If you’re visiting with us today let me get you up to speed by telling you that this year I’m basing my advent messages on the Scriptural truths that are contained in C. S. Lewis’ best-selling book, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. There are two reasons for this particular preaching slant. First, this little book is the Christ story in a nutshell, so it’s a great way to illustrate the timeless truths that surround His birth. And the second reason I’m doing this is to take advantage of a unique teachable moment that has been made available due to the recent release of the Disney film that is based on Lewis’ book.
I’m spotlighting all this by calling our study The Chronicles of Christmas and today we come to the third “chronicle” in this series as we rejoin the four Pevensie children in their adventure. When we left the story last week you may remember that the two youngest children, Lucy and Edmund, had just exited Narnia, but Edmund had lied to the other two about being there. Remember how mean he was to his little sister?
Well his lie is exposed fairly soon because a few days later, in an attempt to avoid Mrs. McReady, all four of the Pevensie children slip inside the wardrobe. And as they scoot back to hide behind all the coats that hang there they suddenly find themselves in the Narnian forest-all four of them.
Well, after chiding Edmund for his recent meanness to his little sister they meet a talking beaver who takes them to his house and tells them more about Aslan and the situation in Narnia. As they talk and plan they enjoy a home-cooked meal, thanks to Mrs. Beaver’s great cooking, but when they begin to clear the dishes they look around and realize that Edmund is gone. He’s slipped away when they weren’t looking and made his way to the witch’s castle, where, in an attempt to get the power she promised him, not to mention more of that addictive turkish delight, he tells the wicked queen all he knows about his siblings’ plans and Aslan’s whereabouts.
But much to his chagrin, instead of making him a prince and giving him more of that magical candy his tummy has been yearning for, the witch is very cruel to Edmund and makes him her prisoner. Plus, all she feeds him is stale bread and water. Then, once she has gleaned all the information she can from him she starts to kill him, but at the last minute several of Aslan’s soldiers swoop in, rescue him, and take him back to their camp.
The next morning Peter, Susan, and Lucy rise to see Edmund talking to Aslan, who forgives him for his treachery and then re-unites the prodigal with his siblings telling them that what’s done is done and that there is no need to talk with Edmund about his past. So Aslan is a grace-driven lion!
Well, shortly thereafter the wicked Queen herself comes to Aslan’s camp under a flag of truce and demands Edmund’s life for his treachery. She says, “The deep magic on which Narnia was created says that every traitor belongs to me as my lawful prey and for every treachery I have a right to kill. That human creature is mine. His life is forfeit to me. His blood is my property.”
Of course this part of Lewis’ story reflects a scriptural truth; we talked about it last week. As Romans 6:23 says, “The wages of sin is death.” And since we are all sinners, in a very real sense we are in the same boat Edmund is in at this point. Our sin put’s us all under a curse; because of it we all face a death sentence.
Well, Aslan asks to meet with the witch alone, and after their private conversation she leaves and Aslan tells the Pevensies, “I have settled the matter. She has renounced the claim on your brother’s blood.”
In spite of this good news, that night the two sisters can’t sleep and they decide to go and talk to Aslan, but they notice him leaving the camp and they ask to accompany him. He allows them to do so for awhile, saying he could use the company. It’s obviously an agonizing journey for Aslan, not unlike the agony Jesus endured in the Garden prior to His arrest and crucifixion.
After a while Aslan asks the girls to stop and go with him no further. But, instead of returning to camp they hide and watch to see what happens. From their vantage point they see Aslan approach the stone table. The witch is there with all manner of demons. The sisters look on, perplexed as Aslan allows himself to be bound and shaved. And then they watch in horror as the queen lifts her cruel knife high and then plunges it through Aslan’s heart, killing him.
You see, in their private conversation earlier Aslan had agreed to give his life for the life of Edmund. He died on the great stone table for Edmund’s sin. Sound familiar?
