St. Paul United Methodist Church

My first introduction to C. S. Lewis was through The Chronicles of Narnia series.  Although these books are children’s stories, I must admit that I was an adult when I read them.  In the second book, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the inhabitants of Narnia are waiting for the return of Aslan, the lion.  Upon his return, the rule of the evil White Witch, will come to an end.  There is a part in the book where the Beaver told the children, that “Aslan is on the move!” (Granted if you are unfamiliar with the story, this might be a little confusing).  Though the children have never met Aslan, the moment they heard of his moving, they became hopeful because something stirred inside of them:  courage, peace, and happiness.   The world around them begin to look differently because they knew in the end, all things would be set right.

This is Advent for us.  For today’s follower of Christ, we are anxious for His return.  We long to see him.  We look for signs that He is on the move.  We await his coming.  If we stop for a moment and listen to voice of The Spirit, we allow the hope of his return, the promise to make all things right fill our hearts.  We will have a similar experience as the children in the story.  We will be encouraged, hopeful, and peaceful.  Today, here those words, “Aslan is on the move!” 

Lately I’ve been asked a few questions about morality, personal and societal. Those questions made me think of a segment from Mere Christianity, by C S Lewis. He wrote this and it is worth reflection:

“A world of nice people, content in their own niceness, looking no further, turned away from God, would be just as desperately in need of salvation as a miserable world—and might even be more difficult to save.

There are…occasions on which a mother’s love for her own children or [one’s] love for own country have to be suppressed or they’ll lead to unfairness toward other people’s children or countries. Strictly speaking, there aren’t such things as good and bad impulses. Think of a piano. It has not got two kinds of notes on it, the right notes and the wrong notes. Every single note is right at one time and wrong at another. The moral law isn’t any one instinct or any set of instincts: it is something which makes a kind of tune (the tune we call goodness or right conduct) by directing the instincts…

The most dangerous thing you can do is to take any one impulse of your own nature and set it up as the thing you ought to follow at all costs. There’s not one of them that won’t make us into devils if we set it up as an absolute guide. You might think love of humanity in general was safe, but it isn’t. If you leave out justice, you’ll find yourself breaking agreements and faking evidence in trials ‘for the sake of humanity,’ and becoming in the end a treacherous [person].”

Morality, for the follower of Christ, is not a solo project. It is a duo between Christ’s will and our will. Together, we walk the path of life following His lead, not the other way around. We follow His impulse, not our own.