11-27-05
“Aslan is on the Move”
Rev. Scott Lohse
Hello, My name is Lucy Pevensie and now I dwell in the land beyond the sea (which I have since come to know as heaven) but I was just a youngster living in Britain during the second World War when the story I want to share with you all began. The adventure began when my parents sent me, along with my bothers and my sister to the home of an old family friend where they felt we would all be safer because it was away from the city where the Germans had recently begun dropping bombs.
From where I am living now I, naturally, understand things much better than when I was a little girl and it seems to me that being safe and feeling safe are actually two different things entirely. There may not be anywhere in the world – except in the world where I live now of course – where a person is really totally safe, but if the conditions are right, a person can come to feel safe or secure in any place. I suppose I should just say it right out: what I mean is that in the presence of Aslan (which is the name we know Jesus by in Narnia) I have never felt unsafe though it has been said of him (Aslan that is) that he is not safe but he is good. What that means, I think, is that while in his presence even though you may actually be in real danger you may trust that he will never allow any real harm to befall you.
I noticed, for example, in one of the major newspapers of one of your major cities that a survey was recently conducted which reported which are the safest cities to live and which cities are the most unsafe. As I recall, ironically enough, a place named for a Saint called Louis was dubbed to be near the top of the list of unsafe places to live.
Does that mean that everyone in that town ought to evacuate immediately, or that they should all go inside and bolt their doors and never venture out? I think not. It seems to me that a person could just as easily fall out of a tree as be attacked on a busy street corner, and if either one or both of them perished from the tragedy it would not be the worst that could have happened to them. I don’t want to seem callous or, for that matter, to ruin the story for you in case you should decide to read about it but I will tell you that eventually what I have just described happened to me. I died in a train wreck and I have no real recollection of it, certainly no regret or remorse. All that I know is that I suddenly found myself in a perfectly joyful place near where I am now, and where I will dwell for eternity so far as I know. In this place there is never any thought about whether a person is safe or not and Aslan/the Lord is in plain view every day. What could be better? But I have forgotten that I have not really told you all about Aslan yet. I will, though, because telling about him is actually all I live for these days. But, I must tell you about some other things first.
With all of the reckless abandon of typical children my brothers and sister and I tore about the cavernous house of the professor one afternoon when we were really bored and on our own. In our day there were no video games or X-boxes (whatever that is) to occupy ourselves with. We had only our imagination and our youthful energy to entertain ourselves with. I don’t want to seem too old fashioned but I think it was much better that way. Imagination is the gift of our youth which grown-ups don’t seem to have much time to bother with and it really is a shame.
That must by why the Bible says that “a child shall lead them,” or why at one point the disciples were told that the way to receive the kingdom of heaven was to become like a little child. Curiosity just seems to wane in the souls of sober adults and one wonders how a person ever expects to learn something new if they never try something new; either because they have too high of an opinion of themselves and they think they already know everything already or else because they fear that giving into their curiosity might embarrass them or put them in harms way. Children don’t think much about such things and that is why they need to be supervised so that they don’t fall down from heights too high for them or get burnt from reaching out to touch something too hot to touch, but they must never be discouraged or forbidden to continue to climb or to reach out! When a person, no matter what age, stops being curious or imaginative they really have begun to live a soul-less, color-less existence which, I am sorry to say, is really a sort of boring waste and also quite common. To really live each day is to experience something new and special every morning and I think it may be that children are better at this than adults.
There was certainly nothing boring about what happened to me the day that I have already started to tell you about when I decided to climb inside of the huge wardrobe that we discovered on our exploration in the professor’s house. Inside of the wardrobe I discovered, as you might expect, rows of deep and luxurious furs hanging on hangers. It felt so nice to bury my face in the high-fuzzy-pile of the coats hanging there.
I pushed my way past the coats and reached out in front of me in the dark all the while but I never felt, as you might expect, the back of the wardrobe. Instead something began to crunch under my feet which I soon discovered was snow and I began to brush up against hard rough surfaces which I realized were trees and then I noticed off in the distance ahead of me a lamppost which I continued to walk toward. It never occurred to me to wonder why there was a snowy wood in the back of the wardrobe or, for that matter why there should be a lamp post in the middle of the woods. It also never occurred to me, even for an instant that I should turn around and head back.
