We Trusted That It Had Been He

Last night I read the chapter from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe about Aslan’s death to a few of my children. In order to appease the Deep Magic and spare the life of Edmund, Aslan let himself be taken by the witch and her followers. He was tied up on the stone table, shaven, and mocked. The climatic moment reads this way: “At last [the witch] drew near. She stood by Aslan’s head. Her face was working and twitching with passion, but his looked up at the sky, still quiet, neither angry nor afraid, but a little sad. Then, just before she gave the blow, she stooped down and said in a quivering voice, ‘And now, who has won? Fool, did you think that by all this you would save the human traitor? Now I will kill you instead of him as our pact was and so the Deep Magic will be appeased. But when you are dead what will prevent me from killing him as well? And who will take him out of my hand then? Understand that you have given me Narnia forever, you have lost your own life and you have not saved his. In that knowledge, despair and die.’” My ten-year-old daughter was shocked that Aslan died and questioned me about it, “I thought he couldn’t die?” Her reaction made me think about those who loved the Savior in mortality and were likewise shocked at his brutal death. Surely most of His followers were overcome with grief and thought that His cause was over, and that feeling was perhaps best put by the two disciples on the road to Emmaus: “But we trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel” (Luke 24:21). They saw His death as a sign that He would not redeem Israel and that He had failed in His mission. In their minds, it was not the way it was supposed to end for the one they believed was the Messiah and who had so triumphantly entered Jerusalem just a few days before. Likewise, my daughter couldn’t understand how Aslan in the book could be killed—wasn’t He the one who was in control of everything? But she soon understood when I read how Aslan rose from the stone table again and was once more alive. And similarly, it was only through the resurrection of the Savior that His disciples could truly understand how He had not failed but rather gloriously accomplished His redeeming mission.

                One of the things that struck me as I read this story last night was the description of how Aslan went so willingly to be killed despite the fact that he was more powerful than all those who were there to take his life. One description reads this way, “‘Bind him, I say!’ repeated the White Witch. The Hags made a dart at him and shrieked with triumph when they found that he made no resistance at all. Then others—evil dwarfs and apes—rushed in to help them, and between them they rolled the huge Lion over on his back and tied all his four paws together, shouting and cheering as if they had done something brave, though, had the Lion chosen, one of those paws could have been the death of them all. But he made no noise, even when the enemies, straining and tugging, pulled the cords so tight that they cut into his flesh…. ‘Muzzle him!’ said the Witch. And even now, as they worked about his face putting on the muzzle, one bite from his jaws would have cost two or three of them their hands. But he never moved. And this seemed to enrage all that rabble. Everyone was at him now.” He was more powerful than them all, but he allowed himself to be taken and killed in order to save Edmund’s life. The kind of self-restraint it would require to have such power and not use it to prevent personal torment is beyond comprehension. And, of course, this is symbolic of the Savior who said to Peter when the apostle tried to stop his arrest: “Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword. Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then shall the scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be?” (Matthew 26:52-54) When He was on the cross, some mocked Him saying, “He saved others; himself he cannot save. If he be the King of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him” (Matthew 27:42). The determination it would take to not use powers that were His to do just that is incredible. He had said previously, “I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself” (John 10:17-18). So to say that He was killed is not a totally accurate statement according to these words; rather, we should speak of how He willingly gave up His life to save us all. As the Living Christ puts it, “He gave His life to atone for the sins of all mankind. His was a great vicarious gift in behalf of all who would ever live upon the earth.”