The Light of the
Lamp-Post
Selected Texts
“Not for me” said Peter; “I’m going to explore in the house.”
Everyone agreed to this and that was how the adventures began…
And shortly after that they looked into a room that was quite empty except for one big wardrobe; the sort that has a looking-glass in the door. There was nothing else in the room at all except a dead blue-bottle on the window-sill.
"Nothing there!" said Peter, and they all trooped out again - all except Lucy. She stayed behind because she thought it would be worth while trying the door of the wardrobe, even though she felt almost sure that it would be locked. To her surprise it opened quite easily, and two moth-balls dropped out.
Looking into the inside, she saw several coats hanging up - mostly long fur coats. There was nothing Lucy liked so much as the smell and feel of fur. She immediately stepped into the wardrobe and got in among the coats and rubbed her face against them, leaving the door open, of course, because she knew that it is very foolish to shut oneself into any wardrobe. Soon she went further in and found that there was a second row of coats hanging up behind the first one. It was almost quite dark in there and she kept her arms stretched out in front of her so as not to bump her face into the back of the wardrobe. She took a step further in - then two or three steps always expecting to feel woodwork against the tips of her fingers. But she could not feel it.
"This must be a simply enormous wardrobe!" thought Lucy, going still further in and pushing the soft folds of the coats aside to make room for her. Then she noticed that there was something crunching under her feet. "I wonder is that more mothballs?" she thought, stooping down to feel it with her hand. But instead of feeling the hard, smooth wood of the floor of the wardrobe, she felt something soft and powdery and extremely cold. "This is very queer," she said, and went on a step or two further.
Next moment she found that what was rubbing against her face and hands was no longer soft fur but something hard and rough and even prickly. "Why, it is just like branches of trees!" exclaimed Lucy. And then she saw that there was a light ahead of her; not a few inches away where the back of the wardrobe ought to have been, but a long way off. Something cold and soft was falling on her. A moment later she found that she was standing in the middle of a wood at night-time with snow under her feet and snowflakes falling through the air.
Lucy felt a little frightened, but she felt very inquisitive and excited as well. She looked back over her shoulder and there, between the dark tree trunks; she could still see the open doorway of the wardrobe and even catch a glimpse of the empty room from which she had set out. (She had, of course, left the door open, for she knew that it is a very silly thing to shut oneself into a wardrobe.) It seemed to be still daylight there. "I can always get back if anything goes wrong," thought Lucy. She began to walk forward, crunchcrunch over the snow and through the wood towards the other light. In about ten minutes she reached it and found it was a lamp-post. As she stood looking at it, wondering why there was a lamp-post in the middle of a wood and wondering what to do next, she heard a pitter patter of feet coming towards her. And soon after that a very strange person stepped out from among the trees into the light of the lamp-post. (C.S.Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, chapter 1)
This is the beginning of the adventures of four children in the Land of Narnia, a world created from the imagination of C.S.Lewis, in a book entitled The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. This series of seven books known as the Chronicles of Narnia have been best-sellers since the publication of the first volume in 1950.
Over the many years since, they have grown so greatly in popularity that it is not mere wishful thinking that the Disney Corporation believes that the release of the film version of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe could very well be their most popular movie they have ever produced.
Now, even though I am a big movie buff, all of that would certainly not be enough to cause us to transform our worship center into a winter wonderland and devote four weeks to themes from the Chronicles of Narnia. Beyond being wonderful children’s stories – the Chronicles of Narnia are also a window into the Christian faith.
Kurt Bruner and Jim Ware explain it this way: With the possible exception of JRR Tolkien, no twentieth-century author more masterfully married the enchantment of fantasy with the enrichment of faith. The Narnia stories are like a meal with the nourishment of meat and vegetables but the taste of cake and candy. Both the dreams of fairyland and the promise of heaven invade the imagination at the same time, baptizing it with wonderful and unexpected effects. (Kurt Bruner and Jim Ware, Finding God in Narnia, p. xiv.)
