Death Itself Turned Backwards: The Great Vigil of Easter

 

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After the White Witch murders Aslan on the Stone Table in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, sisters Susan and Lucy are in shock, sorrow, and fear. They don't know what else to do except stay by the Lion's body so that no more harm may befall it.

Yet the night is cold, and they need to walk to keep warm. As they walk back to the body, they hear a great crack. They worry something worse may have happened to Aslan.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Instead, they find Aslan alive, better than He's ever been. He's stronger than He's ever been.

Susan and Lucy, while happy, are also confused. How is it that this came to be?

When the White Witch killed Aslan, she did so by the rules of the Deep Magic. When Susan's and Lucy's brother Edmund had strayed into the White Witch's clutches, she demanded her right over him. So Aslan, in turn, offered Himself for the boy's life.

That triggered something deeper still. Before time even began in Narnia, there was an "incantation" set up that if "a willing victim who committed no treachery was killed in a traitor's stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backwards."

That is what Jesus has done for us. We are traitors. Time and time again, we have turned from the Lord our God to follow a different path, as we see throughout all the readings in our Liturgy of the Word this vigil, even though those ways led to death and destruction.

So the one perfect person ever to grace this earth, Jesus, came. Though through sin we deserved death, Jesus would not allow that to be. He died in our place so that we would not have to.

Just as with Aslan, Jesus' death turned death itself backwards for us. Not only did Jesus rise to life again, but He also paved the way so that all of us could rise in the Resurrection with Him.

Make no mistake, this death was real for both Jesus and Aslan. It was painful, hard, humiliating, and cruel. Yet even in that death, there is glory and joy in the triumph of the result.

This is the depth of love that Jesus has for us. If that weren't enough, it is important to note who both Aslan and Jesus are. In The Magician's Nephew, it is Aslan who sings the world of Narnia into existence. As John tells us at the start of his Gospel, Jesus is the very Word, God Himself, who brings all into existence.

Neither Jesus nor Aslan are mere mortal beings. They are each the Creator of the World. As such, Jesus is God come down in human form to be with us. It is God in God's own fullness who dies for us, a Being and Creator who had no need to even deign to do so.

While there is death and horror leading up to this moment, it is the greatest of triumphs. It is the greatest love that can be shown to another. It is this love that makes us whole and ready to live again.