The following is a talk about The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe which I gave to an audience of some 300 college students at the end of 2005.  The substance of this talk was also included as an online essay in the book: Narnia Beckons published by Broadman & Holman in 2005. . . .

I lived in Narnia. For most of 2004 my family and I lived in a 400 year old home known as the Narnia Cottage, on the estate of Douglas Gresham, step-son of C. S. Lewis, in Ireland. It was really a momentous time considering that most of that year Gresham was flying back and forth to New Zealand carrying on his work as the co-producer of the Walt Disney/Walden Media production of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

I have been in love with Narnia ever since The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was read aloud to me by my fourth grade public school teacher in Southern California in 1972. Seeing Narnia on screen has almost been like a dream becoming reality. The new movie version of LWW has performed an unbelievable feat-adding new depths to Lewis's original story.

But why did C. S. Lewis write Narnia in the first place? He said that he came to writing fairy tales when he was about fifty years old because the fairy tale was the perfect form for what he wanted to say. Lewis often commented in his letters to children about the "hidden story" in Narnia. Lewis outlined this hidden story in an unpublished letter to a girl named Anne, written on 5 March 1961:

There is a dream-like quality to this story. The first thing that envelopes the reader and now the viewer of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is the atmosphere. From the moment the four Pevensie children enter the professor's house there is adventure afoot, and a certain air of mystery. The intrigue grows as first Lucy then the rest of the children discover the magical wardrobe and the doorway to Narnia. The experience of traveling to Narnia creates a longing in Lucy to go there again. It is a longing deepened by the fact that she can't seem to get back into Narnia whenever she wants. Sometimes the wardrobe leads to fir trees and snow crunching underfoot, other times it contains only mothballs and fur coats with a solid wood back.

The experience of what the Germans call sehnsucht and Lewis came to call Joy grows in the children once they all enter Narnia together. When Mr Beaver mentions the name of Aslan each of the children feel something jump inside them. Edmund feels a mysterious sense of horror. Peter feels suddenly brave and adventurous. Susan feels as though a delicious smell or a delightful strain of music has just floated by her. Lucy feels like one does upon waking on the morning of the first day of summer vacation.

Lewis talks about a similar experience in a number of his works. In The Problem of Pain he talks about the experience of the numinous. Lewis writes:

Lewis notes that this experience of the numinous is a common strand in all developed religion. A second common strand in all religion is morality. This too we see in The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.

We encounter a sense of morality in Narnia when Lucy first meets Mr Tumnus. The Faun weeps contritely when he realizes what a horrible thing he had planned to do in kidnaping Lucy. Tumnus realizes inside himself, once he has gotten to know the human child, that he cannot hand her over to the White Witch. And so the Faun escorts Lucy safely and surreptitiously back to the lamp-post.

The theme of right and wrong continues when Edmund gives in to the temptation of the White Witch (more on that in a moment). Edmund realizes it is going to be no fun for him once he and Lucy return to the professor's house because he will have to admit that Lucy was right all along. Betrayal of his own conscience even leads to sickness in Edmund's stomach. And then, Lewis as narrator tells us, Edmund decides to do the nastiest thing possible, he decides to let Lucy down. Edmund tells Peter and Susan that he and Lucy were only pretending about Narnia.

The theme of obedience to conscience appears again once all four children enter Narnia together. Upon finding Mr Tumnus' cave ransacked, Peter and Lucy especially realize they must do something to help free the Faun from the clutches of the White Witch. The children have a sense of duty that overrides their natural instincts of self-protection.

In Mere Christianity Lewis shows how our human sense of morality is not merely an instinct. He writes,

The theme of temptation appears throughout The Chronicles of Narnia. The first encounter between Edmund and the White Witch is perhaps the most memorable temptation scene.

It is important to remember that when we are first introduced to the White Witch, in the book, we are not told, explicitly, that she is a witch at all. Rather we are told that she is a great lady, taller than any woman Edmund had met before, and she is beautiful.

The movie takes a different approach to the character of the White Witch. Tilda Swinton, as the very plain looking ice-witch-queen, draws Edmund in through her tender, motherly affections extended toward him. It is a goodness twisted to satisfy her own selfish ends.

In any case, there is something attractive about the White Witch otherwise Edmund might have run from her immediately. In the same way, there is something attractive about evil, otherwise we would never do wrong. As Lewis says elsewhere, evil is only spoiled goodness. The only way evil can exist is by corrupting what is good, for existence itself is good. Evil would not be tempting unless it were for the good still in it.

The Queen tempts Edmund with something good, namely food. He chooses Turkish Delight as the food he would like to eat, a type of dime-store candy known to every English boy and girl. The difference with this Turkish Delight is that it is magical; it has an addictive quality that makes the consumer want more and more of it. In fact, the person eating this Turkish Delight would eat his fill unto death if he could.

In this brief passage Lewis captures the addictive nature of certain temptations; one thinks of smoking, drinking alcohol, taking certain drugs, eating, sex, just to name a few things that, like Turkish Delight, are not bad in and of themselves, but can become addictive behaviors for certain people, if not all people. In fact, there is something in our nature as human beings that causes us to never be content with a moderate amount of pleasure. Rather, we are often tempted to pray that fatal prayer - "Encore!" We strive for, or even ask God to give us, more of the same pleasure over again, rather than being satisfied with what God has already given us and moving on to new pleasures.