Some have called the tales of Narnia allegories, somewhat like Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress. But Lewis himself rejected the notion that he had somehow created a bunch of allegories to embody important Christian truths. He said, “I couldn’t write in that way at all. Everything began with images; a faun carrying an umbrella, a queen on a sledge, a magnificent lion. At first there wasn’t anything Christian about them; that element pushed itself in of its own accord. It was part of the bubbling.” (C.S.Lewis, “Sometimes Fairy Stories May Say Best What’s to Be Said,” in Of Other Worlds, 36. As quoted in Finding God in Narnia, p. xv.)
And bubble up it certainly did. In TLWW you will find the story of what might happen if there was another world created by God, alongside our own. A magical world where some animals had been given the power of speech. And what if that world had also been invaded by sin and had fallen under sin’s power. And what if God’s Son entered that world, just as He has ours, for the purpose of redeeming it. As Bruner and Ware say, Lewis created a fantasy world that depicts the central theme of our real world – redemption through the incarnate God’s death and resurrection. The magical part is that this mythical Christ somehow draws us ever deeper to the real. (Finding God…, p. xv.)
So much so that in May of 1955, the mother of a nine-year-old boy named Laurence wrote to C.S.Lewis. She shared with him that Laurence had become concerned that he loved Aslan (who is the Christ figure in Narnia) more than Jesus. Lewis wrote back to her:
“Laurence can’t really love Aslan more than Jesus, even if he feels that’s what he is doing,” said Lewis. “For the things he loves Aslan for doing or saying are simply things that Jesus really did and said. So that when Laurence thinks he is loving Aslan, he is really loving Jesus; and perhaps loving him more than he ever did before.” (Finding God in Narnia, p. xvi.)
And that is my hope as we look over the next few weeks leading up to Christmas at several key themes from TLWW, that you will have the opportunity to fall more in love with the Lord Jesus Christ and that you might be prepared to speak to others about the redemptive themes of this wonderful tale that will be viewed by so many of your family, friends and neighbors.
One of the most enduring images from TLWW is that of the Lamp Post. It is a somewhat mysterious image, a lamp post that seems to have grown up out of the ground – which is exactly what it did! We find out in the 6th of the Narnia books that the Lamp Post grew up from the ground at the creation of Narnia when Queen Jadis through a bar torn off a lamp post in our world at Aslan as he was creating Narnia. The bar fell to the ground and became like a seed which grew up into a lamp post that always burns, day and night.
The lamp post is the first thing that the children see when they enter Narnia and it will be the last thing they see when they leave. Of all of the images which bubbled into Narnia, this may be the most elusive to understand – but perhaps a better way to find some understanding would be to look to the imagery of Light in Scripture.
1. The Light of Creation
Genesis 1:2-3 (NKJV) 2The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. 3Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.
In Genesis 1, God we are told repeatedly that God speaks and the formless void begins to take shape into what we know as our world. It is the power of God’s word which is the agent of creation. But this isn’t seen only in Genesis. Throughout the OT it is God’s Word which is linked to His activity in creation. In Psalms 33:6 (NNAS) we are told:
By the word of the LORD the heavens were made, And by the breath of His mouth all their host.
Have you ever wondered what it might have been like to have been able to stand on a ledge overlooking the nothingness and have watched the creation come into existence? I think CS Lewis did – because he created an opportunity for us to do just this. In the Magicians Nephew, some other people from our world are transported into an emptiness …
[From The Magician’s Nephew]
In the darkness something was happening at last. A voice had begun to sing. It was very far away and Digory found it hard to decide from what direction it was coming. Sometimes it seemed to come from all directions at once. Sometimes he almost thought it was coming out of the earth beneath them. Its lower notes were deep enough to be the voice of the earth herself. There were no words. There was hardly even a tune. But it was, beyond comparison, the most beautiful noise he had ever heard. It was so beautiful he could hardly bear it. …
Then two wonders happened at the same moment. One was that the voice was suddenly joined by other voices; more voices than you could possibly count. They were in harmony with it, but far higher up the scale: cold, tingling, silvery voices.
The second wonder was that the blackness overhead, all at once, was blazing with stars. They didn’t come out gently one by one, as they do on a summer evening. One moment there had been nothing but darkness; next moment a thousand, thousand points of light leaped out - single stars, constellations, and planets, brighter and bigger than any in our world. There were no clouds. The new stars and the new voices began at exactly the same time. If you had seen and heard it, as Digory did, you would have felt quite certain that it was the stars themselves which were singing, and that it was the First Voice, the deep one, which had made them appear and made them sing.
