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In C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Narnia is a frozen wasteland. Everyone is ruled by the White Witch who if you do something to upset you will turn you to stone. She has spies everywhere, making it impossible to oppose her.
It was impossible, at least, until 4 children from our world arrive in the land. Their coming signals a significant event, the coming of Aslan the Lion. With Him, Aslan brings an end of winter, a gathering of the talking beasts of Narnia, and the start to a new era free from the influence of the White Witch and her rule.
Aslan is the stand-in for God and Jesus in the Narnia series, which is an important connection with our lesson from Isaiah this morning. There we hear that God will “create new heavens and a new earth.” Our passage from Isaiah occurs during the time of post-exile. It is when the Israelites are preparing to return to the Land of Promise.
Israel in this time had been a place of darkness, not unlike Narnia. Due to their own inability to follow God, the nation fell to the empires surrounding them. Their people were carted off to foreign lands, unsure if they would ever return home.
Yet in this time, God works something new in God’s People. While all seems lost, the Israelites are able to reconnect with the Lord once again in their exile. Just as the 4 children trigger Aslan’s coming, the Israelites’ new openness paves the way for God’s return to their hearts. This leads to their return to their lands.
This working of something new for Aslan in Narnia and God in Israel mirrors what happens to us in Baptism. Though we live in this broken world, God is forging us into something new. Baptism recreates something in us. It grants us the possibility to know God, even in this world of sin. It grants us the chance to be made new and whole.
This is true even in one like our soon-to-be-baptized. She will have the chance to live in this new land God is forging for us. This will give her the chance to never know a time before without God. It will give her the opportunity to live into a life only ever knowing Christ Jesus. She will not have to know what it was like before. She will get to live into this world made new.
Baptism is a reminder of the new and wonderful things God is working in the world because it is a vivid sign of what God is working in us. As we see in Narnia and with Israel, the world before was hard and dark and cold. There was no hope because then we were like those who have abandoned God. Yet God has not left us alone. God has returned to remake us, as Aslan did with Narnia and as we see God doing in Israel through our reading of Isaiah today. We never have to live into that time without God that we knew before. Thankfully for our soon-to-be-baptized, she will never have to know what this time was like, for she too is being made new. In being reborn, she will never have to know a time in her life where God is not present with her. For that we can say, “Thanks be to God!”