that the bird was dead. Then he would prove to his brother that his father was not so wise after all.
The boys’ father considered the question for a moment and said, “My son...the answer is in your hands.”
Sometimes we come to our Heavenly Father with questions that are just as impossible to answer. “Tell me, God, what should I do with my life? Who should I marry? Where should I live? What will my future hold?” We expect God to arrange our lives for us and make everything work out just right. After all, isn’t that what an all-powerful, all-knowing God is for?
The answer is no. In his wisdom, God created us with free will. In effect, He says to us, “My son, my daughter, the answer is in your hands.”
While God does know the future—and most certainly has the power to determine it—he has graciously given us control over our own lives. He created us in his own image; that is, with the ability to choose, to decide what we will do, how we will live, whom we will serve.
He chose not be a cosmic puppeteer, simply pulling the strings of our lives and making us into people who would automatically serve him and love him. Instead, he gave us the ability to decide for ourselves whether to love him or not, whether to obey him or not, and whether to serve him or not. He wants us to have eternal life,2 Peter 3:9 “God isn’t late with his promise as some measure lateness. He is restraining himself on account of you, holding back the End because he doesn’t want anyone lost. He’s giving everyone space and time to change.” But the ultimate “answer is in our hands”.
We can choose to do something and believe that we can do or we can choose to do nothing and watch as the world goes by us.
“Now in Joppa there was a disciple whose name was Tabitha, which in Greek is Dorcas. She was devoted to good works and acts of charity. At that time she became ill and died. When they had washed her, they laid her in a room upstairs. Since Lydda was near Joppa, the disciples who heard that Peter was there, sent two men to him with the request. “Please come to us without delay.” So Peter got up and went with them; and when he arrived they took him to the room upstairs. All the widows stood beside him, weeping and showing tunics and other clothing that Dorcas had made while she was with them. Peter put all of them outside, and then he knelt down and prayed. He turned to the body and said, “Tabitha, get up.” Then she opened her eyes, and seeing Peter, she sat up. Then calling the saints and widows, he showed her to be alive. This became known throughout Joppa, and many believed in the Lord. Meanwhile he stayed in Joppa for some time with a certain Simon, a tanner.”
Tabitha was a faithful servant. Her works are shown to us not to show that she more than others deserved divine healing but to show us the character of Tabitha. She was devoted to good works and acts of charity. She became ill and died and the people were greatly distressed. As was their custom they took her to the upstairs room, as the upstairs rooms were more ventilated. Remember they did not have air conditioning.
Can you imagine the scene? The woman are holding the clothing that was made by this sainted woman. They are wailing and crying and fussing because this woman has died.
And Peter put them outside and Peter kneels down and simply says a prayer and than tells Tabitha to get up. She sits up and is shown to be alive. And through this act many came to know the Lord.
We are not told of how Tabitha felt or Peter’s response. But the response of the people is indicated, “this became known throughout Joppa, and many believed in the Lord.”
Sometimes when we sit in the pews or when we sit behind the pulpit we don’t look very alive. We are sometimes tired, sometimes drained and sometimes feeling entirely too human and vulnerable. And sometimes we need people to pray for us and to tell us to get up. Sometimes we need them to tell us this softly and gently, sometimes we need them to yell it at us…but there are times when we need to hear—GET UP! Then we need to look around us, get up and go make a difference.
We need to let Jesus into our lives to make that difference. We people need to not place him in a box and take him out when it is convenient for us. We need not set him on a shelf and take him down and show him off as if he were a trophy. We need to let him shine all the time. We need to be the beacons of Christ love. We need to let God show through us in all things and all the time. We need to shout it out to our fellow Christians…”GET UP!!”
We need to shout it to ourselves—“GET UP!!” We sometimes become complacent. We become comfortable with our everyday program. We don’t want anything to change, we don’t want our lives altered, but change is good and can be surprising. We might find that we like the changes and we will assimilate those changes into our lives.
Change…can be good, it can be life altering and it can be helpful. Understand that there is a difference between not changing and having a routine.
I have a routine for my prayer time and my Bible study time. I keep that routine to help me grow in my spiritual life. I make sure that time is kept…
The change’s that we need not be afraid of—is spiritual growth, change in the worship, change in our services, change in our Sunday school classes. And not only spiritual but numeric growth. Everyday in our Christian walk should bring about change and transformation—we should not stay the same week after week. We should grow, we should share, we should adapt. We should become more than we were before.
“Today we are going to draw a picture,” Timmy’s kindergarten teacher announced. Good, Timmy thought. He liked to draw pictures. He could draw lions and tigers and trains and boats. He took out his crayons and began to draw.But the teacher said, “Wait, it’s not time to begin.” She paused until everyone looked ready. “Now,” she said, “we are going to draw flowers.”Good, Timmy thought. He began to draw beautiful flowers with his orange and pink and blue crayons.But the teacher said, “Wait.” She drew a picture of a flower on the blackboard. It was red with a green stem. “There,” she said, “now you may begin.”Timmy looked at his teacher’s flower. He liked his better, but he didn’t say anything. He just turned his paper over and made a flower like the teacher’s. It was red with a green stem.A few days later the teacher said, “Today we are going to make something with clay.”Good, Timmy thought. He could make all kinds of things with clay—snakes and snowmen and elephants and mice. He began to pinch and pull his ball of clay.But the teacher said, “Wait, I’ll show you how.” And she showed everyone how to make a dish.So Timmy rolled his clay into a ball, flattened it, and made a dish like the teacher’s.Timmy learned to wait and watch and make things just like the teacher’s. And pretty soon he stopped making creations of his own.Then one day Timmy’s family moved to another city, and Timmy started at a new school. On his first day, Timmy’s new teacher said, “Today we are going to draw a picture.”Good, Timmy thought. And he waited for the teacher to tell him what to do. But the teacher didn’t say anything. She just walked around the room. When she came to Timmy, she said, “Don’t you want to draw a picture?”“Yes,” said Timmy. “What are we going to draw?”“Well, I don’t know until you draw it,” the teacher said.“How should I make it?” he asked.“Why, any way you like.”“And any color?”“Any color,” the teacher said. “If everyone drew the same thing in the same color, how would I know who made what?”“I don’t know,” said Timmy. And he began to draw a flower.It was red with a green stem.
When Timmy was very young, he was robbed of his creativity. His teacher told him that there was only one way to draw a flower or shape a lump of clay.You may be more like Timmy than you realize. You have the potential to draw outside the lines, to be creative, to use your talents and gifts in a remarkable and unique way, but the world has told you that you can’t do it.The world we live in conditions us at an early age to believe that we all have to look the same, act the same, and think the same. Then when Jesus calls us to be different, we find it difficult, if not impossible, to respond to his call.“Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2). If you will allow Jesus to have control of your life, you can break out of the world’s mold and become what God created you to be. You can change, you can transform, you can create, you can be God’s hands and feet. And most of all you can get up and make changes in your life and the lives of those around you. So once again I tell all of you…Get Up!
