I am sure many of you read Lewis' masterpiece as a child. You know the stories of the Pevensie children (Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy) who find themselves caught up into a world of kings, queens, battles, deep magic, and sacrifice. I love these stories and continue to be amazed at the connection and relevancy they hold for us today.
In thinking and reflecting on the theme of joy during Advent, 2010, I have returned to Narnia to find a beautifully painted scene. The sixteenth chapter of The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe opens with the following:
"What an extraordinary place!" cried Lucy. "All those stone animals - and people too! It's like a museum."
"Hush," said Susan, "Aslan is doing something."
He was indeed. He had bounded up to the stone lion and breathed on him. Then without waiting a moment he wisked round - almost as if he had been a cat chasing its tail - and breathed on the stone dwarf, which was standing a few feet from the lion with his back to it. Then he pounced on a tall stone dryad which stood beyond the dwarf, turned rapidly aside to deal with a stone rabbit on his right, and rished on to two centuars. But at that moment Lucy said, "Oh, Susan! Look! Look at the lion!"So, what does this beloved children's story have to do with joy and Advent and anything pertaining thereto? I think it has everything to do with joy and Advent and the message of the Gospel of God through Jesus Christ. See, we are much like statues. We are cold, gray, colorless, lifeless, and though we are moving from point 'A' to point 'B' there is not much other movement. (Not the sort of movement that takes place when a being is truly alive.)
You know this to be true. How many times have we looked around at "the most wonderful time of the year" only to see grim faces, long lines, impatient shoppers, and ungrateful recipients of expensive gifts. Yes, we can move and breathe and talk but there is no life. The life has been sucked out of us for whatever reason. And what now "lives" (if we dare use the verb) inside of us is a heart of stone.
I pondered this today as I sat in the movie theater watching the twenty minutes worth of previews shown before the "Feature Presentation." We are a society that must be entertained. All of the movies previewed this afternoon have a chance to be decent movies. Yet all of the movies that were previewed today were an attempt to outdo what has already been done. And if we cannot outdo the previous movie, we will re-release it in 3-D to "wow" the audience.
(If you are still reading this blog, I applaud you. For you have stuck with me through some pretty deep cynicism.)About two months ago, Ronna and I decided it was time to tile the bathroom floors. We recruited some help from two skilled men from our congregation and went to work. After putting down mortar, you lay tile. Each tile cut or shaped to fit exactly where it is to go on the floor. The mortar took a solid day to harden and "set." Then it was time to grout. We mixed grout and squeezed it into the 1/8" spaces between the tiles. After letting the grout "set" for 24 hours, we were able to walk on it. One of the men who helped us suggested that we wait a day or two before sealing the grout to allow time for it to finish hardening. When I asked him about keeping water off the floor until it was sealed he said, "Nah. A little water will not hurt anything. In fact, it will be good for the grout as it will be soaked up and the grout will get harder."
We are just like the grout between the tiles. We are just like the plaster used to construct statues. We allow just enough of the living water of God to come into our lives to say we have "gotten wet" that all we have done is let in a very small amount and that small amount is then overtaken and absorbed by the hardness of our hearts. If we would have poured out a large amount of water on to the fresh grout (even it the grout had been sitting for several hours and was beginning to harden), the grout would have broken apart and the grout would not be able to perform as it should. When a sculptor is working with clay or plaster and adds too much water, the medium is then ruined as it will be too soft.
Our hearts and lives are much like the statues Lewis describes and the grout between the tiles on my bathroom floor. We are hard. We are rough. We are set. There is no moving us. There is no re-shaping that will take place. And to make matters worse, we put ourselves on display and want life to be neatly arranged as if we are living in a museum.
What makes a museum a museum is the preservation of the way things were and are. As a Christian pastor, I would be sorely remised it I did not take a moment to comment on the state of the church in America. There are many times when I feel as though churches across this nation are nothing more than spiritual museums. Each Sunday we open the doors and invite people to come into the museum while we take out spiritual artifacts. We admire them, dust them off, and place them back in the preservation chamber until next Sunday. The same is true of all denominations and worship styles.
