Even if there is no Narnia...

I have always loved C.S. Lewis. Since childhood I have found myself drawn to the adventures of these Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve transported into a world totally other. I started with The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe and stand firmly behind that being the best order in which to read the books. One of my favorite moments was in the beginning when Lucy tries to explain to her siblings that Narnia is real. They doubt her, however, and think she must be mad. Upon speaking with the wise Professor he says, 

“Either your sister is telling lies, or she is mad, or she is telling the truth. You know she doesn’t tell lies and it is obvious that she is not mad. For the moment then and unless any further evidence turns up, we must assume that she is telling the truth.” (The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Ch. 5)

Later in his book Mere Christianity Lewis makes a similar argument for Christ, but it was this initial statement about the validity of Narnia that brought my mind to that train of thought. I’d known that the person of Jesus was real, that many other religions had proclaimed his existence without stating his greater purpose. He was written about in history books and so the basic facts of Jesus’ life have been considered indisputable. To most of the world Jesus was a man who lived a life that is exemplary. He defied societal norms—despite his persecution—and died a humiliating and unjust life, but there had to be more to his story. Jesus could not simply be a “good guy”. Because he says it far more eloquently than I could I will allow Lewis’ words to speak my point.

“A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things that Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. H would either be a lunatic—on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hel. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God; or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”

So here is this man who defies human logic. He did exactly what God said he would do and the world hated him for it just as the Bible foretold. (Isaiah 53:7-12) 

For me, finding Jesus so indisputably true, believing the rest of the Bible just came naturally. You could not believe one without the other, and the world was far more beautiful because of it. Rather than seeing chaos and darkness, I saw order and light and no matter what arguments came my way they just could not hold a candle to what I knew to be truth. Funny, Narnia explained that as well. In The Silver Chair, Eustace, Jill, and Puddleglum are trapped in an underworld—called Underland. Clever, Lewis ;)—after attempting to rescue a prince of Narnia. In one of my favorite scenes the children and Puddleglum have found the prince and are planning to leave Narnia when the Witch—who appears to be a beautiful lady—throws a green powder onto the fire and begins playing an instrument. The combination of the two makes it “hard to think” and the witch begins to question them. She asks them to describe Narnia and with every explanation she attempts to convince them that it is all in their imagination. The sun she says is just an imaginative rendering of a bigger and better lamp than the one they have here. Aslan is nothing more than a bigger and better cat. Nothing is real. It is all a story they made up to feel better about the world. It is at that moment that Puddleglum—such an admirable literary character—says and does something profound. He—seeing the children and the prince falling under the witch’s enchantment—stamps his foot in the fire and says, 

“All you’ve been saying is quite right, I shouldn’t wonder. I’m a chap who always liked to know the worst and then put the best face I can on it. So I won’t deny any of what you said. But there’s one thing more to be said, even so. Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things—trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case the made up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that’s a funny thing when you come to think of it. We’re just babies making up a game, if you’re right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That’s why I’m going to stand by the play-world. I’m on Aslan’s side even if there isn’t any Aslan to lead it. I’m going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn’t any Narnia. So, thanking you kindly for our supper, if these two gentleman and the young lady are ready, we’re leaving your court at once and setting out in the dark to spend our lives looking for Overland. Not that our lives will be very long, I should think; but that’s a small loss if the world’s as dull a place as you say.” (The Silver Chair, Ch. 12).

One of the more beautiful things about Puddleglum’s explanation is not that he rejects the witch’s reality, but that he is willing to go to great pains—even die—in pursuit of what he believes. Christianity is not easy. Christians have been persecuted for years. In reading Hebrews we see an entire list of people who-for faith-suffered and died. To the pleasure-seeking world there is nothing attractive about Christianity. It seems to be a religion of rules—and that is a topic for another day—why would anyone choose to follow it? Christianity is absolutely absurd…unless, of course, it’s true.

I recently heard it said that our purpose was to advance. That everything we did in life was just to get one step ahead. Even that simple thing seems exhausting and every worldview I have encountered, apart from Christ, drains me in a similar way. If our only purpose is to live and die then what is the point of all of the beautiful little things. Why do we marvel so much at a beautiful sunrise if beauty is all subjective? Why do our hearts drop when we see massive tragedies? Death is natural. Why do we not turn our heads like Billy Pilgrim and say, “So it goes”? Why do we continually seek contentment in things that never fulfill us? 

If that is what life is about I want no part of it and so like Puddleglum I will live my life as a Narnian—er..as a Christian—even if there is no Christ to follow because to me that world is the only one that makes sense.