I love The Chronicles of Narnia. I know they're kids books, but they're sort of the equivalent of comfort food to me. Whenever I can't sleep, I pull out my box set and read whichever one seems to strike my mood at that particular moment. I liked it a lot even before I understood the allegorical side of it (when I was little, the only parallel I saw was that Aslan was Jesus and the White Witch was the devil, but I didn't see a lot of the other stuff), but now that I'm older, as I read it, I see all these ways that C.S. Lewis is describing Christianity through different thoughts, words, and actions from each of the characters. I love love love how these books make Christianity so much clearer, so much simpler, than it's usually portrayed. One of my favorite images is in "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe," when Aslan breathes on the stone figures (whenever the white witch encounters a Narnian, she turns them into stone and towards the end, Aslan, Lucy, and Susan go to the White Witch's castle; this is after he's been killed and resurrected) and they come back to life. It makes me think of that song by David Crowder called "Come Awake," specifically the part where he says " Come awake, from sleep, arise. You were dead, now come to life. Wake up, wake up, open your eyes, rise from your grave, into delight. Bring us back to life." I used to not really like that song because it's slow and the melody isn't all that great, but I was driving to school one day and I was listening to it and I realized it's the shortest way a Christian can describe his or her testimony. I was dead. Jesus brought me back to life. And I love the image of Aslan, of a lion, breathing life back into cold, hardened, lifeless, beings, calling to them. It's amazing how loud and how powerful His call is, and it amazes me more that He would specifically call me. I know a lot of people say that Christianity is this sort of rip-off combination of many other, much older religions, but I just absolutely cannot see that. It's the only relationship /religion I know that requires no work at all. It's completely God-centered whereas every other religion I've encountered is man centered, focused on what we can do either to get to Heaven or to be considered "good" or to earn our standing, but Christianity says we can't do anything. We're completely powerless to change and wholly dependent on God. A lot of people also say that they could never be Christians because they don't want to use it as a crutch and I would probably say that Christianity isn't just a crutch. If we're going along with this analogy/metaphor, Christianity is a stretcher, a wheelchair, life support. There's no use pretending we're strong, able to be wholly independent. I'm weak. I know I am. I mess up all the time, but I'm so amazed and so grateful that God has called me away from that, has called me to life and every time I mess up, I'm reminded that I can never sin more than God can forgive and His love is boundless and covers me. I love that.
Post a Comment