Our Last Battle (9)

 Nine – The Turn

Alone, abandoned, tied to a tree, struggling with doubts and fears, reflecting back on all he had ever heard about Aslan and the history of Narnia, pondering the tales of children from another world, Tirian arrives at a forlorn hope. Even hopes that are forlorn are nevertheless hopes. 

The King cries, “Aslan! Aslan! Aslan! Come and help us now!”

The narrator tells us that, “The darkness and the cold and the quietness went on just the same.”

Tirian continues, “Let me be killed. I ask nothing for myself. But come and save all Narnia.” 

We are told that things on the outside stayed the same, but that inside the King a kind of change began to occur, and that a flicker of hope moved within Tirian. 

“O Aslan, Aslan. If you will not come yourself, at least send me the helpers from beyond the world. Or let me call them. Let my voice carry beyond the world.”

Here, my friends, we have the crux of Our Last Battle. This is the nexus of the book, The Last Battle, and it is the nexus of Our Last Battle. All of life either flows to this point, or from this point. This is our life in Christ. Without coming to this point, and without continuing from this point, our lives have no point. 

Tirian not only had to come to the end of his anger, he had to come to the end of himself. He not only had to come to the end of himself, he had to offer himself on behalf of others. 

This, my dear, dear friends, is the Christian Life, and there is no other. 

This is what it means to follow Jesus. It is to belong to Another and to live for others through Him. It is to leave our agendas and anger behind, surrendering ourselves to Jesus, laying down our lives for others as He laid down His life for us (John 15:12–13; 1 John 3:16). 

Had the Narnians known the character and Nature of Aslan they would not have been deceived by the Ape, by dead lion skins, and by the blasphemous notion that Aslan and Tash are the same. Had Tirian not been disoriented by his anger, he may have recalled the true Nature of Aslan and realized that, as Roonwitt said, the reports of Aslan appearing were lies. 

Tirian’s selfish anger blinded him to the True Aslan and to his call to serve others. 

In order to find freedom, Tirian needed to be beaten and tied to a tree. Then his heart could grow tender as he considered the welfare of the Mice, the Rabbit, and the Moles. Then his pride could be humbled as he put others before himself, and he remembered his People. Then, and only then, the King could cry, “Let me be killed…but come and save all Narnia.” 

Does this not take us back to the Stone Table of the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe? Aslan gave His life for Edmund and Narnia, and now Tirian learns to give his life for his People.

And so Paul writes, “Death works in us, but life in you” (2 Corinthians 4:12). 

Do we know what it is to experience Galatians 2:20?

“I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” 

Our lives are to be living sacrifices, and once placed on the altar they are to remain there, every moment of every day, into eternity (Romans 12:1–2). 

Our Last Battle is about the Cross of Christ and the Christ of the Cross. Will our lives be irrevocably cruciform? Will they be in the image of Jesus Christ, and Him crucified (1 Cor. 2:2)? Will our congregations be collectively crucified with Christ? Will our arms be outstretched to suffer with Christ, to suffer for others, and to embrace the suffering of others? Will we bear the burdens and sorrow and heartache and sin of others, that they may know Jesus Christ and His healing and wholeness and Life and Love? 

Will we cry out to our Father, “Take me, not them!”? Will our churches cry out, “Take us, not them!”? 

O friends, can we see the dead lion skins that entice us with promises of our best life now, with promises of safe religious lives that require nothing of us, that allow us to continue in our self-centered pursuits, that make Jesus a concierge rather than acknowledging Him as our Lord and our God, that would make Jesus a show horse rather than the Lamb of God slain for our sins and raised from the dead, the Victor over sin and death? 

Can we not see that just as the Ape made the Narnians slaves to his agenda, that just as Shift propagated the lie of Tashlan, that we are being enticed to serve the agendas of this world, a world opposed to our Lord Jesus Christ? How is it that we have been made captives of Tashlan? 

Our Last Battle is whether we will say, “O Jesus. Bring me to the Cross, bind me to the Cross, let the Cross be embedded in my soul, and let Your Cross radiate from my life.”

Our Last Battle is whether we will daily cry, “Take me. Save others!”

“That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the koinonia of His sufferings, being conformed to his death” (Philippians 3:10).