The Voice on the earth was now louder and more triumphant; but the voices in the sky, after singing loudly with it for a time, began to get fainter. And now something else was happening.
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.
What is seen by the light of Jesus? When Christ’s light shines, we see our sin and his glory. We can refuse to see the light and remain in darkness. But whoever responds will be enlightened by Christ. He will fill our minds with God’s thoughts. He will guide our path, give us God’s perspective, and drive out the darkness of sin. (Life Application Bible Commentary: John (electronic version) John 1:4)
But not all will choose the light. C.S. Lewis had a deep understanding of the evil and grief that was present in the world. He served in the infantry in WWI and was deeply impacted, as was his close friend J.R.R.Tolkien. So we find that even in the magical land of Narnia we encounter…
2. The Darkness of Sin
Isaiah 9:2 (NIV) 2 The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned.
From their first hours in Narnia the children discover that something is dreadfully wrong. Innocent seeming creatures are found to be “under the thumb” of an evil queen whom they all fear and whom some serve. They discover that this magical land has been placed under a curse in which it is always Winter, but never Christmas.
All of this is because when Narnia was being created, a foolish boy brought the evil Queen Jadis into this new World. In the Magician’s Nephew Aslan laments:
You see, friends, before the new clean world I gave you is seven hours old, a force of evil has already entered it.
In the same way as Queen Jadis invaded Narnia, Lucifer invaded God’s creation and enticed Adam and Eve into sin.
Lewis once said that our world is “Enemy-occupied territory.” He went on to say, “Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed, you might say landed in disguise, and is calling us all to take part in a great campaign of sabotage.” (C.S.Lewis, Mere Christianity, p. 51, as quoted in Finding God in Narnia, p. 12)
John 1:5 (NIV) 5The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.
Those of us who are in the light are called to reach out to those in the darkness and call them into …
3. The Light of Jesus
(John 1:9-14 NNAS) There was the true Light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man. 10He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. 11He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him. 12But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, 13who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. 14And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.
Jesus came into the world to rescue us from the darkness of sin!
Christmas is the story of the light, God, coming into the world. Jesus came into our world as a baby, so that He could be a proper substitute for us and die for our sins.
God entered Narnia in the person of Aslan, a talking beast to rescue talking beasts, that he might redeem them and rescue them from the darkness of sin.
Four things can be said of the Light in these verses:
1. It originates in Christ
2. It cannot be overpowered by darkness
3. It is unique – the true light
4. It is universally available to enlighten all who will receive it.
(Chuck Swindoll, "Exalting Christ...the Son of God" Insight For Living Study Guide, p. 12)
Jesus is truly the light of the world and He can light up your life no matter how dark it may be, if you only believe.
2 Corinthians 4:6 (NIV) 6For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.
In the Narnia Tales, and especially TLWW, the Lamp Post shines brightly on the person of Jesus Christ, the one who is the true light and Who comes into the world to enlighten all people!
In The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the fifth book of the series, Aslan tells the children that although they must return to their own world, they can find him there also (Hooper 123). Aslan says, "There I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there" (Hooper 123). Some of Lewis’ readers wonder what the significance of this statement is and begin to search for Aslan here on earth. Hila, an eleven year old girl from the United States asked Lewis what Aslan’s name is in this world (Dorsett 31-32). His response was this:
As to Aslan’s other name, well I want you to guess. Has there never been anyone in this world who
(1.) Arrived at the same time as Father Christmas.
(2.) Said he was the son of the great Emperor.
(3.) gave himself up for someone else’s fault to be jeered at and killed by wicked people.
(4.) Came to life again.
(5.) Is sometimes spoken of as a Lamb....
Don’t you really know His name in this world. Think it over and let me know your answer.
(Amber Cowart, The Success of C. S. Lewis in The Chronicles of Narnia, (http://cslewis.drzeus.net/papers/success.html). Cowart references: Dorsett, Lyle W. and Marjorie Lamp Mead, eds. C. S. Lewis Letters to Children. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1985.)
