Intro: Like Lucy, Edmund finds his way into Narnia through the wardrobe. But he doesn’t meet the nice faun, Mr. Tumnus. Instead, he comes face to face with the most feared being in that world: Jadis, the White Witch.
What Edmund doesn’t realize is that he is, in fact, a being that she fears. She wants to know if he is a “son of Adam”, a human. You see there is an ancient prophecy in Narnia that says when 2 sons of Adam, and 2 daughters of Eve sit on the 4 thrones of Cair Paravel, her rule of winter will be broken. Imagine her terrified surprize when she finds out from Edmund that he has 2 sisters and a brother!
She quickly hatches a plan to seduce Edmund and the rest and to keep the land under her frozen rule of eternal winter. “Always winter, never Christmas.” She plays on his desire, and soon he has agreed to betray his family into her hands.
Lewis has given us a picture of Genesis 3:
An evil being seduces Adam & Eve through their desires.
The land is forever cursed.
But there is a prophecy that the offspring of Adam will destroy the evil one. It is, in fact, the first prophecy of the coming Christ.
So the Chronicles of Narnia are once again, telling us the Christmas story.
1. My rebellion is what ruins my world.
It is our sin that stains our lives. All that we know that is not good can be traces in some fashion to the selfishness of human beings.
A. Edmund and Gen 3 is the story of what went wrong.
Why would a boy betray his brother & sisters for mere candy?
Why would a man betray his wife for mere “eye candy”?
Why would a man & woman betray themselves and their life in Eden for the taste of 1 stinkin’ piece of fruit..
But first remember that for things to go wrong, they must have been quite right before hand. God did not make us this way.
The Heidelberg Catechism puts it like this:
5 Q. Can you live up to all this perfectly?
A. No. I have a natural tendency to hate God and my neighbor.
6 Q. Did God create people so wicked and perverse?
A. No. God created them good^1 and in his own image,
that is, in true righteousness and holiness.
7 Q. Then where does this corrupt human nature
come from?
A. From the fall and disobedience of our first parents, Adam and Eve, in Paradise.
This fall has so poisoned our nature
that we are born sinners--
corrupt from conception on.
Sin is our fault as a race, and our fault as individuals. Our first parents gave us original sin, and everyone of us adds to it with actual sin.
Again, in the words of the Catechism:
10 Q. Will God permit such disobedience and rebellion to go unpunished?
A. Certainly not.
He is terribly angry
about the sin we are born with
as well as the sins we personally commit.
As it is written: “There is no-one righteous, not even one; there is no-one who understands, no-one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no-one who does good, not even one.” (Romans 3:10-12, NIV).
Rom3:23 (say it after me...all have sinned...)
Think of ...
David getting his glasses steamy over another mans wife.
Peter acting like he didn’t know Jesus, the most amazing friend he ever had.
Paul, headhunting Christians from city to city.
The first bad news is, we cannot go comforting ourselves that we’ll just be good boys and girls and everything will turn out alright. -There are no “good boys and girls.”
B. At it’s heart, sin is rebellion against God’s good ways. It is wanting myself, more than anything. Sin always happens when we get lost in ourselves.
The White Witch played on Ed’s cravings for pleasure and importance. She magically gives him enchanted Turkish Delight, and the more he eats, the more he wants.(anybody been there?) She promised to make him a King of Narnia, and then he could eat all the Turkish delight he wanted. (Sound familiar? Gen.3:5-6)
There’s another thing about sin; it’s always a distortion of God’s good plan.
Edmund was destined to be a King of Narnia. Jadis knows it! The Witch promised him the same thing, but by the wrong route.
In a similar way, we go looking for good things, but in all the wrong ways, contrary to God’s design. Sin is rebellion vs the recipe of God. When you don’t follow the recipe, you don’t get the cake, the purring engine, etc.
Maybe you try to find significance in a company title, moving up the corporate ladder your willing to make your life one steady stream of work, no time for God, rest, or his gifts.
Maybe you’re looking for future security in sound investments, retirement funds -everytime the share price drops you tense up.
Maybe your searched for love in bad relationships, liaisons, sexual games, friends, broken rules.
Some folks invest in food, houses, cars, movies, sports, hobbies, gadgets -but what everyone finds out is that the true source of joy isn’t found in any of these.
These are all Turkish Delight, searching for something good, but in the wrong way, and blinding us to reality.
2. Whenever I sin, I enslave myself and my world.
A. This is a pretty bleak statement. Most folks easily pass of the sinful things they do and think. “It’s really not hurting anybody,” they say.
But they are deceived. Sin is hurting them because sin is addictive in nature.
but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death. (James 1:14,15, NIV).
Lewis captures the result of evil in the spells of the Witch: her wand turns things into stone. So a little party of squirrels having tea along the road is petrified with their forks 1/2 way to their mouths -for being merry over Christmas celebrations.
That is the nature of sin and evil: it freezes us, hardens us so that we may appear almost real, but in realiity, stuck and lifeless.
When Edmund and the other children make it into Narnia, Ed sneaks off to Jadis’ castle to betray his family. But instead of rewarding Edmund with more Turkish Delight , she chains him, and gives him bread and water. That’s when he realizes who she really is.
That’s the way Satan and sin works: he lures us to fill our longings (remember from last time that all longings point to our need for more than this world offers, namely the Kingdom of God) with things that never satisfy. All along his intention is to enslave us and destroy us.
B. Sin owns you, and makes you owe!:
cf Deep Magic: read LWW, p.155-56 (the part about how Edmund by rights belongs to the Witch’s. readers??)
Some folks can’t hold a job bec they can’t change their temperment.
Some folks can’t stay married bec they can’t/wont deny their own wants.
Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey--whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? (Romans 6:16, NIV).
For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:23, NIV).
In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness. (Hebrews 9:22, NIV).
This is not a pretty picture! We are like Edmund. We belong to the Witch of sin and we are powerless to get out of the arrangment. We owe a dept of blood.
Its a deep problem. we’re not merely sorry sinners in need of a little assistence, we are rebels who must lay down our arms, but we find we cannot stop fighting.
C. Human sin damages the rest of creation as well.
Remember Gen.3:17? Think of the reign of the White Witch: the land is frozen in perpetual winter.
The earth is affected by the moral nature of humanity! Adam & Eve hadn’t a clue as to the fall-out, the repercussions of what they did.
Storms, floods, disease, rot, ruin, death, pestilence, polution –mixed right in there with moral flaws like– greed, murder, envy, lust, shame, guilt,
The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. (Romans 8:19-24, NIV).
Conclusion:
I hope by know we are not very fond of the idea of sinning. I hope by now we really rather wish there was something to be done about it.
Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world--the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does--comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives for ever. (1 John 2:15-17, NIV).
We all know what it’s like to be Edmund, controlled by our cravings even when we stand to lose a lot.
Use the credit card, even though your know already you won’t be able to pay it off.
Diet schmiet. Let dig in!
I know I gotta quit smoking but...
I know I should do something to keep away from porn on my computer, but I’m not going to just yet, because... (you finish the reason)
I don’t want to lose my temper but
A. The goodnews in the story is still coming. But I’ll give it ways here: God has determined to right my wrong!
This is what we celebrate in Advent. Advent means “coming”. And according to ancient prophecies of the Bible, one was coming who would redeem his people, who would crush the serpents head, and pay the prices.
The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work. (1 John 3:8, NIV).
For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. (1 Corinthians 15:22, NIV).
The world has gone quite wrong, and in a great many ways. But it does not have to be so. For Christ has come to put it right again.
