Show Notes
In this episode of Peaceable and Kind, Derek Vreeland invites listeners to recover the awe, imagination, and wonder of Christmas by stepping through the wardrobe into the world of Narnia. As we approach the fourth Sunday of Advent and draw near to Christmas, Derek reflects on how C. S. Lewis helps us see the Christmas story with fresh eyes, through imagination, metaphor, and childlike faith.
Drawing from Lewis’s works, Derek explains why imagination is essential for understanding the deeper meaning of Christmas. “Reason is the organ of truth,” Lewis wrote, “but imagination is the organ of meaning.” Before truth can be grasped, it must mean something and meaning is carried through images, metaphors, and stories.
Through Lucy’s first steps into Narnia, Derek explores our shared longing for another world, one marked by beauty and mystery. This longing, Lewis argues, is a signpost pointing us toward God. And in Jesus’ incarnation, God has given us a doorway, a “wardrobe,” into that greater world. Jesus is the gate, the portal through which we enter the life of God.
Advent is the season where wonder can be reborn in us. Aslan is on the move. Winter will not last forever. And Christmas is the invitation to step inside.
Key Takeaways
Imagination is essential for meaning. Lewis teaches that before truth can be recognized, it must be imagined.
Christmas awakens our longing for another world. Our desire for is itself a clue that we were made for more.
Jesus is our wardrobe. In his incarnation, Jesus becomes the doorway into God’s life: “I am the gate… whoever enters by me will be saved” (John 10:7–9).
Narnia mirrors our world under winter’s spell. Seasons of spiritual coldness, absence, and longing echo Narnia’s “always winter and never Christmas.” But Aslan’s arrival (like the arrival of Jesus on Christmas Day) signals restoration and joy.
Childlike faith opens us to the kingdom. Curiosity, wonder, and openness are not childish. They are the way Jesus teaches us to enter God’s world.
Four Simple Ways to Step Through the Wardrobe This Advent
Slow down enough to notice beauty. Wonder needs space; beauty is everywhere if we have eyes to see.
Read aloud. Hearing awakens imagination in a way silent reading doesn’t.
Welcome small acts of delight. Do little things during Advent and Christmas that bring you joy.
Sit with mystery. Resist the urge to explain everything. Let some things remain holy and hidden.
Scriptures Mentioned in This Episode:
John 10:7–9
Books and Essays Mentioned in This Episode
- C. S. Lewis, “Bluspels and Flalansferes: A Semantic Nightmare” Selected Literary Essays (1969)
Read this essay online here: https://ourendgame.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/BluspelsAndFlalansferes.pdf
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis
Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis
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Transcript
Welcome back.
To another episode of Peaceable and Kind.
I am your host, Derek Vreeland, and I’m happy to announce that Christmas is right around the corner.
This Sunday is the fourth and final week of.
of Advent and then Christmas will be upon us.
So I hope all of your preparations for the Christmas season is underway that you got all your
Presents ordered, wrapped, ready to go.
This is going to be a great episode.
But before I jump in to this very Christmas-themed episode,
I want to invite you to take just a moment to like, to leave a rating, a review, subscribe.
You know, do all the things that helps us here at Peaceable and Kind.
Okay, so in this episode, we are stepping through the wardrobe
Yes, that’s right.
The wardrobe, that wardrobe, into the snowy world of Narnia.
Because sometimes it takes a story to help us grow in our imagination to
Wake up to the awe and the wonder and the mystery of Christmas.
You know, when we’re kids, it’s easy to experience the wonder of Christmas.
I remember when I was a kid getting up early on Christmas morning and walking into the living room and my mom would leave the Christmas lights on.
And I would walk in and the house is dark and the living room is dark and the only light is coming from the Christmas tree and there
Are the presents all stacked under the tree and they’re illuminated by the light?
I have a number of very fond memories.
of Christmas morning as a child.
And of course, kids are excited about the present.
I get that.
But as I reflect back and I think back of those Christmas mornings, I’m just filled with with awe and wonder and excitement.
