He was born on November 29th, 1898 in Belfast, Ireland. His father was a successful lawyer who provided a large home with dark narrow passages and an overgrown garden where they played often.
Tragically, their rather idyllic childhood came to a screeching halt when their mother became sick and died of cancer in 1908. Within a month Clive Staples Lewis and his brother found themselves in a boarding school in England.
As a child the Lewis family had been Christians attending the Church of England. But as Lewis entered adolescence, he came to see religion as nonsense and began professing to be an atheist.
In 1916 he entered college only soon thereafter to volunteer for active duty in the British Army during WWI. At first he enjoyed the service and was proud to be engaged in such a patriotic cause. However, as he witnessed death, disease, and destruction he lost a great deal of his idealism. In 1918 after being wounded by an exploding shell he was sent home to recover. He reentered the university and finished college to begin teaching.
In the summer of 1929 while riding on a double decker bus he suddenly felt he had no choice but to acknowledge a belief in God and so he went home and alone in his room he knelt and prayed.
After having published his journey to faith and establishing himself as a writer he was approached during WWII and asked to write a book on suffering. “The Problem of Pain” prompted the BBC to invite him to host a series of live talks on Christianity – a series which propelled him to fame in England and abroad as he became the most popular voice in England, second only to Winston Churchill.
During the bombings of London in WWII C.S. Lewis opened his home to some children who were being evacuated from the city. One of these young refugees was fascinated by a wardrobe in Lewis’ home, imagining that there was a way out through the other side. Lewis was so captivated by this child’s imagination around this wardrobe that he wrote the book “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.”
In the story four children – Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy – go to stay with a reclusive old professor in a mysterious country house. While playing hide-and-seek, Lucy, the youngest, comes across a wardrobe and discovers that it leads to another world – a land called Narnia. Narnia is inhabited by talking animals and is ruled by a lion named Aslan, a good and powerful king. However, Narnia has come under the spell of the evil White Witch, who has caused it to be always winter but never Christmas.
For Lewis, “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” was more than just a story – it was his story – for Lewis saw himself as a Narnian long before he ever had given a name to the country.
Can you imagine a place where it is always winter but never Christmas? That’s a kid’s worst nightmare! Can you imagine a place where there is no sign of relief from cold and harsh days? A place where hope is elusive? A place where life continues to deal you tough blows – but never gives you a break? Can you understand what it means to feel as if there is no hope – to be held captive by pain and not be able to see any relief in sight – to think that the suffering and agony and the void that you’re experiencing today – will be characteristic of the rest of your life!
While Narnia is a figment of the imagination – the reality is C.S. Lewis’ fiction is all too real for many of us.
Some of you who are here this evening can understand what Narnia is like. You’ve lost hope this year. You’ve suffered like no other time in your life. Perhaps you’ve experienced some of the darkest moments you’ve ever walked through. Perhaps you’ve been up for nights crying until there were no more tears left in you – and you feel as if nothing is ever going to be right again. In this season of joy and peace – you have anything but. You are a Narnian. For you it seems that it’s always winter but never Christmas.
The fact is, we are all Narnians. We live in a day and an age in which hope is hard to come by. A day and age in which we live with the fear of natural disasters and terrorist attacks. A time in which nuclear and biological warfare are realities which we are being forced to talk about. An era in which fear has become a way of life.
As “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” continues, before Lucy can get back to tell the others about Narnia, her rather bad-tempered brother Edmund discovers it for himself. He is taken up by the White Witch, who lures him to her side with a soft, sweet candy known as Turkish Delight and promises of power. After having essentially sold himself to the Witch, Edmund owed the Witch his life.
After finishing the story, C.S. Lewis said that it seemed bumbling and uninspired until “the great lion Aslan came bounding in.” In a heart-wrenching scene – Aslan sacrifices his own life for Edmund thereby freeing him. Aslan then comes back to life and he and his followers win a great battle over the forces of evil making the four children kings and queens of Narnia.
There’s a reason why this story is so powerful – because it’s not just fiction. It speaks of the reality of our lives – the reality that you and I live in fear and bondage. Fear and bondage to forces of evil. You don’t have to go far to find them. They’re all around you. And that evil in combination with the hurt and the pain and the emptiness and the sense of a permanent winter in our lives can lead to despair.
You and I need someone like Aslan to come and rescue us! We need an Aslan figure to bound into our lives and pull us from our winter! We need a great King to enter our stories – to make right the wrong – to eliminate our sorrows – to conquer our deaths – to fill our emptiness.
And the good news is, that while C.S. Lewis wrote this book with children in mind, he did so also to appeal to adults and convey a larger message.
Less than one month before he died, in a letter C.S. Lewis wrote letter to a young girl named Ruth who wanted to know if any other Narnia books were going to be produced said this: “If you continue to love Jesus, nothing much can go wrong with you, and I hope that you may always do so. I’m so thankful that you realized the ‘hidden story’ in the Narnia books. It is odd, children nearly always do, grownups…hardly ever.”
Why does Lewis speak of a “hidden story”? Because The story of Narnia, Peter, Susan, Edmund, Lucy, and Aslan is a real story. It’s the story of Christmas. Just as Aslan brought Christmas – when he came to Narnia so Jesus Christ brought Christmas when he was born in a manger.
And just as blood had to be shed for Edmund as the price for his freedom – so too blood had to be shed for our freedom. The New Testament book of Hebrews tells us that without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.
Just as Aslan willingly laid his life down for Edmund, so too Jesus Christ laid his life down for you and for me.
But perhaps the most powerful scene of the entire movie the one that gave me goose bumps as I watched was the one in which Aslan was resurrected! Sound familiar? The Bible tells a similar story - after Jesus death - he too was resurrected! Death couldn’t keep him in the ground. Jesus Christ is alive!
Don’t miss Christmas! Narnia almost did! When you decide to follow Jesus, it’s as if the snow melts from your heart and spring has come.
C.S. Lewis wrote “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” because he knew what it was like to live a life where it was always winter but never Christmas – but he also understood that Jesus Christ had come for him and died in his place. He encountered Jesus Christ who changed his life – and gave him hope in the future.
Don’t you want it to be Christmas? Aren’t you tired of living with that constant sense of emptiness? Aren’t you ready to have the snow melted away from your heart? The good news is, the wonder of Christmas is available to you!
The Bible says that everyone who becomes a follower of Christ (a Christian) becomes a new person – the old life is gone – a new life has begun!
That peace and hope that seem to be elusive to you – are available. They’re available because Christmas can be yours.
In a moment I’m going to say a prayer that will enable you to receive the Christ of Christmas. He wants to come bounding into your life as Aslan went bounding into Narnia – to release you from the pain and bitterness of winter.
But before we do that – I want to show three verses from the Bible.
The first is John 3:16 – I know you’ve probably heard it – but it’s the very heart of “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.”
“”For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”
That verse is for you and for me! God sent Jesus Christ, like Aslan into this world to save us!
Here’s a second verse – I Peter 3:18:
“For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.”
That verse is talking about you and about me. Christ died for us because of our sins – and he died so that we could be brought to God.
Here’s one last verse, John 1:12:
“To all who receive him, to those who believe in his name, he gives the right to become children of God…”
God so loved you that he came to this earth and paid the price that you deserved to pay so that if you’ll receive him and believe in his name you can be saved!
Will you bow your heads with me, so we can pray…