A few days ago Sue and I were watching Good Morning America and since Disney is ABC’s parent company, they were of course doing a segment about the Narnia film. Charlie Gibson interviewed the four children who play the parts of the Pevensie kids and he commented that he had read the book and that in his opinion it contained a “subtle Christian theme.”
I thought, “Charlie, you either haven’t read the book, or you don’t understand the Christian faith because there’s nothing subtle about the illustration of Christ’s sacrifice in this story. It’s very clear!”
If you doubt this then, keep the scene I have just described in your minds and listen as I read our text for this morning.
Romans 3:23 – All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
24 – and are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.
25 – God presented Him as a Sacrifice of atonement, through faith in His blood.
Romans 5:6 – At just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.
7 – Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die.
8 – But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Okay, what do you think? How many see the sacrifice of Jesus paralleled in Lewis’ story? I mean, is this part of the Narnia tale a subtle reference to our Christian faith? Of course not, because foundational to the Christmas story is this fact that Jesus was born to die. He came into our world to die as an innocent sacrifice for our sins. You’d have to be blind to miss this parallel. It’s very obvious in so many aspects.
For example, as the song says, Jesus could have called down ten thousand angels, but like the powerful lion, Aslan, He willingly laid down His life. Aslan allowed his mane to be cut off, an illustration of the fact that Jesus, like a lamb before his shearers is silent, opened not His mouth.
Now, as I said, in Lewis’ book Aslan dies, but the next day he rises from the dead, just as our Savior did on the third day. And when he does, Lucy and Susan ask what this means. I mean, not only do they wonder how he’s alive, they wonder how this affects the enforcement of the old “magic” that the queen referenced when she came to their camp. And, Aslan replies,
“Though the witch knew the Deep Magic, there is a magic deeper still which she did not know. You see, her knowledge goes back only to the dawn of Time. But if she could have looked a little further back, into the stillness and the darkness before time dawned, she would have read there a different incantation. She would have known that when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor’s stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backwards.”
This part of the story serves to remind us of a very important aspect of Christmas. You see, Christmas didn’t begin that night of nights in Bethlehem; no, it started long before that. In fact, back in the Garden of Eden right after the fall that we read about last Sunday, God foretold a coming Deliver’s victory over evil as He cursed the serpent and told Him that this coming Redeemer would, “…crush your head.” (Genesis 3:15) So Christmas began long before Jesus was born in that stable.
Max Lucado writes,
“The journey to the cross in Jerusalem didn’t begin in Jericho. It didn’t begin in Galilee. It didn’t begin in Nazareth. It didn’t even begin in Bethlehem. The journey to the cross began long before. As the echo of the crunching of the fruit was still sounding in the Garden of Eden, Jesus was leaving for Calvary.”
But as Lewis alludes in his book, the Christmas story began even farther back than that horrible day in Eden. You see it started before creation itself, way back to before the dawn of time. As Revelation 13:8 says, Jesus Christ is, “…the Lamb that was slain before the foundation of the world.”
In other words Jesus’ birth, life, sacrificial death, and victorious resurrection was “programmed” into the creation of this world. It’s one of the lesser known natural laws. To use Lewis’ terminology, the Christ story was part of the “deeper magic,” part of the original blueprints of this universe. So you see, Christmas is the story of Jesus supreme sacrifice planned even before the dawn of time.
Now, in the New Testament there are several terms to help us understand the significance of Christ’s sacrifice. Let’s review them. Think of this as a basic theology lesson.
(A) First, Jesus’ sacrificial death is referred to as the atonement for our sin.
As we read in Romans 3:25, “God presented [Jesus] as a Sacrifice of atonement, through faith in His blood.” Well, “atonement” basically means a bringing together of those who were estranged, making peace between two separated parties, making them “at one” again. And the fact is, due to our sin, we were estranged from God. You see, God is Holy-perfect-and we are not. As I told you last week none of us even come close.