Many people who have heard my story have different opinions about the lamp post. In my personal opinion it likely represents God’s word which is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our paths. I certainly felt like my steps were being guided in the land of Narnia which I stumbled into. Or was perhaps I was beckoned there because I soon discovered that I was expected!
At the lamp post you likely won’t believe what happened next but I will tell you anyway. I was met by a kind of half-human, half-goat creature who spoke to me and introduced himself as Mr. Tumnus. He invited me, and I went with him to his nearby home where we had tea together until it got to be late and I grew very tired and told him that I needed to find my way back to the professor’s house. That is when I discovered for the first time that I was in grave danger. Mr. Tumnus, as sweet as he seemed to be explained to me that he was in the pay of an evil White Witch who had sworn him to capture any human who ever wandered into the woods and bring them directly to her and that he had been in the process of trying to lull me to sleep all the while I was visiting with him so that he could go tell the Witch where to come and find me.
Mr Tumnus had a very difficult moral dilemma and I thank the Lord that he made the right choice. He set me free and he knew that if he were found out that there would be a price to pay. If the Witch ever found out he had showed me kindness. She might freeze him into a statue as she was rumored to have done to so many others. Doing the right thing has never been easy has it? Obeying your conscience is the same thing as obeying God, though, and that can never be the wrong thing to do. I also found out from Tumnus that the evil Witch had cast a spell over Narnia so that it is always winter there but never Christmas. What a terrible, cold and no fun state to be in, I thought. The Witch feared the day that humans (there they call us Sons of Adam, and Daughters of Eve) would come to Narnia because there was a prophecy that when they did her spell would somehow be broken. You will forgive if what I am about to say sounds to flippant but it has just occurred to me that your world there where I used to come from is under the same spell. See if you don’t agree that some evil enchantment causes people to sometimes say things like, “Oh, no Christmas is almost here and I am so disorganized. What bother it is,” or else they say, “I have so much to do what with baking the cookies and decorating the house, and addressing the cards. The whole thing is really more of a chore than a celebration.” I have to admit that it often sounded to me like it was more just cold than Christmas in the hearts of many people in your world. Rest assured that when you really focus on Christ that the coldness in your own hearts will magically warm up just like the snow caps melted in Nania when Aslan arrived!
Well, I really need to tell you briefly what happened when I got back to the lamp post and then back through the back of the wardrobe and back into the professor’s home. Even though the whole day had passed while I was in Narnia I found out that no time at all had passed back in the world I came from. When I walked back out of the wardrobe I thought perhaps the others would have been worried about me having been gone so long but they had not even missed me because they said they had only just left me a moment ago. You will find this to be a constant and confusing theme in the stories I and the others will share with you in coming weeks about Narnia. I don’t fully understand it myself even from heaven where I am now - only it occurs to me that, with the Lord a moment is like ten thousand years, and the way we measure time in what we call the real world is irrelevant from here where we know we will be for eternity.
Anyway, as difficult as the difference in time was to understand in Narnia you can only imagine, I suppose, how difficult it was for me to explain to the others all about the world I wandered into in the back of the wardrobe where I encountered a half-man, half-goat and where a Witch had cast a spell to make it always winter and never Christmas. I might as well have been telling them that the moon was made of cheese, or that I had been to the North Pole. I realize that it must have sounded like an incredible tale but it was the truth and, as it happened, much depended upon them believing me and much depended upon them going with me back into Narnia. The scriptures, you may know, are full of instances of the truth being a difficult vision to communicate. It was difficult, for instance, for Jesus to tell the apostle Peter he must deny himself and pick up a cross in order to follow him into God’s kingdom. Or maybe my experience was more like telling others that the savior of the world has been born as an infant in the tiny town of Bethlehem.
It happened that my brother Edmund DID believe me, or was at least curious enough to try and see for himself if Narnia was true. He went by himself through the wardrobe into Narnia and had an adventure of his own which he will tell you about for himself. That is one of the important lessons of Narnia by the way. Aslan will tell you that the only story that you get to know is your own. Afterall your own behavior, and your own destiny are the only things that you have even a chance of exerting any real control over. Besides, if you are honest, you have enough problems to work on in your own life without trying to fix the ones in others. Didn’t Jesus say something about taking the log out of your own eye before bothering with the cinder in someone else’s?
