See below for an explanation as to why we chose to include Narnia in this year's Christmas theme.
The Word became flesh
And made His dwelling among us.
Jesus, through whom all things were made... Jesus, who is the preeminent One…. Jesus, who holds all things together... Jesus, the radiance of God’s glory full of Grace and Truth... became a babe in a manger.
Pause and think about that. How do we take it all in?
And practically speaking—What does it look like to live in the waiting time—when God’s voice and expressions of His power seem to be something of the past? What does it mean to prepare the way for the Lord? What does it look like to hope? How can we live as those assured of His coming? What makes Jesus a worthy King? How can we be equipped for the journey?
Because the Birth of Christ is told every year, our familiarity with the story can cause us to lose sight of how remarkable it is. We can forget our humanity and our need for a Life-giving faith that can only be provided by our Savior. We need help understanding what it means that our King has come and will come again, what it means to seek Him first, and what it means to hear His voice and follow Him.
When King David became blind to God’s worth and lost his ability to understand the depths to which he had strayed from the God He clamed to love, Nathan the prophet was sent to wake David up. Nathan doesn’t give David a lecture, reading to him the 10 commandments and pointing out which ones David has forgotten and which ones He has broken. Nathan doesn’t even speak directly about the particular sin David needs to address. No, Nathan tells David a story about sheep and rich men and poor men and travelers needing a meal. Why?
What good is a story over simply speaking plainly and directly? After all David did break many of the 10 commandments throughout his life. He lost his worship and his understanding of God as the only source of satisfaction, peace, identity, and fulfillment. Why not just tell him that straight? What made the story a more powerful vehicle to bring David to a truer understanding of the situation?
Stories, real and fictional, engage our hearts and emotions in a way that lists of facts can’t. When we read stories, we see things like plot, character, and setting. Like David, our emotions and intellect are pricked and we can be moved to think and ponder. This helps us to recognize these same things in our own lives and in the storyline of scripture.
Sometimes hearing a story can open our eyes and draw our hearts back to the One who came to earth to be our Savior. When we think of our favorite movies this time of year, I expect we could describe what makes them so good, welcome, and important to our celebrations. It’s a Wonderful Life, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and Dickens’ Christmas Carol (Muppets or otherwise) have their appeal as a reprieve from the hustle and bustle, reminding us to pause, reflect, laugh, or cry as the case may be. Or maybe we have a favorite book we read or children’s story we revisit every year that contain beautiful illustrations or poignant storylines that draw us in.
Because the Birth of Christ is told every year, our familiarity with the story can cause us to lose sight of how remarkable it is. We can forget our humanity and our need for a Life-giving faith that can only be provided by our Savior. We need help understanding what it means that our King has come and will come again, what it means to seek Him first, and what it means to hear His voice and follow Him.
When King David became blind to God’s worth and lost his ability to understand the depths to which he had strayed from the God He clamed to love, Nathan the prophet was sent to wake David up. Nathan doesn’t give David a lecture, reading to him the 10 commandments and pointing out which ones David has forgotten and which ones He has broken. Nathan doesn’t even speak directly about the particular sin David needs to address. No, Nathan tells David a story about sheep and rich men and poor men and travelers needing a meal. Why?
What good is a story over simply speaking plainly and directly? After all David did break many of the 10 commandments throughout his life. He lost his worship and his understanding of God as the only source of satisfaction, peace, identity, and fulfillment. Why not just tell him that straight? What made the story a more powerful vehicle to bring David to a truer understanding of the situation?
Stories, real and fictional, engage our hearts and emotions in a way that lists of facts can’t. When we read stories, we see things like plot, character, and setting. Like David, our emotions and intellect are pricked and we can be moved to think and ponder. This helps us to recognize these same things in our own lives and in the storyline of scripture.
Sometimes hearing a story can open our eyes and draw our hearts back to the One who came to earth to be our Savior. When we think of our favorite movies this time of year, I expect we could describe what makes them so good, welcome, and important to our celebrations. It’s a Wonderful Life, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and Dickens’ Christmas Carol (Muppets or otherwise) have their appeal as a reprieve from the hustle and bustle, reminding us to pause, reflect, laugh, or cry as the case may be. Or maybe we have a favorite book we read or children’s story we revisit every year that contain beautiful illustrations or poignant storylines that draw us in.