Such is the case with Edmund and the Turkish Delight. It seems there is an emptiness in Edmund's life that he is trying to fill. The movie version dramatizes Edmund's strong sense of loss with his father off to war. Perhaps Edmund is the proverbial middle child among his three siblings. He feels unnoticed, left out, sometimes vilified. Perhaps he feels that Lucy, as the youngest in the family gets all the attention. At any rate, upon meeting the White Witch he thinks he has found someone who will place him at center stage. Edmund finds someone whom he thinks, unconsciously, will fill his inner emptiness. The Queen promises him recognition and even power over his siblings as the new Prince, and eventually King of Narnia. This promise, along with Edmund's craving for the Turkish Delight, makes him willing to sacrifice his own family members, in order to have his own emptiness filled.

In reality the White Witch is offering Edmund something which is not hers to give. She is not the rightful heir to the throne of Narnia and so it is not her prerogative to pass that authority on to another. And what the White Witch offers by theft, Aslan is not only willing, but wanting to give to Edmund by divine right. It all sounds vaguely familiar, doesn't it? It sounds just like the serpent in the Garden of Eden who offers to make Adam and Eve like God once they have tasted of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Adam and Eve don't even pause to think that they have already been created in God's image. The serpent is offering them something which is not his to impart and which, in fact, is already theirs.

If Edmund only thought through the whole situation logically he might eventually have abandoned his hope of the White Witch supplying him with anything he really needed. If he had only waited to find out that Aslan, as Son of the Emperor-beyond-the-Sea, wanted to make him a rightful King of Narnia, perhaps Edmund could have turned from his evil path earlier. Logic, as much as longing, can lead a person to the truth. Logic and longing led Lewis himself back to the truth of the Christian faith.

Logic is very important in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Thus the professor says, "Logic, why don't they teach logic at these schools?" And then he proceeds to introduce Peter and Susan to a logical trilemma. The children have approached the professor in fear that Lucy may be going mad since she insists that Narnia is real. In response the professor says,

The logic which the professor presents in this passage in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is very similar to the logic Lewis presents in Mere Christianity. In the latter book Lewis says this about Jesus:

The great lion Aslan is Lewis's picture of what Christ would look like in a land of Talking Beasts. In Aslan Lewis manages to capture the nature and character of Christ. Aslan is the Son of the Emperor-beyond-the-Sea, thus suggesting the two persons of the Trinity-Father and Son. And it is Aslan's breath that brings to life the stone figures thus suggesting the power of the Holy Spirit. There is a terrifying goodness about Aslan, a severe tenderness about him, that is very much like the character of Jesus whom we see in the Gospels. Aslan is not a tame lion; he isn't safe, but he is good. The awesome nature of Aslan makes it difficult for the children to even look at him when they first meet him.

Lewis also pictures the work of Christ in the activities of Aslan. Aslan is the Savior of Edmund, Tumnus and all Narnia; in fact, we are told that Aslan is the only one who can fulfill the function of Rescuer. According to a letter that Lewis wrote to one of his child readers, he placed Father Christmas in the story specifically to identify Aslan as the Christ figure, someone who "arrived" at the same time as Father Christmas. Aslan's advent happens in winter and Aslan's passion takes place in Spring, dovetailing with the life of Christ and the church calendar in our world. Aslan offers himself as a substitute for Edmund on the Stone Table just as Christ offered himself as a substitute for sinners on the cross. As in the Gospel accounts so it is in the story of Aslan that women are the last of his followers with him at his death, and the first to witness his resurrection. After his resurrection it is Aslan who kills the White Witch just as the book of Revelation tells us that Jesus will one day utterly defeat Satan.

While Lewis shows us much that Aslan and Christ share in common he also adds his own unique touches to this redemption story. One of those unique touches is the scene where Susan and Lucy ride on Aslan's back after his resurrection. What could be a more dynamic picture of our potential relationship with the living Christ? Rather than simply walking with him, we are called to ride on his back. He is the driver and conveyer in this wild romp called the Christian life.

The great thing about Lewis is that he sees life in epic proportions and he helps his readers to do the same. Not only are we called to untamed travel on Aslan's back, but we, like the Pevensie children, are called to reign with Aslan.

And aren't we an awful lot like the Pevensies? To my mind one of the best lines in the movie is when Peter says to Mr Beaver, "We're not heroes; we're from Finchley." For those unfamiliar with London geography, Finchley is a nondescript suburb of London inside the M25 motorway. The point is that Aslan uses ordinary people. Christ can do the same with you and me.

In The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe Lewis gives us a foretaste of a life we have only dreamed of. He gives us, who live in the frosts and east winds of Old Nature, the fragrance of spring flowers, the aroma of a New Nature to enjoy. Lewis's story is only a picture, but it is a picture which we are invited to step into.

And what do we find when we step into the picture? What do we discover when we step through the wardrobe? I think we find that we are very much like Edmund. As Blaise Pascal once said, "There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every person." In our headlong pursuit of filling that void with things which won't satisfy we tread a lonely road which leads to death.

The good news is that Aslan has come and performed our dying for us. Of course, Aslan goes by another name in this world. He is the Lord Jesus Christ. By His death and resurrection Jesus can fill us with the fulness of His life and love. He can give us meaning and purpose beyond our wildest dreams.

But we have to put our trust in Him. We have to ride on His back and allow Him to take us where He wants to go.