There must be more than this…

Recently, a planet called Kepler-10b has been in the news – it’s about 1.4 times the size of Earth, and pretty much the first of its kind to be discovered – a similar sized ‘rocky’ planet to ours. Its discovery suggests that there are other planets out there that are of the same sort of size, and if we discover one which isn’t quite so close to its star as Kepler-10b (its surface temperature is around 1300 degrees Celsius) we may have discovered another place in the universe capable of supporting life.

It’s really quite exciting, especially for the physicists of our generation.

Before I start getting all geeky, I’ll return to the subject of the post. It hit me today that we are constantly searching for something more than there already is – we look to space to find distant phenomena or signs of life, we look more deeply into the structures that make us up (at places like CERN) to find out exactly what is going on. We’re massively curious about everything.

C.S. Lewis had some very interesting things to say about this in Mere Christianity - ‘If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.’ Hold on, you might say, science will satisfy my desire to know more about everything…

I firmly believe that this is not the case. However far science advances toward the total enlightenment, there will always be something that we haven’t quite got our heads around, and when we manage that we’ll realise that we don’t quite understand something else…and so on.

So often, we find ourselves in a place where all we are concerned with is this world and the issues we face here. I’m not in any way belittling this – the past few days have seen some rough things thrown up for many people around me. I’m thinking of things such as poverty, war, the price of petrol, the economic situation – you know the drill.

Someone said to me tonight (about some of those issues), ‘It’s fairly clear no-one is or can do anything about it or they would have by now.’

After having thought about that for a little while, I realised that actually that’s dead true. What a brilliant point! Well, not exactly, the point is, someone can do something about it, and He has!

The death of Jesus solved everything, because Jesus’ death was not on the same level as the worries and cares we have on earth. Jesus’ death was about defeating Satan, death and hell once and for all. If we can grab hold of this, then nothing else matters!

Of course, that’s a ridiculous thing to say. And it’s not true – of course what happens on earth matters. God cares deeply about this planet and the lives of those on it, and He’s done something there – it’s called the church. The church is the hope of the world – it is God’s plan A and He doesn’t have a plan B. It’s worthy of another post but in short, the church is responsible for being a worldwide, radical movement, seeking to turn society upside-down and inside-out. The gospel is only half about our personal relationship with God – the other half is about the world and what we are doing.

But get this – and it’s pretty simple – it doesn’t matter what happens to us if our lives are secure with Christ. Even death can’t keep us, because death isn’t the end of anything!

Thinking about God’s plan and solution makes me realise how much we often miss the point. There is more than this, there is more than us – we can worry all day about what is happening in the world and think that there’s no fixing it… But God’s solution takes a different line. He doesn’t tackle the problems of the world as they are, He makes a way for every individual to be saved, regardless of their situation, sex, race, age or abilities. God’s solution is concerned with a bigger picture than we often see.

I do hope this post isn’t too all over the place… Most of it is still very fresh in my mind. I’ll leave you with these words of Jesus:

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” - Matthew 6:25-34, NIV.

We must keep our eyes fixed on God’s kingdom and His righteousness, for that is what is important. When all else fades, He remains.

May the Lord bless you
and keep you;
may the LORD make His face shine on you
and be gracious to you;
may the LORD turn his face toward you
and give you peace. (Numbers 6:24-26, NIV).

Behold, I make all things new

I’ve just got home from seeing the latest motion picture installment in The Chronicles of Narnia - The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

I had heard before I went that it wasn’t quite as good as the previous films, lacking in a decent plot and resurrecting old characters, such as the White Witch, to improve its continuity with The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe and Prince Caspian.On one level, I would agree with this assessment. While the first two films had deep, well rounded plots  and inspiring characters, this one seemed more of a hopeless children’s reinvention of The Pirates of the Carribbean.

Part of this came from the vast amount of plot and storyline from the book that never made its way into the film. This is strange – the final cut only reached 115 minutes – as I am sure that there was room for a little more. I was left unsatisfied with many of the subplots surrounding the various islands encountered – for example, the storyline of the one-legged ‘Dufflepuds’ was left open and unresolved. This was a shame – it is one of the main things that I remember from reading the book, however many years ago that was. Although I am willing to admit that this may be a matter of personal preference rather than true analysis.

Despite this easy criticism, I must stress that I thoroughly enjoyed the film, and there were two distinct moments which left me reeling in wonder and awe. I was so excited that these aspects of the film were in there, because they really made it all worth it.

The first of these was where Eustace Scrubb (the new protagonist introduced for this chapter) is changed back from being a dragon to human form. Aslan is of course the instigator of this change. This was very similar to the part in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe where the Narnians who had been made into stone by the White Witch are returned to their normal states by the Lion’s great roar. For some reason, in this film I felt  a much greater sense of Aslan’s glory and power; the title of this post is exactly what it made me think of. Eustace is a beautiful metaphor for the old being made new; for me every inch of the screen was shouting, ‘Behold, I make all things new!’ This scene will stay with me from this film – goosebumps all over for a while afterwards.

Yet the second of those moments was even greater. At the very end of the film, Edmund, Lucy, Caspian, Eustace and Reepicheep make their way to the shores of Aslan’s country, where he meets them. In the book, Lewis describes Aslan as transforming into a lion from a lamb, (who, in one of the most wonderfully meaningful sentences from the whole seven chronicles, had earlier invited the four humans to, ‘Come and have breakfast,’ the very words Jesus spoke to His disciples on the shores of the lake after His resurrection), further showing him to be analogous to Jesus. The dialogue that followed was the absolute climax of the film for me – it was straight from the book, which goes as follows:

‘You are too old, children,’ said Aslan, ‘and you must begin to come close to your own world now.’
‘It isn’t Narnia, you know,’ sobbed Lucy. ‘It’s you. We shan’t meet you there. And how can we live, never meeting you?’
‘But you shall meet me, dear one,’ said Aslan.
‘Are – are you there too, Sir?’ said Edmund.
‘I am,’ said Aslan. ‘But there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there.‘ - C.S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawntreader (1952), p. 188.

I nearly jumped out of my seat! Praise God that such an amazing witness to Christ be in a multi-million pound motion picture, broadcast around the world to millions upon millions of eager viewers. Our God is amazing!

Aslan is one of the greatest literary heroes ever conceived. And what greater hero could he be based upon? For Jesus Christ is our hero, the One who saves the world from death. And we eagerly await the day when, at the end of all things, He makes all things new. (Revelation 21:5).