God’s Word Alive in 2005 Series – “Narnia: Deep Magic & Deeper Magic”
Hebrews 9:22
Sermon preached at Curwensville Presbyterian Church – December 11, 2005 

Prayer Introduction: This morning is the second of 6 advent sermons on the Christian truths of God’s Word as they are illustrated in C.S. Lewis’ book The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, which came to movie theaters this past Friday. If you see the movie, fine. If not, that’s fine too. My goal is not promoting the movie to you, but promoting the book to you – moreover promoting the biblical truths that are illustrated in the book. It is my hope that you are reading the book, and that those with children are reading it together as a family.

            You will be able to follow these sermons whether you’ve read the book or not; but, obviously, reading the book will greatly enhance your understanding of it as an illustration. Let’s revisit the story line.

            Set in 1940’s England, four children travel through a wardrobe and enter the magical world of Narnia. In Narnia, the children meet all kinds of talking creatures – including talking animals. They come to discover that a witch has placed a curse over Narnia, and that there is a prophecy that two sons of Adam and two daughters of Eve will break the curse with the help of Aslan.

            And so, this morning we are going to look at the truth of God’s Word given in Hebrews 9:22 and the way this truth is illustrated in C.S. Lewis’ book. Last week we looked at Revelation 5:5 and Jesus, the Lion of Judah, illustrated in the book as Aslan, the great Lion.

            Next Sunday will be the Children’s Christmas program with a kid-friendly sermon focusing on the children of Narnia. There will be two different sermons for the two different services on Christmas Eve. And then Christmas morning will close out the series as we celebrate the Lord’s birth on the Lord’s Day. It is very exciting to have Christmas on a Sunday. Let’s pray…We pray now for the preacher in the pulpit. He is not worthy, but by your grace he is able. And so it is through Jesus Christ that we pray – Amen! 

Sermon Introduction:

According to C.S. Lewis himself, Aslan takes the role of a Christlike figure, though he is not an allegorical portrayal of Christ: “If Aslan represented the immaterial Deity, he would be an allegorical figure. In reality, however, he is an invention giving an imaginary answer to the question, ‘What might Christ become like if there really were a world like Narnia and He chose to be incarnate and die and rise again in that world, as He actually has done in ours?’ This is not an allegory at all.”

This morning I would have you see what the story illustrates in Turkish Delight; Deep Magic; The Triumph of the Witch; and in Deeper Magic. Your green insert contains the quotations I will pull from the book as well as other Scriptures to which I will refer – but first turn to Hebrews 9:22 in your Bible.

READ Hebrews 9:22

I. Turkish Delight

Last week I mentioned that the children – Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy – all had different reactions when they first heard the name of Aslan. Do you remember Edmund’s response in Chapter 7 (entitled: “A Day with the Beavers”) – “Edmund felt a sensation of mysterious horror.”

To understand his negative response to Aslan’s name (while the other children had a positive response), we must go back to when Edmund first entered Narnia through the wardrobe in Chapter 4 (entitled: “Turkish Delight”). Edmund enters alone and immediately is met by the evil white witch who acts nice toward him. Trying to entice him she asks what he would like – “Turkish Delight, please, your Majesty,” said Edmund. The Queen let another drop fall from her bottle onto the snow, and instantly there appeared a round box, tied with green silk ribbon, which when opened, turned out to contain several pounds of the best Turkish Delight. Each piece was sweet and light to the very center and Edmund had never tasted anything more delicious. He was quite warm now, and very comfortable. While he was eating the Queen kept asking him questions. At first Edmund tried to remember that it is rude to speak with one’s mouth full, but soon he forgot about this and thought only of trying to shovel down as much Turkish Delight as he could, and the more he ate the more he wanted to eat, and he never asked himself why the Queen should be so inquisitive.”

            What is your Turkish Delight? What is it that the Devil tempts you with, which you cannot seem to resist – for which you will compromise your integrity? The Devil, like the Witch, is the expert in finding that which tempts us; and deceives us into thinking that it is good – or at least that it isn’t bad.

            Indeed, we come to discover that it is enchanted Turkish Delight that has enraptured Edmund, just as sin is typically something good that has been corrupted by the Evil One.

            Who is Edmund? Edmund is each of us – deceived by the white witch as we are deceived by the Devil. He has fallen into sin, just as we have fallen into sin. His fall leads him to lie repeatedly and to betray his brother and sisters; being wrongly convinced that they deserved it.

