From C. S.
Lewis’s Preface to the MacDonald Anthology:
“It must be more
than thirty years ago that I bought – almost unwillingly, for I had looked at
the volume on that bookstall and rejected it on a dozen previous occasions –
the Everyman edition of Phantastes. A few hours later I knew that I had
crossed a great frontier…Nothing was at the that time further from my thoughts
than Christianity…I was only aware that if this new world was strange, it was
also homely and humble; that if this was a dream, it was a dream in which one
at least felt strangely vigilant; that the whole book had about it a sort of
cool, morning innocence…”
What frontiers
have you crossed?
There are those
who travel the world on planes and cruise ships and trains, yet who never go
anywhere, who never cross a frontier. Then there are those who may go no
further than their feet or local transportation can take them, and yet who
cross frontier after frontier and who have seen and experienced more than they
could possibly tell.
Vickie, my
brother Jim, and I were once on the windswept Zugspitze in Germany. There was a
catwalk that connected Germany and Austria that Jim and I walked across so that
we could say that we’d crossed the frontier into Austria. Alas, there was no boarder
agent to stamp our passports, indeed, due to weather conditions there were no other
people on the Austrian side of the catwalk, so after a few minutes we returned
to Germany and Vickie and hot chocolate.
Can I truly say
that I’ve seen Austria? Have I experienced Austria?
Not only was the
wind strong and the cold bitter, but fog enveloped the Zugspitze and visibility
was poor, so we saw virtually nothing of Austria.
If I’m in a
conversation with others and the subject of travel arises, can I truly say that
I’ve been to Austria – without qualifying what I mean?
Might it not be
that we treat evangelism like the catwalk between Germany and Austria? Just get
the people over the catwalk and you’ve done your job, get them to say, “I’ve
been to Austria, now I’m Austrian! One day I’ll make it to the Vienna Opera
House, one day I’ll enjoy an Austrian coffee shop, one day I’ll visit the Trapp
Family home – in the meantime, even though I am going back to Germany after
just a minute or two, I am most certainly and gloriously – fog or no fog - Austrian!”
How quickly we
forget the Parable of the Sower, the seed sprouts, the words are said (no
matter what the heart believes), and the deal is done…or so we think. Whether
the frontier has been truly crossed is no matter to us, we must move on – it is
enough that the catwalk has been crossed, the fact that it is shortly recrossed
is not our concern.
While I cannot
find the quote at hand, in Mere Christianity Lewis writes of passengers
taking a train from Paris to Berlin (I’m relying on fading memory). As the
train crosses the France – Germany frontier, some passengers are awake and aware
of the crossing, others are asleep and unaware that they’ve crossed from France
to Germany. Whether one is awake or asleep has no bearing on the reality of the
crossing – a frontier has been crossed.
In the case of
Lewis and Phantastes, Lewis knew a frontier had been crossed, taking him
into a new land, indeed a new world that was strange, homely, and humble. He
didn’t know what it meant, he had no thought of Christianity, but he knew something
had happened.
Lewis also
sensed that the purchase of Phantastes was almost unwilling – there was
something moving him to make the purchase, even though he’d passed the book up
on previous occasions.
There is a
chapter in Surprised by Joy titled Check. The penultimate chapter
is titled Checkmate. In Checkmate Lewis writes:
“You must
picture me alone in that room in Magdalen, night after night, feeling whenever my
mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of
Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had a
last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God
was God, and knelt and prayed, perhaps, that night, the most dejected and
reluctant convert in all England.”
The chapter
concludes with these words, “The hardness of God is kinder than the softness of
men, and His compulsion is our liberation.”
The “Other”
which compelled Lewis to purchase and read Phantastes would not leave him
alone, just as He would not leave Saul of Tarsus alone. “It is hard for you to kick
against the goads.” (Acts 26:14).
How is it that
our view of apologetics and evangelism focuses so much on rationalistic evidence and obtaining decisions, rather than
on the Person of Jesus Christ and working in harmony with the Holy Spirit…helping
others to cross that most vital frontier? How is it that on the one hand we
affirm the sovereignty of God, and yet on the other hand tend to take control
of evangelism, often herding others the way Border Collies herd sheep into an
enclosure? Why do we tend not to respect the process of the Holy Spirit?
And let’s make
no mistake, contrary to what many of us have been taught, Jesus is no “gentleman”
quietly waiting for us to ask Him to dance, He is pursuing us with love and passion,
and He intends to checkmate us. In the chapter Checkmate Lewis lays out
the final moves of his match with God.
Checkmate,
however, is not the final chapter in Surprised by Joy, the final chapter
is the first chapter in that it is titled The Beginning. This is akin to
the final chapter in the Narniad; while it is titled Farewell to Shadowlands,
it might also be titled Welcome to Narnia!
“But for them it
was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all
their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last
they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has
read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one
before.” This is how the Narniad ends, and yet this is how it begins, for is not
our Lord Jesus the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End – the Telos?
Lewis records his
crossing of yet another frontier in the chapter The Beginning, “To
accept the Incarnation was a further step in the same direction. It brings God
nearer, or near in a new way. And this, I found, was something I had not wanted.
But to recognize the ground for my evasion was of course to recognize both its
shame and its futility.
“I know very
well when, but hardly how, the final step was taken. I was driven to Whipsnade
one sunny morning. When we set out I did not believe that Jesus Christ is the Son
of God, and when we reached the zoo I did. Yet I had not exactly spent the
journey in thought. Nor in great emotion. “Emotional” is perhaps the last word
we can apply to some of the most important events. It was more like when a man,
after long sleep, still lying motionless in bed, becomes aware that he is now awake.”
Whether through
a wardrobe, or with Ransom in a space capsule, or touching the numinous in The
Problem of Pain, or with Orual and Psyche, or as a tour guide in George
MacDonald – An Anthology, Lewis crosses frontier after frontier, and in doing
so does more than take a catwalk from Germany to Austria, he does more than take
a trip around the world…he moves into the depths of Jesus Christ, going “further
up and further in”.
O dear friends,
our dear Lord Jesus is calling us to know His incredible love and grace and
friendship, to know His joy.
“Then Aslan
turned to them and said, “You do not yet look so happy as I mean you to be.” (The
Last Battle, page 766, one volume edition).
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