Going to the movies

I have a confession to make. I really, really didn't like Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ." Too much torture, not enough theology. This week I saw a movie that did for me what Mel Gibson's intended to do but fell short (in my humble opinion): the Disney version of "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe."

Now, the movie wasn't really promoted as a Christian witness. It was more of a kid's movie with battles and other adventures. It's not a movie to convert someone to Christianity who has never opened a Bible. But oh, my, it had me in tears before the opening credits -- and THAT is saying a lot.

If you haven't read C.S. Lewis' seven books about Narnia, go out and do so immediately. They are easy to read and quick to get through, just the thing to do on a few winter's nights. Lewis supposedly wrote these books for his nieces and nephews, but they are easily appreciated by adults who are young in heart. And if you HAVE opened a Bible here and there along the way, you'll find the Christian allegory -- and maybe, just maybe, it will make more sense to you than reading some heavy-duty books on theology.

The Lion in these books is Aslan, son of the Emperor-Beyond-the-Sea (we never do meet Aslan's father, but the reference is hard to miss). "He is not a tame lion," we are told throughout the books. And when the characters meet Aslan, they are in awe of him. In the movie, all bow before the Lion as he emerges from his tent. I darn near got off my seat in the theater to bow, too.

One of the children, Lucy, hid in a wardrobe in the spare room and discovered she could move through the fur coats stored there into a grove of fir trees in the snow, and that is how she and her three siblings ended up in Narnia. Lucy met a somewhat fearsome looking creature -- a faun -- by the name of Mr. Tumnus. She ended up going to his house and having tea. Now, I would worry about a little girl going to have tea with a faun. Later, her brother Edmund came into Narnia and ended up meeting a beautiful woman who gave him hot chocolate and sweets. You would think, from her appearance, that the beautiful lady would be more trustworthy than a faun. But the beautiful lady is the White Witch who has kept Narnia in a spell for a hundred years, where it is "always winter and never Christmas." But Edmund wants so much to please her that he tells her all about his sister's encounter with the faun. He ends up betraying Tumnus "for sweets."

Yo! Theology class! We have here a lovely allegory! In Genesis, the serpent persuades the man and woman to eat of the tree that God told them not to eat of. In the Gospels, Judas betrays Jesus for thirty pieces of silver. Here Edmund is persuaded by an evil witch who plies him with sweet treats to spill the beans, tell her all about his siblings, and betray Tumnus. Edmund, who we might think of as just a kid trying to please a grownup, presents us with Original Sin.

So the Secret Police capture Tumnus and imprison him and eventually the White Witch turns him to stone. When the Witch has a showdown with Aslan, she demands that he give her Edmund as a sacrifice. The Law demands it. Aslan and the Witch go off into his tent to negotiate. When they emerge, the children are told that Edmund's life will be spared. Sounds good, huh?

Except that night the Witch and her minions lead Aslan to the Stone Table, shave off his beautiful coat, tie him to the table, and kill him. And the two girls, Lucy and Susan, watch from a distance, crying. Do I need to spell out the allegory here?

After Aslan's death, after the Witch and her minions are gone, the two girls go to Aslan's body and weep until they fall asleep. It is the middle of the night. It is dark and cold.

And then, just before dawn, the Stone Table cracks (read: the veil of the temple torn in two, the stone rolled away) and death itself works backwards. Aslan is alive! And he is leaping around with the girls in the dawn light, and then they go off to defeat the White Witch. Spring returns to Narnia. The human children reign at the castle called Cair Paravel. The oldest brother, Peter, is High King. (Peter...get it?) And Aslan walks away, down the beach, but the children are told that he will be back, but they won't know when to expect him (do I need to spell that one out too?).

Well, maybe I have given the ending of the book/movie to you, but there are six more books to read! I doubt that Disney will make all seven into movies, anyway. "The Magician's Nephew," as I recall, is a wonderful retelling of the creation story in Genesis. And the final book, "The Last Battle," has its roots in the apocalyptic literature of the Old and New Testaments.

My tears at the beginning of the movie were for Lucy, such a little girl, being sent away from her home and her mother on a train to escape the Blitzkrieg in London. And it is Lucy who weeps in the last book, as night falls on Narnia. But I am WAY ahead of myself. Go read the books. Go see the movie. It's theology: law and sin and grace and redemption. And it's a wonderful story. And it's Disney, not Quentin Tarantino (or Mel Gibson). The violence is there, all right. But we don't have to see it in all its goriness.