(Some may say, "Andrew, our church is filled with the spirit and we truly worship each Sunday." Who am I to doubt or judge a true movement of the Spirit of God? But, the question we must ask is: what makes what we do worship? What constitutes worship? Is worship loud music, pounding drums, lights, a dynamic man or woman on stage, and tears from the "audience"? ["Audience" is sarcastically used in this instance, as it was above, with a connotation of entertainment.] What constitutes worship? This is another topic for another post.)
We now find ourselves in a difficult predicament. What can help us? Who can help us? Nothing will help except the breath of Aslan.
See, when Aslan began to breathe on the statues, there was something that began to take place deep inside the statue. Life was deep down inside the statue but had been overtaken by an impenetrable exterior. What takes place is:
For a second after Aslan had breathed upon him the stone lion looked just the same. Then a tiny streak of gold began to run along his white marble back - then it spread - then the color seemed to lick all over him as the flame licks all over a bit of paper - then, while his hindquarters were still obviously stone, the lion shook his mane and all the heavy, stone folds rippled into living hair. Then he opened a great red mouth, warm and living, and gave a prodigious yawn. And now his hind legs had come to life. He lifted one of them and scratched himself. Then having caught sight of Aslan, he went bounding after him and frisked around him, whimpering with delight and jumping to lick his face.The image Lewis has painted for his readers is the image of joy at work. The work of Aslan is the work of joy. What happens is the life-giving Spirit moving into and upon the cold-stone heart of the creature to revive, restore, and recreate. This is the same work, I believe, God wishes to bring about in our lives and in our world. Our world is in desperate need to be reawakened to the newness of life in God.
There is a stipulation, though. As I read the scriptures, I seems clear that God does not move where God is not allowed to move. God can and will transform our lives. God can and will transform our homes. God can and will transform our churches but only if we allow God to do so. So what does this mean for the statues in "the museum"? The creatures in Narnia were frozen by Jadis, the White Witch. Their true selves were loyal to Aslan, the true King of Narnia.
All of this leads us to the expression of joy known during Advent. So, what is joy? To define joy, it is best to start with what joy is not. Joy is not happiness. Happiness is the result of what happens to you. Joy is the result of what is happening in you. Happiness comes and goes with the tossing and turning of the tide of emotion. Joy is consistent.
The aim of joy is sharing. Joy, being the result of the work of God in our lives, wishes to be shared. Joy wants to find expression through our lives. It is here where we come back to the story of the statues. Aslan continues to breathe life onto and into the statues and
Everywhere the statues were coming to life. The courtyard no longer looked like a museum; it looked more like a zoo. Creatures were running after Aslan and dancing around him till he was almost hidden in the crowd. Instead of all that deadly white the courtyard was now a blaze of colors; glossy chestnut sides of centaurs, indigo horns of unicorns, dazzling plumage of birds, reddy-brown of foxes, dogs and satyrs, yellow stockings and crimson hoods of dwarfs; and the birch-girls in silver, and the beech-girls in fresh, transparent green, and the larch-girls in green so bright that it was almost yellow. And instead of the deadly silence the whole place rang with the sound of happy roarings, brayings, yelpings, barkings, squealings, cooings, neighings, stampings, shouts, hurrahs, songs of laughter.The work of Aslan onto and into the statues is expressed in a celebration of joy! Joy cannot be contained. Joy must be shared. Joy is the result of God's work and our expression of the work. In the midst of his conversation with his disciples, Jesus shares about the love of God so that the joy he knows in God will be at work in the disciples (John 15:11).
When was the last time you allowed God to work within you to melt a heart of stone? Is your life like a museum? When was the last time the joy within you found expression through genuine, spirit-filled worship? (There should always be times when the expression of joy through worship takes place privately and not in public.) During Advent, I believe God wishes to communicate to us the truth of joy. God wishes to help us find expression of the joy through worship. These are things that money and happiness cannot find!
Joyfully to you....
-ASR
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