Willie Mears: Blog 7

I recently watched the film The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, just after reading the book for the second time. All I can say about the film is that it is a great story, and effectively shows the sacrifice Christ made on the cross through the sacrifice Aslan made for Edmund. What always amazes me about Lewis' writing ability is how he can fit so much information and theology into a book that reads like a children's book. I spent the better part of my sophomore year reading the entire Chronicles and was amazing at how challenging they were to read. Some of the lines that Aslan said really took me back. Although I forget the book there is one time when he is speaking to Lucy and he says "the older you get the bigger I will become," he says that after Lucy was amazed at how much bigger Aslan became since the last time she had seen him. I first read that when I was an 11 year-old and passed over it without realizing any significance, however the second time I read it, as a 20-year old, it was a profound statement. As you get older and the problems of life get more serious, the stresses pile up, and the problems get more real, the bigger you realize God is. The more broken you realize you are and the world is, the more you come to learn you need God, a big God.

Another of my favorite Narnia moments is in the Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the movie stunk, however the scene when Alsan rips the scales off of Eustace and it hurts him a lot is very profound. The scales represent his sin and Aslan ripping them off is God changing the life of a person to make it one that glorifies God. The most profound aspect of that scene is the pain that Eustace must endure. It shows that to change your life is not easy, and it does hurt to leave your life of sin, however God is there and will help you along the way. No matter how difficult it is, he will get you through it.

Now while both of those two things are great, while they are profound, and while they can challenge full-grown adults with how deep they go, the greatest part is that they are in a children's book. The fact that Lewis can take a story that is interesting for kids, and make it challenging to adults is really what is amazing, and the filmmaker of the Cronicles of Narnia does a good job of taking those themes and putting them into the movie.