Sermon 12/9/18
Isaiah 55:1-5, Romans 8:18-25
Advent in Narnia: Always Winter, Never Christmas
Last week I mentioned that Lucy’s older siblings eventually make it to Narnia too, and that’s true. But I sort of skipped over just how her brother Edmund arrives in Narnia. Edmund is the second youngest sibling. In the opening chapter of the book, we find that Edmund frequently seems to be at odds with his siblings. He seems to resent Susan and Peter when they tell him what to do and make him feel like a baby, and in turn, he also seems to enjoy lording his age, his “wisdom and knowledge” over Lucy, wanting to make her feel silly and immature. Stuck together without parents present for days on end, the four Pevensie children are not exactly models of kindness to each other. We talked at our Advent study this week about sibling relationships. How many of you have at least one sibling? I shared that nothing can make me feel so much like I’m 12 again than the arguments that I’ll sometimes still get into with my siblings. They’re usually over nothing, when you really get down to it. We just, after so many years of practice, really know how to push each other’s buttons.
Edmund certainly knows how to get at Lucy. The narrator tells us that Edmund can sometimes be spiteful, and that after Lucy claims to have visited Narnia, Edmund’s spite comes out full force. Edmund “sneer[s] and jeer[s] at Lucy,” we’re told, “and [keeps] on asking her if she’d found any other new countries in other cupboards all over the house.” (23) Lucy is crushed. One day, though, the children are playing hide and seek on a rainy day, and Lucy just wants to look at the wardrobe again, not expecting, after not being able to find Narnia there again when with her siblings, that she’d be able to get back to the magical land. But this time, the door to Narnia is open again. Edmund follows her into the wardrobe without her knowledge. We read, Edmund “at once decided to get into [the wardrobe] himself - not because he thought it a particularly good place to hide, but because he wanted to go on teasing her about her imaginary country.” (24)
Except Edmund finds himself in Narnia. He isn’t filled with the wonder Lucy is though. Edmund is very disappointed when Narnia turns out to be real, because he knows that he will have to tell Lucy that she was right and he was wrong. He describes Narnia in his mind as strange, and decides he doesn’t like the place, and makes to go back home. That’s when he hears bells in the wood, and eventually a reindeer-pulled sleigh approaches, carrying a dwarf, and a tall lady, dressed in white fur, carrying a golden wand and wearing a golden crown. Her skin is snow white - not figuratively, but literally. She looks proud and cold and stern. She introduces herself to Edmund as the Queen of Narnia, and demands to know who Edmund is. She is very severe with him, and we the reader can tell that she’s seconds away from smiting him with her wand. But instead, when Edmund reveals he is one of four siblings, the Queen - who we already know from Lucy’s earlier visit to Narnia is actually the White Witch - is suddenly very interested. Again, to us, it is clear that she now begins to manipulate Edmund, lulling him into a sense of safety, but Edmund doesn’t seem to notice, because she is doing and saying everything he wants in his secret heart.
The White Witch asks Edmund what he’d like to eat the best, and he responds without hesitation: Turkish Delight, a kind of jellied treat made dates, pistachios, and hazelnuts, covered in powdered sugar. By magic, she produces a box containing several pounds of Turkish Delight, and Edmund immediate digs in. He shovels down as much of the treat as he can, hardly realizing that he’s giving the Witch lots of information about his siblings as he answers her questions between bites. After eating all of the candy, Edmund just wishes for more. The narrator tells us that the candy is enchanted: “anyone who had once tasted it would want more and more of it, and would even, if they were allowed, go on eating it till they killed themselves.” (33) The Witch does not allow this though. Instead, she insists that Edmund go back and retrieve his siblings and bring them to Narnia with him. When he does, she says, Edmund will be gifted with roomfulls of Turkish Delight, and made Prince of Narnia. His sisters and brothers will be made courtiers and nobles, but not a Prince like Edmund. The Witch is perceptive to know that Edmund would want to think of himself in a higher station than his siblings. After giving directions to her castle to Edmund, she leaves him.
Lucy then finds Edmund, delighted that he’s made it to Narnia. But then Lucy tells Edmund that this woman who called herself a Queen is known to the whole land as the White Witch, and that she has made it endless winter in Narnia. “Always winter, but it never gets to be Christmas.” We, who continue to experience winter long after the end of our Christmas celebrations, can relate in a deep way, can’t we? Edmund doesn’t disbelieve what Lucy tells him about the Witch. He believes she is dangerous. And all the enchanted Turkish Delight has made him sick. But, we read, “He still wanted to taste that Turkish Delight again more than he wanted anything else.” (38, emphasis mine.) When Lucy and Edmund leave Narnia and find Susan and Peter, instead of owning up to Lucy being right, Edmund decides to “do the meanest and most spiteful thing he could think of. He decided to let Lucy down.” He tells them that he was just playing pretend with Lucy, and that there is no Narnia. Lucy is devastated. When all four children finally do make it to Narnia, and it becomes clear that Edmund has been lying, when the children hear about Aslan, the great lion, the Savior of Narnia, the Christ-like figure, Edmund, already in the thrall of the Witch, leaves the others to join forces with the one who has promised him endless power and endless indulgence.
