Always winter…but never Christmas.
Try to imagine that for a moment. Always winter…but never Christmas.
Of course, at this point in the season some of you Moms and Dads out there might be thinking, “YES!”
But really…imagine for a moment what it would be like if Christmas never came…but winter never left.
What would that be like?
When we first started telling friends and family we were moving to Michigan, there was one question we got asked a lot:
“So, do you like…winter?”
We, of course, responded with an enthusiastic, “yes!”
After all, how bad could it be?
Now, we still do like winter, but after a couple of years it sure has a different meaning than it used to for us.
Recently I came across a list on the internet entitled, “25 Signs You’re From Michigan”
Let me share just a few with you.
1. The word "thumb" has a geographical rather than an anatomical significance.
2. You know how to play euchre.
3. You occasionally cheer "Go Lions -- and take the Tigers with you."
And then these three:
4. Your Little League baseball game was snowed out.
5. Your year has two seasons, winter and construction.
6. You define summer as three months of bad sledding.
Now we may know a thing or two about long winters, but they do eventually end.
The flowers reappear.
The sun comes out.
The snow blowers go into storage.
But in the land of Narnia, as C.S. Lewis describes it in “The Lion,the Witch, and the Wardrobe,” winter hasn’t seen an end for a hundred years.
And as young Lucy exclaims, “How awful!”
How awful indeed.
Winter is a tough enough season to make it through under normal circumstances.
Why do you suppose that is?
What is it about winter that makes it so…depressing?
And I don’t use that term lightly. For many people, this is a time of year when depression is a very real experience.
It can be a mild case of the “winter blues,” it can be full-blown Seasonal Affective Disorder, perhaps it’s the ongoing struggle over the loss of someone very dear...
Winter can be very tough.
It’s not just cold--
it’s bleak, dark, and barren.
That’s why it’s such a perfect image for Lewis to use in this first Narnia book.
It’s not just a physical reality…it’s a metaphor for the dark and sinister force that holds Narnia firmly in its grip.
Narnia was once a lush and beautiful land, but evil has reared its ugly head in the character of the White Witch.
Her reign of terror keeps the land in eternal winter.
And C.S. Lewis knew a thing or two about evil and the reign of terror.
It’s easy to forget that “The Chronicles of Narnia” were written not long after the end of World War II, in the lingering shadows of Nazi tyranny and oppression.
Living in Europe, C.S. Lewis saw that first hand.
And there are echoes of that experience in the reign of the White Witch.
Where secret police whisk away suspected traitors who are never seen again, where fear and intimidation keep those who hope for freedom underground…sometimes literally, where the pervading sense of hopelessness, darkness, and despair are captured perfectly in just five words:
Always winter…but never Christmas.
Until four children appear, the sons of Adam and the daughters of Eve, or more informally…Peter, Edmund, Susan, and Lucy.
They stumble into this land by accident, but find themselves there by design.
Because even in the midst of the terrible, long winter, there remains the faint whisper of an ages-old prophecy.
One that involves the four children, but centers on someone else.
Someone named Aslan.
The children learn about this mysterious figure from, of all things, a pair of beavers, who tell them of an ancient rhyme:
“Wrong will be right, when Aslan comes in sight,
At the sound of his roar, sorrows will be no more.
When he bears his teeth, winter meets its death,
And when he shakes his mane, we shall have spring again.”
Even in the darkest of times in Narnia, there is hope.
Hope that one day the White Witch would be gone, and her endless winter with her.
Because Aslan is coming…or as they say in the book, “Aslan is on the move!”
“Oh, that I would live to see the day,” says Mrs. Beaver.
Words that have no doubt echoed in similar situations throughout the ages.
You can hear it in the hearts of those who longed for an end to the winter of South African apartheid...
In the cries of those who suffered in the cold darkness of Dachau and Buchenwald...
In the hopes of those who even today fight for the rights of the oppressed and persecuted around the world.
“Oh, that I would live to see the day.”
You even hear it…in the tender and awestruck words of an elderly man standing in a Jewish temple 2000 years ago.
It’s a beautiful story found in the gospel of Luke, and it takes place shortly after the birth of Jesus, as his parents present him at the temple and offer a sacrifice to God.
Listen to these words from Luke Chapter Two:
“Now there was a man named Simeon who lived in Jerusalem. He was a righteous man and very devout. He was filled with the Holy Spirit, and he eagerly expected the Messiah to come and rescue Israel. The Holy Spirit had revealed to him that he would not die until he had seen the Lord’s Messiah. That day the Spirit led him to the Temple. So when Mary and Joseph came to present the baby Jesus to the Lord as the law required, Simeon was there. He took the child in his arms and praised God, saying,
"Lord, now I can die in peace!
As you promised me,
I have seen the Savior
you have given to all people.
He is a light to reveal God to the nations,
and he is the glory of your people Israel!"
Joseph and Mary were amazed at what was being said about Jesus. Then Simeon blessed them, and he said to Mary, "This child will be rejected by many in Israel, and it will be their undoing. But he will be the greatest joy to many others. Thus, the deepest thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your very soul.”
Simeon was a man after God’s own heart. As Eugene Peterson paraphrases it, he was. “a good man, a man who lived in the prayerful expectancy of help for Israel.”