Well the Bible teaches that God hates sin. So the fact that we are sinners who willfully sin in thought, word, deed-and even our inaction-this puts us in opposition to God’s holy nature. Our sin separates us from Him. And more than that: you see, in essence our sin makes us God’s enemy.
R. C. Sproul writes,
“The natural enemy of the sinner is One Who is holy, and not only holy, but powerful, and not only powerful but just, and not only just but omniscient, and not only omniscient but immutably so.”
Well as Ephesians 2:13-14 tell us, we who were once separated from God, “…we who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ. For He Himself is our peace, Who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility…”
Romans 5:10 puts it this way, “When we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to Him through the death of His Son.”
Hebrews 10:14 says, “With one Sacrifice, He made perfect forever those who are being made holy.”
You see, the death of Jesus did away with the cause of God’s enmity toward us, by taking away our sins. God has always loved us-and still does. But His wrath, which is basically a fixed, permanent attitude against evil, God’s wrath has been turned away from us because of the cross of Christ.
Quoting Max Lucado again,
“Ponder the achievement of God. He doesn’t condone our sin, nor does He compromise His standard. He doesn’t ignore our rebellion; nor does He relax His demands. Rather than dismiss our sin, He assumes our sin and, incredibly, sentences Himself. God’s holiness is honored. Our sin is punished. And we are redeemed. God is still God. The wages of sin is still death. And we are made perfect. [In His great mercy,] God does what we cannot do so we can be what we dare not dream, perfect before God.”
(B) Another word we find used in the Scripture to describe Jesus’ sacrifice is ransom.
In fact, this is the word Jesus Himself used to define His death on our behalf. In Mark 10:45 our Lord said, “The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, .and to give His life as a ransom for many.” 1 Timothy 2:6 says, “Christ gave Himself as a ransom for all men.”
Now, “ransom” is a word that was used in Greek to refer to the price paid for redeeming a slave, the amount of money paid to release a slave from bondage to his or her master. And in a very real sense Jesus’ death paid the ransom for us. As 1 Peter 1:18-19 says, “It is not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed, but with the precious blood of Christ a lamb without blemish or defect.”
So Jesus’ sacrifice redeemed us, redeemed us from bondage to sin. It freed us from both the fear of death, and also from the fear of life. I say this because as I told you last week, our total depravity makes it impossible for us on our own not to sin. But when we accept Jesus’ forgiveness and invite Him into our lives, He comes inside in the form of His Holy Spirit, and when He does He gives us the power to say no to sin. Our fallen desires no longer need control us.
Paul talked about this repeatedly. In Romans 6:6-7 he says, “For we know that our old self was crucified with Him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.”
In Galatians 2:20 he writes, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, Who loved me and gave Himself for me."
In Philippians 4:13 he says, “I can do everything through Him Who gives me strength.”
Paul said all this under the inspiration of the Spirit of God to remind us that in paying the ransom for our sins, Jesus freed us from lives of sin, empowering us to say no to temptation. I’m not saying Christians are perfect-we’re not-but when we ask our Lord to help us say no to sinful desires, the power of His resurrection is put at out disposal.
So to review: the Bible tells us that through His sacrificial death Jesus was the atonement for our sins, and that He was also the ransom paid to redeem us.
C. But my favorite word to describe this aspect of the Christmas story is substitution.
I mean, in the same way that Aslan died as a substitute for Edmund, Jesus died as a substitute for you and me.
1 Peter 3:18 says, “For Christ died for sins once for all, the Righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.”
2 Corinthians 5:21 says, “God made Him Who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.”
1 Peter 2:24 says, “He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by His wounds you have been healed.”
Well, all these texts proclaim the amazing truth that in His grace Jesus was our substitute. He died for us. Try to picture this in your mind’s eye. God is on the throne. You and I are on the earth. And between you and heaven is Christ on His cross. Lucado says,
“Our sins-yours and mine-have been placed on Jesus. God, Who punishes sin, releases His rightful wrath on your mistakes. Jesus receives the blow. Since Christ is between you and God, you don’t. The sin is punished but you are safe-safe in the shadow of the cross.”