What’s your Turkish Delight? In this season, it might be easy to come up with any number of special treats that you enjoy. If you come to my Open House tonight, you can have one of the hundreds of sugar cookie cutouts I made. After the Open House is done, and after I set aside cookies that will go to our cookie sale next weekend, I’ll have to wrap the rest up and put them in the freezer until Christmas otherwise I will eat them all. But when we think about how Edmund wanted Turkish Delight, we’re talking about something that goes beyond craving a sweet treat. He wanted it more than he wanted anything else. Later, the narrator tells us that when Edmund has dinner at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Beaver in Narnia, he doesn’t enjoy it, because he’s thinking about Turkish Delight the whole time, and that “there’s nothing that spoils the taste of good ordinary food half so much as the memory of bad magic food.” (85) He starts to desire Turkish Delight in an unhealthy way. It consumes him. And we get the sense that in general, Edmund’s priorities are out of line. He’s pursuing what benefits him the most, to the detriment of others, and even what he wants for himself is not actually good for him.
So, again I wonder - what’s your Turkish Delight? What is it that you’re chasing after, that gets in the way of how you care for others, that might seem good for a moment, but you know isn’t really so good for you actually? What is it that, when you get a hold of it actually leaves you feeling, like Edmund, a little sick? What do you end up spending energy pursuing that results in you compromising your values, who you are, who God calls you to be in order to have it or experience it?
These questions bring to mind our text from the prophet Isaiah, one of my very favorites. Isaiah writes, “Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good … Incline your ear, and come to me; listen, so that you may live.” Isaiah’s question rings in my ears: “Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?” Why? Why? Why do we do it? Why do we spend so much energy on what leaves us feeling so very empty?
I’m not sure there’s an easy answer to that question, but I’m sure we’ve been doing it since time immemorial. We get a sense of that in Paul’s letter to the Romans. The creation is waiting for God and God’s children with eager longing, because the whole creation has been subject to futility, has been in bondage to decay, groaning in labor pains. Don Schuessler suggested at our Advent study this week that we keep trying to fill the God-shaped hole in our lives with things that aren’t God-shaped. We keep hoping that metaphorical Turkish Delight will meet all of our spiritual nutritional needs. But it never does. And it never will. Only God can fill the God-shaped hole in our lives. Only God offers the Bread of Life which satisfies. Only laboring for God and God’s way in the world brings us true contentment. Paul says that God sets us free, redeems us, body and spirit.
Edmund eventually experiences redemption too. At first, even when it becomes clear to Edmund that the White Witch is no Queen and is up to no good, he can still only think about getting some more enchanted Turkish Delight. But finally, when in their travels to find his siblings so that the Witch can try to keep the prophecy that signals the end of her rule from being fulfilled Edmund witnesses her turning a whole group full of animals into stone for insisting that Father Christmas had shown up at last, Edmund begins to feel regret and compassion. Eventually he’s rescued, because his siblings won’t give up on him, and Aslan won’t either. Edmund has a serious talk with Aslan, and after coming face to face with the true ruler of Narnia, the great lion, Edmund is never the same. Sure, he still fights with his siblings sometimes. But he seeks their forgiveness, and they give it. He knows that despite all of the wrong choices he’s made, he’s reconciled to his family and to Aslan, he’s redeemed. He knows it. He never forgets it. And he tries to live like a person who remembers it every day.
My hope for us is that we, too, can experience the forgiveness Christ offers when we realize how off course we’ve gotten. My hope is that we too can live as people who remember that we were welcomed back, forgiven, reconciled. Let go of chasing the Turkish Delight that you’re sure if you heart’s desire, and remember instead the taste of the Bread of Life that satisfies. If you have caused some harm - to yourself, to others, to God - in your quest for things that have left you empty - God can redeem your life. We can seek forgiveness. We can repent, return to God. God longs to welcome us back, longs to work out our reconciliation. Friends, God’s redeeming love is breaking through the cold of endless winter. This Advent, let’s claim the promise of forgiveness and new life. Amen.
(Page numbers in this sermon refer to C.S. Lewis's The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe.)
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