But you know, as adults, yeah, a lot of the magic is gone, right?
Because as adults, we’re busy working and we have families and we’re making plans and there’s stuff to do.
And so we need help in re-imagining Christmas and all of the wonder that’s included in this season
And so I’m calling upon C.
S.
Lewis to be our guide.
C.
S.
Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia was written as a as a children’s series of books, but I
Encourage adults to read those books or to watch those movies because I think it helps us.
uh capture a fresh imagination around Christmas.
So before we get to Narnia, let’s do a little philosophy
Now I know philosophy is not as exciting as exploring the wonderful world of Narnia, but I think it’s important to do so.
In a collection of essays, C.
S.
Lewis once wrote, Reason is the natural organ of truth, but imagination is the organ of meaning.
Now, here is the context around that quote.
In this essay, Lewis is arguing for the value of metaphor and poetic language
He argues that before any truth claim can be recognized and evaluated as true or false,
It must be something that we imagine, that we have to understand meaning
In order to evaluate truth and meaning comes to us through our imaginations
Uh in this article, in this essay, Lewis warns that many ideas become just simply foolish.
We just disregard them when
The metaphors are forgotten or misused or misunderstood.
Lewis points us towards humility and how we use language and metaphor
And what I really appreciate about Lewis in this essay is that he calls us to trust our imaginations.
that imagination combined with intellect must be honored if we are to grasp on to the deeper truths of the life of God.
And so this idea of imagination being the organ of meaning, let me give you the context of that exact quote.
Here’s the quote in its entirety from C.
S.
Lewis.
It must not be supposed that I am in any sense putting forward the imagination as the organ of truth.
We are not talking of truth, but of meaning.
Meaning, which is the antecedent condition both of truth and falsehood
whose antithesis is not error, but nonsense.
I am a realist.
For me, reason is the natural organ of truth, but imagination is the organ of meaning
Imagination producing new metaphors or reviving old is not the cause of truth, but its condition.
Okay, so C.
S.
Lewis is talking here about philosophy and really that branch of philosophy that we call epistemology.
That is, how do we know things?
And so he says that imagination doesn’t cause truth.
In fact, imagination all by itself can lead us away from truth.
What he says here is that imagination is the necessary condition in order to fully grasp and understand the truth.
So let me give you a biblical example.
Think about Psalm 23.
I think of all the Psalms, of all the 150 Psalms, Psalm 23 might be the most famous.
If King David had a set of greatest hits in the Psalms, I think number one would be Psalm 23.
You know, it opens, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
And so this is a psalm that is filled with metaphor, and it requires imagination in order to fully understand.
the meaning of God as our shepherd.
Right?
You have to imagine green pastures and still waters and
right paths and the valley of the shadow of death and a banquet table in front of your enemies
And all of these are metaphors.
I mean, Jesus, who is our shepherd, is not literally going to take you to a green field.
He’s not literally going to take you to a still lake.
And so if you can’t imagine these things, then you will not fully grasp or understand what is meant by the Lord is our shepherd.
So, imagination is the condition, not the cause of truth.
We do believe that Jesus is the full embodiment of truth.
Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life.
And as a pastor and a teacher, I do want you to understand the truths of Jesus.
But I agree with C.
S.
Lewis that without imagination, we’re not going to fully grasp the meaning.
And that truth is not going to fully transform us if we don’t employ our imaginations
And it’s good to talk about imagination because Christmas is overflowing with mystery and wonder and beauty and meaning.
And yet we often rush through Advent, we rush through December, and we don’t give enough space for imagination.
And the season of Advent is a time to remind ourselves that what we can see with our eyes is not all there is.
Which to me is a hopeful thought because if you’re looking at the problems in our world, problems in the place where you live,
It can lead to despair, anxiety, concern, worry, and all of that is necessary
But in the season of Advent, we are called to have a Christian imagination to imagine that there is another world.
There is a world to come.
There is a unseen spiritual world that is just as real as this broken down world.
We just often forget about it.