Now, once we experience Jesus’ forgiveness-once we truly understand all this basic theology and realize what it is that Jesus has done for us, that He has made it possible for us to be reconciled to God, that He has set us free from sin and death, that He died in our place-well when we understand all this, our response should be to want to give back.
As 2 Corinthians 5:14-15 says when we become, “…convinced that One died for all, we who live should no longer live for ourselves, but for Him who died for us and was raised again.”
Let me put it this way: once we understand that Jesus died for us, our response should be to live for him. As that old Degarmo and Key song lyric goes, “He died for me. I’ll live for Him.” When we come to grips with Jesus’ sacrifice on our behalf we learn to echo His prayer in the Garden and say, “From now on God, not my will, but Thine be done.”
This past Sunday night Sue and I watched Extreme Make Over-Home Edition as we often do on Sundays and, as usual it was a great show. We cried off an on for an hour. Well, this particular episode featured people the Extreme Make Over crew had helped in the past and the theme of the show was the fact that those who had been helped had responded by wanting to help others. For example, there was a U.S. veteran of the war in Iraq who had lost his leg. Several months ago Ty Pennington and his crew had re-built his home to be more handicap accessible and this vet wanted to do the same for another vet who had lost both his legs.So the first vet got a crew together and renovated his home in a record 48 hours!
A single mom in New Orleans who had been the recipient of an Extreme Make Over home wanted to help her neighbors who had lost everything in Hurricane Katrina. So Sears brought in tons of new clothes and you could see the joy on her face as she shared all this new stuff with the people of New Orleans. First lady, Laura Bush, even came to help distribute the clothes.
And the last one really got to me. It centered around a teen who has an illness that makes her very susceptible to sunlight. This teenage girl had been helped by the crew. Months ago, they had custom built her a house that would protect her from solar radiation, including an outdoor pool covered with special awnings, so she could enjoy being outside. Well, her response was to want to help other kids who had the same illness in even more extreme forms-kids who are literally allergic to the sun-I mean, it’s deadly to them. So they opened Disney World from dusk to dawn just for these kids, dozens of them.
Usually these kids had to wear tons of sun-screen and clothing from head to toe and sunglasses or goggles. But not on this night. No, for 12 hours they laughed and played like normal kids, without a care in the world.
Well, as you can see, each of these people who had been helped responded by wanting to help others. And that’s the way it should be when we fully understand what Jesus has done for us. When we comprehend His sacrifice on our behalf we should respond by in essence continuing the Christmas story as we sacrifice to further the kingdom of God.
We must understand this principle because as Charles Swindoll says, “No other discipline is more closely associated with the mission of Jesus Christ than sacrifice.” To help us in understanding this let’s remind ourselves of two basic facts.
(1) First, personal sacrifice is our calling as Christians.
In fact it is the heart of authentic Christianity. As Jesus said, “If anyone would come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me. Freely you have received; freely give.” (Matthew 16:24; 10:8) So you see, Jesus plainly taught that sacrifice-giving back-is the inevitable companion of any fully devoted follower. Think of it this way: Christianity was birthed in sacrifice, and that is the way it is lived out.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes,
“To endure the cross is not a tragedy; it is the suffering which is the fruit of an exclusive allegiance to Jesus Christ. When it comes, it is not an accident, but a necessity. It is not the sort of suffering which is inseparable from this mortal life, but the suffering which is an essential part of the specifically Christian life.”
Well, Bonhoeffer is right because when follow our calling and live for Christ-when we work to further His kingdom-we will face hardship that requires us to make sacrifices. And the reason this is always so is because we are working in an imperfect world, a fallen world, that is hostile to the One we follow. As Christians living for Jesus we must remember we are doing so in alien territory, behind enemy lines so to speak. We’re working in a world that is dead set against Jesus’ success. So, this is why anyone who truly follows Jesus is sure to have a cross to bear.