            Sin is tied to self-centeredness. We see it in children and teenagers and think that they just need to grow up; but we also see it in grown-ups. You cannot grow up out of sin. So how can you escape the self-centered sinful nature? 

II. Deep Magic

We jump all the way to Chapter 13 (entitled: “Deep Magic from the Dawn of Time”) when the White Witch says to Aslan – You have a traitor there, Aslan,” said the Witch. Of course everyone present knew that she meant Edmund. But Edmund had got past thinking about himself after all he’d been through and after the talk he’d had that morning. He just went on looking at Aslan. It didn’t seem to matter what the Witch said. “Well,” said Aslan. “His offense was not against you.” “Have you forgotten the Deep Magic?” asked the Witch. “Let us say I have forgotten it,” answered Aslan gravely. “Tell us of this Deep Magic.” “Tell you?” said the Witch, her voice growing suddenly shriller. “Tell you what is written on that very Table of Stone which stands beside us? Tell you what is written in letters deep as a spear is long on the fire-stones on the Secret Hill? Tell you what is engraved on the scepter of the Emperor-beyond-the-Sea? You at least know the Magic which the Emperor put into Narnia at the very beginning. You know that every traitor belongs to me as my lawful prey and that for every treachery I have a right to a kill…And so,” continued the Witch, “that human creature is mine. His life is forfeit to me. His blood is my property.”

            The Deep Magic of Narnia illustrates the Law. In Genesis 2:16-17 we read, “And the Lord God commanded the man, ‘You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.’”

            Adam and Eve ate from the forbidden tree. Edmund ate from the enchanted Turkish Delight. You and I eat from the sinful temptations offered to us. Romans 3:23 says, “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” And Romans 6:23 clearly says, “The wages of sin is death.” The Deep Magic written on the Stone Table of Narnia illustrates the Law of Moses written on the stone tablets of the Ten Commandments. To disobey the law means death. Our lives became the property of the Evil One. We were slaves to sin – slaves to Satan – destined for death.

            We see the hopelessness of Edmund, but we also see that he “had got past thinking about himself” and “just went on looking at Aslan.” So must we repent of self and look to Jesus Christ. 

III. The Triumph of the Witch

Which brings us to Chapter 14 (entitled, “The Triumph of the Witch). I wish I could read the whole chapter to you. The somber mood that everyone felt, though only Aslan knew what was to happen. For Aslan had made a pact with the witch to trade his life for Edmund’s. The two girls who couldn’t sleep and saw it all happen – reminding us of the women who stood by Jesus at the cross even when everyone else fled.

            We read how Aslan voluntarily walks toward the crowd round the Stone Table – with the White Witch standing in the middle saying, “The fool has come. Bind him fast.” And they tied him up, they shaved off his mane, they mocked him and muzzled him. “And even now, as they worked about his face putting on the muzzle, one bite from his jaws would have cost two or three of them their hands. But he never moved. And this seemed to enrage all that rabble.”

            It reminded me of the Gospel of John’s account of Jesus’ arrest – as the mob comes to arrest Jesus – and we read in John 18:4-6 – “Jesus, knowing all that was going to happen to him, went out and asked them, ‘Who is it you want?’ ‘Jesus of Nazareth,’ they replied. ‘I am he,’ Jesus said. (And Judas the traitor was standing there with them.) When Jesus said, ‘I am he,’ they drew back and fell to the ground.”

            Throughout the entire account of Jesus Christ’s sacrifice – his arrest, beating, and crucifixion – you know that he could have ended it at any moment. His sacrifice was completely voluntary.

            At the end of the chapter, with knife in hand, the Witch says to Aslan – “And now, who has won? Fool, did you think that by all this you would save the human traitor? Now I will kill you instead of him as our pact was and so the Deep Magic will be appeased. But when you are dead what will prevent me from killing him as well? And who will take him out of my hand then? Understand that you have given me Narnia forever, you have lost your own life and you have not saved his. In that knowledge, despair and die.” The children did not see the actual moment of the killing. They couldn’t bear to look and had covered their eyes.

            Romans 6:23, which says, “The wages of sin is death” also says, “but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

            Our passage, Hebrews 9:22 tells us, “In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.”

