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Daring adventures, thrilling sword fights, magical creatures, and an escape from reality. Narnia has it all. The beloved series by C. S. Lewis has captivated minds and hearts, including mine, for years. I was always the kid in the furniture stores, crawling into wardrobes and longing to feel those pine needles prickle the back of my neck. Narnia has always held a special place in my heart.
As my relationship with God truly took off in the last year, I began to wonder why Narnia captivated me so. Wasn’t it just a child’s tale? Well, yes and no.
Unfortunately, there are no centaurs, fauns, talking beasts, or
Narnia and the Greatest Story Ever Told
other Narnians. Unfortunately, IKEA’s wardrobes never whisked me away to Lantern Waste. But, deep in the pages and ages of Aslan’s kingdom lies a colorful retelling of the greatest story ever told.
Magician's Nephew: In the Beginning...
Digory and Polly are tricked by Digory’s uncle into testing his magic rings for him, and they disappear into another world. While there, they awaken Jadis, a cold, cruel woman. And through many trips and adventures back and forth between the worlds, they bring Digory’s uncle, a cabby driver, and his wife and his horse to the barren, dark world.
Enter Aslan, a lion who sings a song of creation. Light blazes in the heavens, grass and trees grow, and animals appear. Jadis tempts Digory with healing apples for his mother, but Digory manages to resist the temptation and brings an apple back to Aslan as he had asked. At the end of the book, Aslan banishes Jadis to the wild northern lands. The stage is set.
In our own world, God spoke everything into existence. Satan fell from Heaven, disguised himself as a serpent, and tricked Eve into taking a bite of the fruit God told her not to. Humans were separated from God by this act, and Satan was banished. We had no way of getting back to God. Our problem was evident.
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe: It is finished!
The four Pevensie siblings; Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy, have been sent to live in the country during World War II, and while there, Lucy discovers Narnia in a wardrobe in the spare room. Her other siblings don’t believe her, but later that night Edmund follows her into Narnia and there meets Jadis, “queen” of Narnia. They return to our world, and the next day while playing cricket, Edmund breaks a window, causing the siblings to scurry through the house to hide from the housekeeper. They find themselves in the upper room and make the plunge into Narnia.
Once there, they discover they are the fulfillment of a prophesy to free Narnia from Jadis’s grasp. Edmund decides to slip away and find the white witch, as the beavers call her, for himself and claim the reward she promised him for bringing his siblings to Narnia. His siblings are left to search for them in this unknown and evidently dangerous world.
Peter, Susan and Lucy find themselves in Aslan’s war camp with weapons given to them by St. Nicholas. Edmund is found, but the happiness lasts only for a short while. The witch comes to claim him for he is a traitor, and Narnia’s deep magic requires that Jadis be given every traitor to be put to death. Aslan asks to speak with her alone. Sometime later they emerge from the tent, and Aslan tells the crowd the witch has renounced her claim on Edmund’s blood.
That night, Aslan travels to the Stone Table, trailed by Susan and Lucy. Jadis and her evil subjects put him to death there, while the two girls watch, horrified, from a distance. They realize that Aslan died in Edmund’s stead.
The witch and her posse leave, and Susan and Lucy come to sit by and cry over Aslan’s body. The trees send word to Peter and Edmund of Aslan’s death, and the two boys prepare for the coming battle against the witch and her army. At dawn, Susan decides the two girls must go back and make ready for war. Just as they step off the Stone Table, a small earthquake throws them off their feet and cracks the Table. Aslan, alive, stands beside them, and they hurry off to the white witch’s castle to breathe to life those she has turned into stone.
Photos by Wikimedia Commons & Effervescing Elephant
"For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the