John Calvin put it this way. He said,
“Whenever baptism is mentioned, let us recollect that we were baptized on this condition, and for this purpose, that the cross may be attached to our shoulders.”
In his book, Authentic Faith, Gary Thomas says that as his daughter, Kelsey, came up out of the baptismal pool, he placed a cross necklace around her neck. He did so not only as a gift to mark this important decision, but to remind her that making Jesus truly Lord in this fallen world of ours involves cross-bearing.
The two go together. Any faith-walk with Jesus will involve the discipline of sacrifice. This leads to the second thing we need to remember as Christ-followers:
(2) By its very nature personal sacrifice is costly, but it is more than worth it.
Think of it this way: sacrifice is an investment of sorts. It is our voluntary choice to pay a price, to give up one thing for the sake of something that we know is much better.
For example: We sacrifice eating all we want in order to lose weight and live longer. We sacrifice time spent on the golf course or vegging out in front of the TV in order to spend quality time with our kids. We sacrifice part of our income in order to save enough to retire in Florida some day.
Well, this principle of sacrifice is also found in the Christ life as well. You see, truly devoted followers of Jesus have learned that anything we sacrifice for Jesus is well worth it. It is costly, but is indeed a wise investment because any price we pay to further the kingdom of God yields things of eternal value. Sacrifice is a way of doing things here in order to “…lay up for ourselves treasures in Heaven where moth and rust do not corrupt and where thieves do not break in and steal.”
This week I attended a General Mission Board Meeting in Columbia and a member of one of the disaster relief teams from our state came to report on his work. He was an older, retired gentleman named Bob and he had worked in New Orleans and then in Massachusetts with some of the relocated refugees of Katrina and in Florida with the people who suffered because of Hurricane Wilma. He described the back-breaking work these teams of believers do. They work in a special-equipped trailer serving tens of thousands of meals a day, days that begin at 3:30am and often don’t end until 8:30pm. And understand, they sacrifice their vacation times to do this.
People like Bob even give up their retirement, weeks at a time, golden days of rest that retirement is supposed to be full of. I mean it is an unbelievable sacrifice of time and energy. But Bob testified that it was more than worth it, not only because of the good feeling you get when you help people, but because inevitably someone he served would come up to him and ask, “Bob, why do you guys do this? Why do you work so hard to feed us and help us?”
At this point this beloved old gentleman teared up as he told us of the joy that he experienced each time he answered this question by telling someone about the love of Jesus. I think he would do this back-breaking work until he dropped dead from exhaustion because that sacrifice gave him the invaluable opportunity to lead someone to the Lord.
There were about 70 of us at that meeting and by the end of Bob’s report all of us were dabbing our eyes. And you know what else? We were all yearning to pay the same sacrifice he paid as a disaster relief volunteer. As many of you who have gone through this training know, Bob and his fellow crew members all wear yellow hats as part of their uniform and by the time he was done we all wanted to wear one of those hats because we saw the value of his sacrifice. You see disciples like old Bob realize that without Jesus his life is meaningless, and the best we can hope for in our brief life-span is to acquire some earthly things, things that will ultimately slip through our fingers anyway.
But Bob also knows that when we give God our lives-when we sacrifice our time and talents to Him and His purposes-we gain things of eternal value. As missionary martyr Jim Elliot said, we sacrifice something temporary here for something eternally better later. We give what we cannot keep to gain what we cannot lose.
Now, what exactly does Christian sacrifice involve?
(1) Well, it could involve suffering and even death.
And the often forgotten truth is Christians around the world are even now called on to make this supreme sacrifice. In fact there are more people dying as martyrs in this season of church history than in all the other seasons combined.
(2) But you and me-usually we aren’t required to die for our faith. Instead, we are called on to be living sacrifices.
Do you remember Paul’s plea in Romans 12:1? “I urge you, brothers-I plea with you-in view of God’s mercy, offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God. This is your spiritual act of worship.”
