Warning: This post contains spoilers.
(1) His [depiction] of Jesus' return (that is, Aslan's return) was really something. As I tried to describe it to a friend last night, I said I thought it was brilliant how Lewis took just enough of an accessible concept and then blew it up to that incomprehensible version that it will be in the New Heavens and the New Earth. He did an excellent job of telling us that we just won't get it til we're there and I think it is something that children or young adults could grasp, too. (It gave me a new appreciation for the author of Revelation because... come on--what does one have to work with?)
"Not far away from them rose a grove of trees, thickly leaved, but under every leaf there peeped out the gold or faint yellow, or purple, or glowing red of fruits such as no one has seen in our world." (171)
"What was the fruit like? Unfortuntely no one can describe a taste. All I can say is that, compared with those fruits, the freshest grapefruit you've ever eaten was dull, and the juiciest orange was dry, and the most melting pear was hard and woody, and the sweetest wild strawberry was sour. And there were no seeds or stones, and no wasps. If you had once eaten that fruit, all the nicest things in this world would taste like medicines after it. But I can't describe it. You can't find out what it is like unless you can get to that country and taste it for yourself." (172)
"Those hills," said Lucy, "the nice woody ones and the blue ones behind--aren't they very like the Southern border of Narnia?"
"Like!" cried Edmund after a moment's silence. "Why, they're exactly like. Look, there's Mount Pire with his forked head, and there's the pass into Archenland and everything!"
"And yet they're not like," sais Lucy. "They're different. They have more colors on them and they look further away than I remembered and they're more . . . more . . . oh, I don't know . . ."
"More like the real thing," said the Lord Digory softly. (210)
It was the Unicorn who summed up what everyone was feeling. he stamped his right forehoof on the ground and neighed, and then cried:
"I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now. The reason why we loved the old Narnia is that it sometimes looked a little like this. Bree-hee-hee! Come further up, come further in!" (213)
(2) The second thing I wanted to mention ties with the first, though it is from the very beginning of the book, when one faithful Narnian is told about account after account that Aslan has been sighted in their country.
"Indeed, Sire," answered Jewel, "I believe it all. If I seem not to, it is only that my joy is too great to let my belief settle itself. It is almost too beautiful to believe." (17) [emphasis mine]
YEAH.
YES, C.S. Lewis, yes. That is exactly right. Emmanuel.
It is only that my joy is too great to let my belief settle itself. It is almost too beautiful to believe. I get it.
Maybe something like this:
Psalm 126
A song of ascents.
When the LORD restored the fortunes of Zion,
we were like those who dreamed.
Our mouths were filled with laughter,
our tongues with songs of joy.
Then it was said among the nations,
"The LORD has done great things for them."
The LORD has done great things for us,
and we are filled with joy.
Restore our fortunes, LORD,
like streams in the Negev.
Those who sow with tears
will reap with songs of joy.
Those who go out weeping,
carrying seed to sow,
will return with songs of joy,
carrying sheaves with them.
Emmanuel. Imagine. Imagine, imagine, imagine. He came for us and to us and is with us... It's too beautiful to believe. He's calling us home.
(3) The final passage makes a fine point by embellishing its opposite. Shift, the shrewd and cruel Ape, is one of those maddening, idiotic characters that Lewis did a breathtaking job of forming. In a chapter with the chilling title "The Ape in Its Glory" we read this:
[At this point Shift has claimed the position of Aslan's mediator] "Now attend to me. I want--I mean Aslan wants--some more nuts. These you've brought aren't anything like enough. You must bring some more, do you hear? Twice as many. And they've got to be here by sunset tomorrow, and there mustn't be any bad ones or any small ones among them."
A murmur of dismay ran through the other squirrels, and the Head Squirrel plucked up courage to say:
"Please, would Aslan himself speak to us about it? If we might be allowed to see him--"
"Well you won't," said the Ape. "He may be very kind (though it's a lot more than most of you deserve) and come out for a few minutes tonight. Then you can all have a look at him. But he will not have you all crowding round him and pestering him with questions. Anything you want to say to him will be passed on through me: if I think it's worth bothering him about. In the meantime all you squirrels had better go and see about the nuts. And make sure they are here by tomorrow evening or, mark my word! you'll catch it." (35-36)
Lewis, C.S. "The Last Battle." The Chronicles of Narnia. New York: HarplerCollins Publishers, 2002. Print.
I did find it painful to read the many passages where Aslan was being misrepresented and where people were being abused in his name. But quite separate from that, I very much LOVED knowing that their fake Aslan (or "Tashlan" as he was later called, mashed together with the pagan god Tash) was nothing like our God. Our God us so much more than we could possibly anticipate or expect. (And He gets more marvel-ous the longer you know Him and consider Him.)
Reading the above passage I praised God that He does speak, that He comes to us so that we can see and know Him. He doesn't hide and He doesn't need a mediator. He is also faithful, unchanging, and richly kind.
He's just everything we don't deserve and yet... He's real and He's Emmanuel.
Amen.
He's just everything we don't deserve and yet... He's real and He's Emmanuel.
Amen.
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