Simeon lived in prayerful expectancy…he knew two things:
1. There was something fundamentally wrong in the world, and
2. God was going to do something about it.
Simeon held in his heart the promises of God, those hopeful whispers from the ages-old prophecies, like we heard from Isaiah:
“Comfort, comfort my people, speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed, that her sin has been paid for:
Every valley will be raised up, every mountain and hill made low, the rough ground will be level, the rugged places plain, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,and all flesh shall see it together.”
Some in Simeon’s time might have said, “Oh, that I would live to see the day!”
But they didn’t expect to, so they weren’t looking.
But Simeon was different.
He had in on the best authority—God’s authority—that he would, in fact, live to see the day.
He knew that the long, dark winter of humankind was about to meet its death.
When C.S. Lewis writes about it being “Always winter…but never Christmas,” he’s not just describing the reign of the White Witch, or echoing the tyranny of Nazi Germany,
He’s describing our human experience.
Until the birth of Jesus Christ, sin kept humanity tightly in its grip.
The people of Israel experienced all sorts of oppression at the hands of other nations, and in the time of Simeon under the thumb of Roman rule.
But none of that compared to the dominating cruelty of sin and the pain of separation from God.
That was God’s intent in sending Jesus Christ, not to end political or cultural tyranny, but as Paul writes, to set us free from the power of sin and death.
These aren’t popular words at Christmastime, but they’re the very reason for that birth in a stable.
The harsh realities of our world don’t take a break during this time of the year.
We only need to look to the tsunamis of last Christmas to be reminded of that.
But even on a personal level, we struggle daily against the tide of selfish impulses, the temptation to give in to loneliness, or hopelessness and fear.
And at Christmas God says, “No! You don’t have to live like that!”
That’s what makes Christmas such a joyful time.
Not the presents, or decorations, or even family, as wonderful as all those are.
Take all those away and there is still even greater reason to rejoice, because God has looked down on us and he says,
“I see what you’re dealing with. I know how difficult it is. And I’m going to do something about it. I’m not going to leave you captive to the evil that wants to destroy you.”
It’s a promise, we learn from the Christmas story, for all people.
That’s why Simeon breaks out in praise to God:
“God, you can now release your servant; release me in peace as you promised.
With my own eyes I’ve seen your salvation; it’s now out in the open for everyone to see!”
But Simeon’s response to the baby Jesus also contains difficult words.
Just as he’s praising God, he looks to Jesus’ mother Mary and says this:
“A sword shall pierce your very soul.”
Simeon tells of a promise of hope, but also a promise of suffering.
Because the freedom God offers us came at a price, a price that did pierce Mary’s soul; but more so—-it pierced the very flesh of God’s son.
And amazingly enough, in the midst of a wonderful children’s story, C.S. Lewis doesn’t shy away from this difficult reality.
In Narnia, Aslan’s coming signals the end of winter, but only after he willingly offers his life as a sacrifice on another’s behalf.
You might have heard how some movie critics are referring to the new Narnia film as “The Passion of the Lion.”
It’s a legitimate comparison, because the death of Aslan is a direct parallel to death of Jesus.
Aslan gives himself over to the White Witch, who thinks that by killing him she guarantees her winter reign will have no end.
But for Aslan…death is not the end.
And when he comes back from the dead, Lewis pens this wonderful explanation:
“Though the witch knew the Deep Magic, there is a magic deeper still which she did not know. Her knowledge goes back only to the dawn of time. But if she could have looked a little further back, into the stillness and the darkness before Time dawned, she would have read there a different incantation. She would have known that when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor’s stead…Death itself would start working backward.”
Now think about it for a moment…where in our world today do we most often see “death working backward?”
Spring.
When the harsh cold melts into the sun’s warmth, and barren grip of winter gives way to new life.
In a way, it helps add some meaning to the times of year we celebrate Christmas and Easter.
Christmas: Jesus comes to a world that is cold and bleak, just as he comes to us in our darkest, most difficult times and points to God’s eternal promises of love, forgiveness, and comfort.
And then Easter: Jesus gives his life for us, and in doing so breaks the power of sin’s winter and brings new life, just as he offers new life to each of us who would put our faith and trust in Him.
And Peterson paraphrases from Psalm 147: “He breathes on winter, suddenly it’s spring!”
And so the question comes to each of us this morning: “What is the winter that seems endless in your life today?”
Is it the winter of a particular sin that has a grip on you and won’t let go?
Is it the winter of loneliness, or anger, or misplaced priorities?
Maybe it’s the winter of unbelief. You feel you can’t understand or accept what the Christian faith is all about.
Whatever you’re struggling with, I would invite you this morning to take not one, but two steps.
First…take a step into a stable, and see there the promises of God made real, the word of God made flesh.
“For God so loved the world…that he gave his only begotten Son.”
The one who “tends his flock like a shepherd, gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart”
God longs to carry you close to his heart, if you’ll open yourself to him.
Like the words of the hymn:
What can I give him, poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd, I would give a lamb.
If I were a wise man, I would do my part.
Yet what I can, I give him…Give my heart.
Will you take that first step this morning? And then…will you then take yet one more?
Because more important than that step into a stable, is a step towards the cross.
Where a willing victim who committed no treachery was killed in our stead. Yours and mine.
As the Apostle Paul tells us in Romans:
“God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
And by his death and resurrection, something amazing has happened.
Winter has met its death.
