Christmas Greetings
It’s Christmas, and in a strange time.
I am reminded of the world of Narnia that Sophie loved so much as a small child, in particular of the story of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, in which a cruel witch holds the land of Narnia in thrall. Under her terrible dominion, Narnia has become a place in which it is “always winter, and never Christmas.”
Our own world has, for two years now, lived under Covid’s evil spell, with its seemingly no-end-in-sight narrowing of the lives of billions to the limits of a disease.
For us, as for the poor talking beasts of Narnia, each day has held the same bleak outlook: Always winter. Never Christmas.
But in Lewis’ story, through the noble lion Aslan’s sacrifice, the witch’s spell is broken. Narnia is freed. Its world redeemed.
Two millennia ago the Christian saga (which Lewis’ story references in allegorical terms) had its unlikely birth in a backwater province of the vast Roman Empire.
Eternity entered time, in the form of a little child.
Theotokos: Hagia Sophia
What cosmic energy was generated by the creative contradiction of that thought! The shock waves of it continue to echo outwards, a moment of creation like that of the universe itself, rippling past us to the end of time.
Nothing can stand before the power of that moment.
For, Spoiler Alert (in case you didn’t know it!): in the grand story of our universe—written before its very foundation, but played out within time—at the ending of all things, it is the good guy who finally wins.
So take heart. The spell upon our world will also be broken. As in little Sophie’s beloved Narnia, this winter too will end.
Thanks for those thoughts in these long bleak days, Rob. Courage, resolution and hope.
You are right, George, these are true virtues—and, of course, it is precisely those qualities that Lewis is seeking to encourage in his young readers in the Narnia series.
He doesn’t promise them that what they experience in the world will not ask painful things of them. In fact, he tells them the opposite. There are battles that must be fought.
But he also tells them that even as children they are not powerless (as children are often made to feel) in the great battle between good and evil played out in our world, just as it is in Narnia’s.
There’s a wonderfully wise saying in Proverbs in the Old Testament: “The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord.”
The last 2 years have had some very dark times, but the wise Jewish saying has such truth in it. As Lewis explained so powerfully to all his millions of child readers (including our Soph when she was a tiny tot), we are each that candle letting a little more of the divine light into the world…
You will always burn bright, my friend!
So true Robyn, the spell will be broken!
Absolutely!
Stand fast, warrior Ben!
Thank you Robyn. You describe so well the message of hope and love that is there and will be there eternally.
Yes, dear Kaye.
I think our Soph would tell us now to raise our eyes up, and see…