Now, why would Paul have to “plea” here? Well, the reason he does is because being a living sacrifice doesn’t come naturally or easily or automatically. I mean, when people sacrifice, they’re usually not doing it on a whim. As I said a moment ago, sacrifice costs, it hurts. It works against our natural inclinations to keep a tight hold on our possessions and creature comforts. So Paul has to plea with us to go against our sinful instincts and commit to become “living martyrs” doing everything as a deliberate act of submission to God.
As Swindoll puts it, “This path leads to our becoming a living, breathing sacrifice-dead to anything the Master hates, devoted to everything He loves.”
Let me put it this way. An authentic Christian life is a life in which I commit to constantly say “no” to me and “yes” to God. Here’s some examples of how this might sound.
- “I want to get even with that guy; I want to teach him a lesson. But it doesn’t matter what I want God. It only matters what You want. I’ll treat him the way You want me to. I’ll repay his harshness with kindness.”
- Or, “I’m tired of struggling financially. I could cut just a couple of corners here and relieve some of the pressure and no one would ever know. But God, it’s not about what I want. It’s about what You want. I’ll do the right thing.”
- Or, “God he’s not a Christian, but he’s handsome and successful and fun to be with. I don’t see what damage could be done by going out with him. But it doesn’t matter what I want. It matters what You want. I’ll be obedient and trust You to bring the right person in my life.”
Do you see what I’m saying? When we truly understand Jesus’ sacrifice for us, we commit every day to the sacrifice of a consistent, Christ-honoring lifestyle. And please understand, this is a constant sacrifice, one that means integrity in every area of our life. It means saying no to evil allurements; no to compromise. It means saying no to sensual temptations, unethical opportunities for gain, day in and day out, month in and month out, year in and year out.
It means giving your day-to-day life-all of your life-to Jesus-all your dreams, your desires, your hopes, your plans-everything that is within you. Being a Christian involves giving your career to God. It’s giving Him your marriage, your child-rearing, your free-time. It’s sacrificing to Him your desires when it comes to the way you handle your finances, the way you choose and then treat your friends and on and on. It encompasses every aspect of your life every minute of your day.
And you know this kind of sacrifice is incredibly rewarding. I mean, believe it or not, even when we give our all to God, we get back far more than we give. This constant dying to self is literally abundant living.
But the living variety of sacrifice is also incredibly powerful because when people see a consistent, living sacrifice kind of lifestyle they pay attention. They listen. A perfect example of this is Billy Graham and his wife, Ruth. These people have paid the price of Christian consistency in their ministry for over 60 years, more than a half-century of being living sacrifices, decades of resisting temptation, compromise, the seductions of the world, a life time of developing and expressing compassion and servanthood and humility.
One of the reasons why I believe God is using the Grahams so powerfully still today as octogenarians is because they have just sort of worn people down. People think, it’s worked for this couple for 60 years, it’s got to be real. I need to investigate this Jesus deal.
Well, how about you Christian? Are you a consistent living sacrifice?
Why not decide today, that with God’s help, you are going to wear down every cynic and every doubter in your life whether it be a co-worker or friend or family member? Why not commit this Christmas to give God the only gift He wants from you, your everyday life. Why not determine to live a high-integrity, high-compassion, high-sacrifice, Christ-honoring life, each day, when you’re around the church, when you’re around your home, when you’re at school, when you’re at work?
Now, as you think about that, let me remind you that this part of our sanctuary is called an altar and these closing moments of our service each week are really a time of sacrifice. This is a time for us to respond to what we have learned by sacrificing our will to God.
So, as we sing our hymn of decision, why not come forward and kneel here at the altar and pray to God and commit any part of your life to Him that is not completely his. I’ll be glad to pray with you if you like.
God may be leading some of you to come forward and give your life to Him to use as members of this church. Others may have never responded to Christ’s sacrifice on the cross-if that describes you, then don’t wait any longer. Accept Jesus as your Savior and commit today to follow Him as Lord.