Let me encourage you to listen carefully to me now because I have a wisdom that comes from beyond time and which comes from having gone through what I now believe everyone must go though in order to be with God forever. Just as there was another world waiting for us through the wardrobe which had a destiny for us I do believe that there is another world waiting for you to be discovered too. If you really think about it the scripture is full of stories of people who became more than they ever imagined they could become, or who achieved more than they ever believed they would be capable of doing but in order to do so they had to go on a journey and they had to have faith. Faith is required because you will have a companion on your journey whom you will not always see but who will always be watching you, and who will always help you when you most need it. Who knows what new world will open up to you if you will journey with Aslan, and you know I mean Jesus, and he has a plan for you too.
When I returned to Narnia and my brothers and sister came along we met a talking Beaver this time who let us know our part in Aslan’s plan to save the world and then the Beaver told us that Aslan is on the move! I think what he told us means the same as it meant when Jesus said something similar himself telling people that the kingdom of God is at hand. I don’t know if it affected my brothers and sister the same as it did me when I heard that Aslan was on the move, but when I heard those words they gave me a sudden rush of great comfort and peace. Aslan was a great LION and he was the protector and savior of Narnia and he had long been expected to come and to break the spell which the White Witch had cast over that place but he needed four humans to help achieve this mission.
So, now perhaps you can see what I mean when I tell you we all have a destiny waiting for us. Just like the first disciples of Jesus we found ourselves being called to leave everything behind and to deny ourselves and to come and follow, and because it seemed like the right thing to do, and also because so much seemed to depend upon us we chose to follow. All of us except for my brother Edmund, that is who had made a different plan of his own, a dark and evil plan which he will tell you about himself soon enough. He had disappeared and we wanted to go and search for him but the Beaver assured us that the best way for us to return him to us would be for us to not look back but to go forward toward Aslan. Just like in the scripture when a young man wanted to tend to details of his personal life before he followed Jesus but Jesus tells him that no one who looks back will be included in his kingdom.
I want to assure you that we did meet Aslan and he is as awesome, loving and mighty as you have ever hoped or dreamed that your Master might be. As the story unfolds in coming weeks you will see sure enough that I am telling you the truth but for now a final thing that I want to tell you is that as we were traveling with the Beaver as our guide to our encounter with Aslan – Christmas came! What I mean is that as soon as we committed to following in his way the spell already began to be broken by Aslan. The snow began to slowly but surely melt and life began to green up and stir in the woods but most amazing of all is that Father Christmas himself arrived, and he came bearing gifts! For my brother Peter he brought a shield and a sword which he was told he would battle bravely with, for my sister Susan he brought a bow and arrow, and a horn which she was told would always call for help whenever she used it, and help would surely come when she blew it.
To me he gave a small container filled with a special potion which I was told just a drop of would heal any wound, or revive any person. These gifts, Father Christmas told us, were not toys but tools. This gives me occasion to tell you about all of the energy and money typically spent in your world on inconsequential gifts for people who already have everything they really need anyway at Christmas time. When Christmas came to Narnia it had nothing to do with bustling department stores on some black Friday shopping day. God saw 2 million people pushing and shoving at Wal-Mart on the day after Thanksgiving, by the way and I think He shook his head. When Christmas finally came in Narnia it had everything to do with equipping us with what we would need in order to become partners with Aslan in the salvation of that place. That is why I have come today to speak to you. To tell you that these are the gifts which Father Christmas has for you too. God’s gifts for all humankind are represented by the gifts which were given to us: The gift of an armor or shield to protect you and the weapons of defense for the real battles of your lives, the gift of being able to call for help in prayer whenever you need it and the assurance that help will always come, and finally my gift, the miraculous gift of healing for all the nations. I will tell you one thing further based upon my own experience and that is that the best gift of all is to get to see Aslan, to see Jesus, face to face and to know that you have pleased him. Once you have received this best of all gifts everything else will pale by comparison.
Welcome to Narnia, welcome to my world, welcome to the journey. Let me assure you there are some real detours and pitfalls here. My brother Edmund will tell you about those next Sunday. Don’t judge him too harshly because what happened to him, I suppose, really could just as easily have happened to any of us if the circumstances had been right. I hope when you are here you will come to know Aslan better so that you might know him, and love him, even better there where you are.
