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One can’t be a Ghost in One’s Own Country (C.S. Lewis, The Silver Chair)

I have always struggled with the idea of being being a bodyless soul in heaven. I don’t mean that I have struggled with it in such a way as to doubt it, or that I don’t want it. I mean that I cannot conceptualize it in my mind. It is a mystery of mysteries. But I have always encouraged myself by remembering that I’m not God, and therefore I am not capable of understanding everything (nor should I understand everything). I also encourage myself by remembering that God the Father and the Holy Spirit are pure spirit without bodies. They are, however, omnipresent, while we will never be so. 

With that said, this weekend I read something that helped. My daughter and I have just finished re-reading The Silver Chair, by C.S. Lewis, from the Chronicles of Narnia. I had many fond memories of this book going in. I considered it one of my two favorites of the Narnia series. I love the luner atmosphere of the story (the melancholy nature of Puddleglum, the constant brushes with insanity, etc). The scene of Caspian, Eustace, and Jill returning to our world ‘bright shining as the sun’ has gripped my imagination ever since first reading the story. But I discovered a few gems this time that I missed last time, and one of them handles the subject of a man in the ‘intermediate state,’ if you will. That man is Caspian.

Caspian dies in the story, but he comes to life again, in a new form of sorts, an ageless form, though he obviously remains himself, in Aslan’s country. As Eustace meets the newly risen Caspian, Lewis writes,

Eustace made a step toward him with both hands held out, but then drew back with a startled expression.

‘Look here! I say,’ he stammered. ‘It’s all very well. But aren’t you-? I mean, didn’t you-?’

‘Oh, don’t be such an ass,’ said Caspian.

‘But,’ said Eustace, looking at Aslan. ‘Hasn’t he-er-died?’

‘Yes,’ said the Lion in a very quiet voice, almost (Jill thought) as if he were laughing. ‘He has died. Most people have, you know. Even I have. There are very few who haven’t.’

‘Oh,’ said Caspian. ‘I see what’s bothering you. You think I’m a ghost, or some nonsense. But don’t you see? I would be that if I appeared in Narnia now: because I don’t belong there any more. But one can’t be a ghost in one’s own country. I might be a ghost if I got into your world. I don’t know. But I suppose it isn’t yours either, now you’re here.’

–The Silver Chair, chapter 16.

That one sentence – ‘One can’t be a ghost in one’s own country’ – rang true to me. It allowed me to imaginatively embrace something that I had struggled to comprehend. That’s the best picture of existence in heaven, outside of the Bible, that I have ever read. And I read it in a children’s story. This only goes to illustrate the point so often made by Lewis and G.K. Chesterton: the imagination is best used in seeking the truth. Lewis uses his imagination here for just that purpose.

  • Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord (2 Cor. 5:8).

The Light of the World (2): Always Winter and Never Christmas

I have been reading a good bit of Jonathan Edwards lately. At the same time my family and I have been reading the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (again). I am not aware of anywhere in his writings that C.S. Lewis interacts with the writings of Jonathan Edwards. But time and time again I have discovered significant overlap in their thought (I may post on this in the future). I came across one such overlap this week, and a helpful one at that.

Let me say few things to set the stage. When I began reading Lewis, as well as Tolkien, I was struck by an element of seriousness in their writing. Call it a certain ‘melancholy.’ Yet in their melancholy, a certain joy is still evident. They both, but Tolkien especially, had the ability in their writing to make the happiest events seem sad and the saddest events seem happy. It’s hard to describe. It’s a mood more than anything else. You pick it up if you read enough of them.

I am not a big fan of the recent Narnia movies, but there are a few things the movies do well. One relates to the mood I’m speaking of. In the closing scene of Prince Caspian, the image of the Pevensie children walking away from Aslan in Narnia into a crowded train station in the ‘real world’ is striking. I remember, after seeing the movie for the first time, telling my wife that that scene perfectly captured my weekly mood transitioning from Sunday to Monday. Sunday is my favorite day of the week. It’s like Narnia in its brightness and glory. But then on Monday morning I face the real world. Yet Sunday is the real world to me, not Monday. Aslan tells the children later in the Chronicles that they must get to know him in their own world by another name. Narnia is just a glimpse, just one manifestation. In the humdrum of the train station is where they will truly get to know him.

I digress, but this captures the mood I’m speaking of. It’s like a joyful sadness, a happy mourning. I wrote about it HERE and, using Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ expression, called it ‘serious happiness.’ (If you are a regular reader of mine and haven’t read that post, I’d encourage you to do so. That post is as clear an expression of my thinking as anything I’ve ever written).

In Narnia, in the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, the land is bewitched so that it is ‘always winter and never Christmas.’ That is, until Aslan returns and the thaw of spring begins. In Jonathan Edwards sermon on John 8:12, where Jesus says, ‘I am the light of the world,’ he expresses he same idea about the return of Christ:

Is Christ Jesus the light of the world? What glorious times will those be when all nations shall submit themselves to him, when this glorious light shall shine into every dark corner of the earth, and shall shine much more brightly and gloriously than ever before. It will be like the rising of the sun after a long night of darkness, after the thick darkness had been ruling and reigning over all nations and poor mankind had been groping about in gross darkness for many ages. When this glorious morning comes, then those that never saw light before shall see it and be astonished at its glory. Then the world, which has been in a kind of dead sleep for this many ages, shall rouse up and begin [to] open their eyes and look forth to behold this glorious light of the world; then will the sweet music of God’s praises begin to be heard.

Then will Christ say unto his spouse, as in Isaiah 60, at the beginning:

“Arise, shine; for thy light is come, for the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. For the Gentiles shall then come unto her light, and kings to the brightness of her rising.” Now, indeed, darkness covers the earth and gross darkness the people, but the Lord shall arise upon his church and his glory shall be seen upon her. Then shall “the light of the moon be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold” (Isaiah 30:26). The world has had a long winter of sin and ignorance; for many ages has the Sun of Righteousness been in the Tropic of Capricorn; but when this time comes the world will enjoy a glorious spring: then holiness and God’s kingdom shall revive as the fields and trees revive in spring. Then shall the time come when all creatures shall praise the Lord, and the mountains shall break forth into singing and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands…

The light that is Christ is already shining in this world. The thaw of spring has already begun. Dark, blind, cold, dead sinners are already having their eyes opened, are being warmed by the love of Christ, are coming alive by his Spirit. We see him, and we see that he is light. But we wait for a day when that light will shine so brightly as to swallow up all the darkness. And so we pray, ‘Come, Lord Jesus.’ Then the melancholy will disappear, but joy will be more serious than ever.