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When the Pandemic started, through my Gospel according to Superheroes project, I provided a read through for The Magician’s Nephew, the first book in C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia series. Shortly after my time started here at St. Michael’s, I started on The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe with you. In fact, we are coming close to finishing that book as well.
Both of these books are vital in helping us understand our Gospel reading today: the beginning of John. They help us understand why this reading is so necessary to our telling of the Birth Narrative of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The stories of Narnia all involve the mysterious figure of Aslan, a Lion who comes to help Narnia in need. In The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Aslan makes a deal with the evil White Witch to sacrifice His life for the child Edmund. This sacrifice is the same sort of sacrifice Jesus made for us.
During the arrangements Aslan makes with the White Witch, they make reference to the Deep Magic set upon the world of Narnia at its creation by the Emperor-Beyond-the-Sea, the ultimate ruler of this world and Aslan’s Father.
Yet when we see the world of Narnia created in The Magician’s Nephew, as the world originates from darkness through song, it is not the Emperor-Beyond-the-Sea who can be heard (in fact, we never encounter the Emperor-Beyond-the-Sea directly in The Chronicles of Narnia), but instead, it is Aslan who is singing. Aslan, the Son of the Creator, is the one bringing everything into existence.
This is just what we hear of in John’s Gospel today. It is Jesus, the Word, who is with God at the start of Creation. It is Jesus, the Word, who brings all things into being. It is Jesus, the Word, who is, in fact, God Himself.
And just as it is Aslan who brings grace and salvation to Edmund, though he did not deserve it, Jesus brings grace and truth to us all.
It is important to understand that Jesus, the Word made flesh, is God come down in human form. It helps us understand what God is doing better. It shows us the depth of God’s love for us. It makes Jesus’ work in this world all the more powerful.
We see that in Aslan too. Here is the Being who sang the entire world of Narnia into existence who then allows the evil that has plagued Narnia since the begin to kill Him in order so that He might protect another. It is bold that the Creator who care so much about one person, even knowing that His sacrifice will cause “death to turn backwards.”
Aslan isn’t just some ephemeral being, one that is present yet somehow otherworldly. As another lion in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe points out, Aslan includes Himself with the lions. When preparing for the final battle with the White Witch, Aslan says “us lions.”
Aslan is a physical being in Narnia, just as Jesus is in ours. That is important too. God didn’t just appear before us. God became one of us to live with us and die for us.
That human life that God lived starts now, in the story of Jesus’ birth. To truly understand the depth of what that means, we have to hear John’s Gospel today. It helps us understand the depth of what God did and the depth of God’s love for us.