Narnia to fulfill a prophecy that sons and daughters of Adam will deliver Narnia ...
From the moment they step through the wardrobe into Narnia their destiny is.
There is a journey we must take first
The Kingdom of God – already but not yet In The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe four children enter the magical world of Narnia to fulfill a prophecy that sons and daughters of Adam will deliver Narnia from the White Witch, and rule as kings and queens in her place. From the moment they step through the wardrobe into Narnia their destiny is fixed and certain. They are kings and queens already. But there’s a “not yet” part to the story too, because there is a journey they must take first to grow them into the kings and queens they are, and it’s no bed of roses. The younger of the two boys, for instance, is swayed by the White Witch into siding with her. She wins him over by feeding him an endless supply of Turkish Delight that never fills him, and then seals his loyalty to her by promising him the highest position in her kingdom, higher than all his siblings. He then lies to his brother and sisters that he’s met her, and later he betrays their whereabouts so that the White Witch can capture them. It soon becomes a journey of self-‐discovery for all of them, in how easily one of them is deceived, and how quickly the others turn against him and bicker among themselves. At the beginning of their journey they are still very much children, acting purely on their own childish strength and responses. Meanwhile, the great lion Aslan, the rightful ruler of Narnia, has returned after an absence of one hundred years, during which the White Witch has sunk Narnia into endless winter. His return coincides with the arrival of the children to break the White Witch’s spell, and her power soon begins to weaken. But the trees still act as her spies, and with a wave of her wand she can still turn a disloyal creature into stone. The children are in grave danger every moment she is alive. Their destiny as kings and queens is never in question but Aslan has them on a journey that’s designed to grow them up. At the start the children are selfish. They ridicule and argue. They lose heart when things go wrong, and they easily fall prey to their own desires and fears. They doubt the younger sister when she
tells them about Narnia, and they aren’t forgiving to the brother who betrays them. As they spend more time in Narnia, however, they become more forgiving, more patient with each other, more courageous and more positive, and by the time they face the White Witch in the battle that knocks her off her perch they are fit and ready to replace her. But when they first stepped into Narnia, did the children know this was the plan? No. And who knew that when Jesus rose from the dead he took all humanity with him into the kingdom of God in fulfillment of a prophecy that we too would replace the evil ruler of this world and become kings and queens in his place? So there we now stand before God as holy royalty, but it gets even better because God has a journey for us to help us feel like and act like holy royalty too. It means “sufferings,” Romans 5:3, that to begin with reveal all kinds of negative reactions and feelings tucked away inside us. We scare easily, we doubt and we lose heart when things go wrong, because in the early stages of our journey we too are acting mostly on our own strength and childish responses. In time, however, we find ourselves growing in "perseverance, character and hope," verse 4. Like the children in Narnia, we discover we’re still intact, despite the overwhelming trials we’ve had to go through, and gradually a thought begins to form in our minds, that we are invincible. Paul came to that realization too: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me,” he said, because from long experience of hard knocks and suffering he found himself still standing. “We’ve been battered but never crushed, and knocked down but we haven’t broken.” Nothing, it seemed, could knock him out. It helped him realize what God was up to. Paul was already a son of God, yes, and already a king, but at the beginning of his journey he was only a son and king in title. As the journey progressed, however, he could feel some muscle developing. He began to fill out. He was taking on the stature of a king and filling the mould of a true son of God. The journey was no bed of roses but he could see it was shaping him in substance what Jesus had already made him in title. No wonder Paul said we can "rejoice in our sufferings," verse 3, because instead of crushing us as they used to in the early stages of our journey, now they’re giving us some real mental muscle. And it doesn’t matter how different our personalities are; Aslan brought four very different children through very different tests and challenges to the same point in the end.
And, like Aslan, Jesus keeps us encouraged along the way -‐ through the loving help of the Holy Spirit, verse 5 -‐ so that our “perseverance, character and hope” never dim. To our surprise, perhaps, we find ourselves hanging in there much better through dark times (perseverance), and we’re walking through pain rather than feeling sorry for ourselves (character), and we discover there is always strength for the moment to keep our feet grounded and our heads held high, and therefore there always will be (hope). As our journey progresses it dawns on us what God’s up to. He’s growing us into kings and queens. We’re becoming wise from experience, and we stand taller under pressure. There’s no reason any more, then, to feel disappointed or dejected, verse 5, because we can see for ourselves that we’re not the selfish, fearful children we used to be. We’re growing up. We’re more forgiving, more patient with each other, more courageous and more positive. And that’s when some real “rejoicing” in God sets in, verse 11, because we understand what the journey is doing to us, and it fills us with confidence. The children of Israel could have experienced all this too, but they never understood that God had them on a journey that would perfectly grow them up. So when trials hit they fell apart, because they saw no purpose to them. Whenever a new problem arose, instead of walking through it hand-‐in-‐hand with God, they got angry at him. Instead of persevering they were paralyzed with fear. They felt abandoned. They panicked when God didn’t intervene, and they took things into their own hands with disastrous consequences. For most of their journey, therefore, instead of it building confidence and joy in them, they lived under a constant cloud of worry, insecurity and confusion as to why God was making them suffer so. Even when God provided for their every need and they came through a dozen trials, battered but still standing, it still didn’t dawn on them that God had them on a wonderful journey of discovery, that with his strength they could face anything, and that’s what all these sufferings and trials were for. They didn’t cotton on that they were on a journey to build some backbone and confidence in them, so that more and more they’d feel like and act like the chosen people of God that they were. But that’s the part Israel didn’t get. So now it’s our turn. We’ve been told we’re heirs with Christ, but when we first set out on our Christian journey did we feel like we were fit to be heirs with Christ? But now that we’ve shared his sufferings and experienced the power of his resurrection again and again, how do we feel now? Now that we’ve faced
mind-‐numbing and heart-‐rending trials that made us despair of life at times, but we’ve come through them all with Christ’s strength, can we feel our backbone strengthening and our confidence swelling? Because that’s what the journey is for. It’s to make us feel like and act like the kings and queens we are. What we are in title we’re becoming in reality. We’re filling the mould. That is what we were promised, though, that Christ in us is our hope of glory. Share his sufferings and the power of his resurrection, and that hope of glory becomes real, because we can see we’re gradually being made fit for glory. Jesus has a glory mould for every one of us, which he prepared for us in advance, Romans 9:23, and now we’re on a journey that will fit us into our mould right to the top and out to every corner, “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do,” Ephesians 2:10. We’ve no need to worry about anything, therefore, because we’re on a journey already charted for us in advance by God that will take us to exactly where he wants us to be. It doesn’t require any perseverance, character, or hope-‐building exercises on our part, either, because God’s got us on a journey, just like Aslan, that will automatically make us grow. “God is the builder of everything,” Hebrews 3:4 -‐ the builder of glorious destinies, the builder of kings and queens, the builder of children like his own beloved Son, the builder of moulds for every personality to be perfectly shaped for eternity in, the builder of just the right balance of challenges and tests to build backbone and mental muscle in us, the builder of confidence, and the master-‐builder of people in substance what he has already made them in title. It all happens on the journey. That’s why there’s a journey we must take first. Published in Northern Light Website: gcicanada.ca