What is a movie or book that is a must for you and your family this time of year? Why do you return to that story? How does it point you back to the love of your Savior? How is the story a powerful vehicle to bring you to a truer understanding of Christmas?
During Advent, the point of everything we do is to draw our hearts into deeper worship of our Worthy King, to awaken our wonder at His coming, and to encourage our devotion and submission to His rule and reign over our lives. It’s all for His glory and our growth. We want our celebrations to be fueled and undergirded by the love and joy that only Christ can give. This way everything else we participate in is extra, the cherry on top so to speak—a treat to enjoy, sure, but tasting much better when paired with the ice-cream underneath.
This year we would like to invite you to join us in reading (or watching) CS Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. This is a children’s fantasy story with a parallel setting of 1940’s England and a make believe land called Narnia. Lewis filled this story with Biblical overtones and themes of betrayal, sacrifice, and honor.
This year we would like to invite you to join us in reading (or watching) CS Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. This is a children’s fantasy story with a parallel setting of 1940’s England and a make believe land called Narnia. Lewis filled this story with Biblical overtones and themes of betrayal, sacrifice, and honor.
Why choose this story? Consider the words of Heidi Haverkamp: “When we deeply trust something we can’t see, we must use our imaginations. Consider Hebrews 11:1: ‘Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.’ Too often, Christianity may seem to be a known quantity. We can take its radical values for granted and see Jesus as a cliché’ instead of our Savior. Lewis, by placing [Christian overtones] into another world, makes it unfamiliar again. He gives us the chance to feel a newfound wonder at the depth of God’s love, the power of Christ’s grace and the totality of his sacrifice, and the wonder of a world infused with the Holy Spirit. We can all use a spiritual wake-up call like this, whether we aren’t sure Christianity can mean anything to us or whether it means everything.”1
Our intention is not to make direct correlations between Lewis’ story and scripture. That is not what Lewis intended, nor would it be good scholarship. Our intent is to allow this story to ignite in our own imaginations a picture of another world lost in darkness and evil, to help us imagine what hope can look like and to re-ignite in our hearts a sense of awe and wonder. As we exercise our imaginations in this way, we will be helped to realize that we also live in a world lost in darkness and evil. Our world is waiting for a promise to be fulfilled and a prophecy to come true. We are also part of something bigger than ourselves—and we can have hope as we live our own stories of faith—with Jesus as the author and finisher of that faith. (Hebrews 11:1-3, 12:1-2)
Would you join us in this endeavor? “Entering Narnia means becoming a little bit ‘foolish,’ as St. Paul would put it. Reading children’s literature might be embarrassing for adults or teenagers, but it can be a deep source of wisdom (and fun); as Lewis wrote, ‘When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly.’”2
May this years Advent Adventure in Narnia do for us what Nathan’s story did for David—foster a deeper understanding of our great need for our Savior, and our great Savior for our need.3 May our engagement with this story alongside the familiar scriptures of the Advent season spark in us a sense of wonder as we comprehend more fully where we are in God’s story. Above all else, may we continue to pursue a robust Biblical literacy infused into our whole life—all for the praise honor and glory of Jesus.
Would you join us in this endeavor? “Entering Narnia means becoming a little bit ‘foolish,’ as St. Paul would put it. Reading children’s literature might be embarrassing for adults or teenagers, but it can be a deep source of wisdom (and fun); as Lewis wrote, ‘When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly.’”2
May this years Advent Adventure in Narnia do for us what Nathan’s story did for David—foster a deeper understanding of our great need for our Savior, and our great Savior for our need.3 May our engagement with this story alongside the familiar scriptures of the Advent season spark in us a sense of wonder as we comprehend more fully where we are in God’s story. Above all else, may we continue to pursue a robust Biblical literacy infused into our whole life—all for the praise honor and glory of Jesus.
1Heidi Haverkamp, Advent in Narnia (Westminster John Knox Press 2015), viii
2ibid/C.S. Lewis, “On Three Ways of Writing for Children,” in On Stories: And Other Essays on Literature (San Diego: Harcourt Inc., 2002) 24.
3“I have a great need for Christ: I have a great Christ for my need.” ― Charles H. Spurgeon
2ibid/C.S. Lewis, “On Three Ways of Writing for Children,” in On Stories: And Other Essays on Literature (San Diego: Harcourt Inc., 2002) 24.
3“I have a great need for Christ: I have a great Christ for my need.” ― Charles H. Spurgeon