            The Deep Magic illustrates the Law of God, which says only the pure sacrifice of the Son of God could bring forgiveness. There is no forgiveness in “trying to be a good person.” There is no forgiveness in “being religious.” There is forgiveness only in the blood shed by Jesus Christ. Just as there was only forgiveness for Edmund in the blood shed by Aslan.

            It is on this point that many in the world – who hate Christ – also hate the Chronicles of Narnia. This theme of redemption is especially offensive to Polly Toynbee of The Guardian (London) who writes – “Of all the elements of Christianity, the most repugnant is the notion of the Christ who took our sins upon himself and sacrificed his body in agony to save our souls. Did we ask him to? Poor child Edmund, to blame for everything, must bear the full weight of a guilt only Christians know how to inflict, with a twisted knife to the heart.”

            Likewise, Philip Pullman, author of the three-book series, His Dark Materials, dismisses the Narnia series as “propaganda in the cause of the religion [C. S. Lewis] believed in.” That's just a start, of course. Pullman, who once described his own motivation for writing children's books as “to undermine the basis of Christian belief,” has described the Narnia series as “one of the most ugly and poisonous things I've ever read” (quoted by Albert Mohler).

            It was Jesus who said in John 15:18-19 – “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.”

            The world hates Christ and hates Christians. We are feeling it more and more as people are voicing their opposition to prayer, the Bible, the 10 Commandments, even the phrase “Merry Christmas.”

            Has Satan won? Did the White Witch win? 

IV. Deeper Magic

The story doesn’t end at the Stone Table, though the Witch thought it did – and perhaps Satan thought it did when he saw Christ dead on the cross. In Chapter 15 (entitled: “Deeper Magic from Before the Dawn of Time”) Lucy and Susan are walking away from Aslan who is lying dead on the Stone Table when they suddenly hear a loud noise and run back – The Stone Table was broken into two pieces by a great crack that ran down it from end to end; and there was no Aslan.  “Oh, oh, oh!” cried the two girls, rushing back to the Table. “Oh, it’s too bad,” sobbed Lucy; “they might have left the body alone.” “Who’s done it?” cried Susan. “What does it mean? Is it more magic?” “Yes!” said a great voice behind their backs. “It is more magic.” They looked round. There, shining in the sunrise, larger than they had seen him before, shaking his mane (for it had apparently grown again) stood Aslan himself. “Oh Aslan!” cried both the children, staring up at him, almost as much frightened as they were glad.

            Lucy and Susan were as frightened at the sight of Aslan as the women and later the apostles were at the sight of the resurrected Christ.

            But what of Edmund? He was the traitor. It was his sin that led to the death of Aslan. Well in Chapter 17 (the final chapter, entitled: “The Hunting of the White Stag”) we read about the great battle that was fought – “It was all Edmund’s doing, Aslan,” Peter was saying. “We’d have been beaten if it hadn’t been for him. The Witch was turning our troops into stone right and left. But nothing would stop him. He fought his way through three ogres to where she was just turning one of your leopards into a statue. And when he reached her he had sense to bring his sword smashing down on her wand instead of trying to go for her directly and simply getting made a statue himself for his pains. That was the mistake all the rest were making…” When at last she (Lucy) was free to come back to Edmund she found him standing on his feet and not only healed of his wounds but looking better than she had seen him look – oh, for ages; in fact ever since his first term at that horrid school which was where he had begun to go wrong. He had become his real old self again and could look you in the face. And there on the field of battle Aslan made him a knight.

            Edmund was changed because of the death and resurrection of Aslan. Have you been changed by the death and resurrection of Christ? Notice I did not ask do you believe, I asked have you been changed? Are you being changed? Can you now stand in the face of temptation and reject it? Is the redemptive power of the risen Christ at work in you?

            You will always face temptations. There will always be trials in this life. The question is how do you respond? Just as Aslan knighted Edmund on the battle field, so Jesus Christ makes you a Christian soldier.

            1 Peter 2:9 says, “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” Ephesians 6:11 tells us, “Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes.”

              The war has been won, but we are still fighting the battles. So Ephesians 6:12 goes on to say – “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”

            How do we fight in this battle? Know Christ; Grow in Christ; Show the love of Christ. Live a holy life by the redemptive power of the risen Christ through the Holy Spirit who dwells in your heart.

            You are no longer a slave to sin. You are no longer a slave to Satan. Do not let him continue to entice you towards self-centeredness. Seek Christ and His righteousness. 

MAY THE TRUTH SET YOU FREE – AMEN!