GLEANINGS — February 9, A.D. 2014                                                                                                              "In Memory of Jack"

Jack was the nickname of Clive Staples L., usually known as C.S. Lewis – the twentieth century Christian author who penned Mere Christianity and The Screwtape Letters. He created the imaginary land of "Narnia" in his books for children. The Holy Spirit used his friend and fellow writer of powerful imagination, J.R.R. Tolkien, to call Jack to Christ. His death occured peacefully on the same day that another Jack, namely President John F. Kennedy, was violently assasinated. That coincidence put the passing of this very popular, influential, and beloved Christian author onto the back pages of media news coverage.

In his book Surprised by Joy, Lewis wrote that he "...admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England." So it is not surprising that this former a-Theist's literature emphasizes home-spun but powerful apologetics and delightful Christocentric fiction. The citizens of Narnia love and fear King Aslan, the talking lion who represents the living and true King of kings, Jesus the Lion of the tribe of Judah. In his Perelandra trilogy of novels, a character named Ransom is the Christ-like friend of angelic beings who deals a crushing blow to the forces of evil. 

Although he held to the orthodoxy articulated in Scriptural texts such as Deuteronomy 32:39, Isaiah 43:11, Jeremiah 10:10, John 14:6, Acts 4:12, 1 Corinthians 8:4, and 1 John 5:20,21 Jack believed that the ancient pagan world's myths about fantastic mighty men and demi-gods who triumphed against overwhelming opposition find their archetype; their ultimate root and source, in the Truth about Christ Jesus and His salvation. Since God spoke His promise of redemption to the recently lapsed, first parents of all humanity, this is reasonable. Why?

Well, of course only the holy Bible infallibly records that covenant promise (cf. Genesis ch. 3, especially verse 15) and its unfolding in history. Yet, like the almost universal preservation among the tribes of mankind of the ordinary week, that measurement of time which is not by the rule of heavenly luminaries...like the corrupted accounts of a world wide flood found among most of the world's ancient societies...even so this primeval hope of a conquering redeemer and crusher of the serpent's head echoed down through the ages by way of myth. Redemptive triumph remains one of the great themes of movies and other modern forms of story telling as well.

To Jack, ballads about brave heroes who "save the day," who defeat an evil antagonist despite the wounds and setbacks they experience in the battle, who win the heart of the heroine and take her to live with him happily ever after are all echoes and whispers of bedrock reality. There is a real and solid Hope for all the nations which try to satisfy their deepest spiritual need with fictional, powerless wraiths and shadows that cannot save.

The Gospel of Christ of course is that bedrock Truth and solid Reality. In it the Son of God is the genuine Hero. Filled with love and compassion as He sees her languishing in the prison tower of guilt and sin, He is the Prince of Peace Who departs from His Father's side and goes forth to war for the sake of His lady love, His elect bride. He despises the shame of the cross and fearlessly descends into inconceivable pain and death because of His unfathomable love. Holy Spirit inspired Gospel writer Mark, with a divine forcefulness greater than any myth could provide, opens his sacred book with Jesus Christ's sudden appearance on the earthly theatre of His cosmic battle with the enemy. He wins a first and very important victory, but the battle rages on. 

Just when it appears that the suffering Hero has been vanquished by a mortal blow, when it seems that all hope is lost, His glorious resurrection makes it clear that His bruise was but an ankle wound in comparison to the fatal crushing of the enemy's head which He accomplished by His suffering, death, and rising. The elect lady is saved to the uttermost, and all in the Prince's court rejoice as He returns victorious to His rightful throne at His Father's right hand.

And beginnng with the great marriage supper of the Lamb, Christ and His bride live happily ever after!