Blog 604 – 04.16.2017
An Old Story Ever New

It was one of the first writers that really captured my interest, C.S. Lewis, that really opened up my mind to a Universe far bigger, brighter, and bolder than the tiny box of belief, superstition, and dogma that I had accepted as fact. Lewis is most famous for his children’s books, The Chronicles of Narnia, and then there is his space trilogy, and The Srewtape Letters, but I cut my teeth on his theology books, Mere Christianity, The Problem With Pain, and a host of others. I recommend his little book The Great Divorce to everyone. When I first started reading Lewis in college I had to read his books with a dictionary close by to look up all the words that a poor boy from Tennessee had never heard or read before. I like to think of C.S. Lewis as one of my favorite college professors. He was one but died on my thirteenth birthday so I never had the privilege of attending one of his classes. But I have read every word of his that I have been able to find in print and a number of his books several times.

I said all that about one of my great literary heroes to lead into a theme Lewis uses in several of his theological books he calls it, the story or the legend of the Corn King. It is the same basic story as the Christian story of Jesus about a god who dies forhis people, who gives up his life for their healing, to remove the curse against their, bodies, their babies, and their crops. His death always comes in the nick of time to save them. It is a story that predates Christianity and there is some version of it in all cultures which lead Lewis to believe there is a great central truth behind the legend – that God loves His/Her Creation enough to die for it. Why even the four seasons are a continual object lesson in birth, life, death, and resurrection from the dead.

In the recent movie adaptation of the best selling book, The Shack, the main character Mac is goaded by his two teenaged children to stop at Multnomah Falls on their way to a weekend campground to tell his little girl Missy the legend of how the falls came into being. On the bridge mid-way down the falls with a tremendous view of the falling water Mac begins the First People legend of the falls’ beginning. A great sickness had come over the people and many were taken by it and the holy man of the tribe gave a prophesy that unless someone by choice sacrificed their life that all the people would perish.  The high chief’s young daughter loved her people and early one morning climbed to the top of a steep rock cliff and jumped off to save her people. The people began to recover immediately and the chief was sad because his daughter was missing. He cried great tears and asked the Great Spirit to remember his daughter’s sacrifice for her people and water began to fall from the spot where she had leaped to her death.

That evening before she fell asleep Missy asked her dad, Mac, if he thought Papa, her mama’s nick name for God, was the Great Spirit in the story. Tactfully Mac said well God is great and he is a spirit. Missy also went on to ask if the legend of the princess was true and he said it might be. Legends are often based in truth. His teenaged daughter chimed in that the story of Jesus is not a legend. Though at that point not a strong believer himself he again tactfully responded that it was in the Bible so it must be true. Missy then said she thought God was mean to make Jesus and the princess die. Mac said they chose to die. Missy asked if God would ever ask her to die like that and he said, “No, Honey.” Missy older sister then added as Missy fell asleep, “She asks good questions, huh Dad?” Mac says, “She sure does.”

The Shack is a wonderful story with many wonderful scenes. Since today is Easter and the remembrance of another of God’s great love stories I share but one other scene from the movie where Papa when accused of deserting Missy and Jesus rolls up her sleeve to reveal a a scar just above her wrist, “Don’t you ever believe that what my son did, did not cost us both dearly. Love always leaves a mark… Mac your biggest problem is that you don’t believe that I am good. I am.”
The old story ever new has been told countless times and in countless ways. Do you remember where you were when you first heard it, believed it, and allowed it to awaken that sleeping part of you? If you haven’t heard it yet you will for it is whispered on the gentlest breeze, shouted in the ragging storm, echoes in the eyes of a child, and shines with every sun rise and set, and the twinkling of ever star. Whether you hear the long or short version, the message is always clear, “I’m gonna love you like nobody’s loved you come rain or come shine – always have and always will.” And as a certain detective used to say when making a sure point, “You can take that to the bank.”

Your friend and fellow traveler,
David White