That’s why I want you to go with me and to step through the wardrobe.
Of course I’m talking about C.
S.
Lewis’s maybe most famous novel, The Lion, The Witch in the Wardrobe.
This is one in the series of The Chronicles of Narnia.
And if you haven’t read the book, I highly encourage it.
It’s a simple read because it is children’s literature.
But I encourage adults to read it.
And if you’re not a book reader, I get that.
At least go watch the movie.
I think you can still watch The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe on on Disney Plus.
I think it’s still streaming there.
But the Lion of the Witch in the Wardrobe is a perfect novel for Advent and Christmas
Because of course Father Christmas makes an appearance in the story and interacts with the children and has gifts for them, gifts that will be necessary for uh the battle that they’re about ready to embark upon
But I want us to reflect a little bit on Narnia.
C.
S.
Lewis’s fantasy world, Narnia.
Is one of the most imaginative and accessible descriptions of what Christians would call heaven
or the other world or the world that is to come.
And Narnia is a place just brimming with mystery and beauty.
There’s danger and goodness and glory.
And it’s interesting that Lewis didn’t write the Chronicles of Narnia for us to escape reality
But to deepen our understanding of what is real, what is true
Lewis wrote The Land, the Witch and the Wardrobe and all of the books in the series, to open our imaginations so that we might recognize truth when it appeared in our world.
wrapped in humility and swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.
So today, as we
Together go and explore Narnia, we can rediscover the awe and the wonder of Christmas.
So let me set it up for you like this.
We’re introduced to Narnia in the very first chapter of The Lion, the Witch, in the Wardrobe, when
Four inquisitive children.
You got Peter and Edmund, Susan and Lucy.
They find themselves stuck.
In the house of an old professor on a rainy day, and they’re bored, and they begin to explore this mysterious house.
And how did they discover Narnia?
They discovered it through the back of a wardrobe
Lewis himself played in a large old wardrobe as a child.
In fact, the Lewis family wardrobe is on display at the Wade Center.
um on the campus of Wheaton College, um in the Chicago metro area.
And I’ve I’ve stood right next to that wardrobe.
I’ve I’ve seen it.
I’ve touched it.
I’ve opened the wardrobe and yes at the Wade Center
They have all sorts of fur coats hanging in there.
And so it’s easy to imagine a young C.
S.
Lewis as a child playing in that wardrobe and allowing his imagination to take it over.
So the wardrobe in The Lion the Witch in the Wardrobe is is based on a real wardrobe that Lewis played in as a kid.
And so early in the novel.
We we get this moment the first time one of the children enters into the wardrobe and begins to explore Narnia, and it’s Lucy.
And so I’d like to read just a few pages from chapter one from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.
I gotta jump into this podcast episode to let you know I have a new book that’s out.
Incarnation.
8 lessons on how God meets us is available now.
Go order it.
Link is in the show notes.
Shortly after that, they looked into a room that was quite empty, except for one big wardrobe.
The sort that has a looking glass in the door.
There was nothing else in the room at all except a dead blue bottle on the windowsill.
Nothing there, said Peter, and they trooped out again, all except Lucy.
She stayed behind because she thought it would be worth while trying the door of the wardrobe
even though she felt almost sure that it would be locked.
To her surprise, it opened quite easily, and two mothballs dropped out.
Looking into the inside, she saw several coats hanging up, mostly long fur coats.
There was nothing Lucy liked so much as the smell and feel of fur
She immediately stepped into the wardrobe and got in among the coats and rubbed her face against them, leaving the door open, of course, because she knew that it is very foolish to shut oneself into any wardrobe.
Soon she went further in, and found that there was a second row of coats hanging up behind the first one
It was almost quite dark in there, and she kept her arms stretched out in front of her, so as not to bump her face into the back of the wardrobe
She took a step further in, then two or three steps, always expecting to feel woodwork against the tips of her fingers, but she could not feel it
This must be a simply enormous wardrobe, thought Lucy, going still further in and pushing the soft folds of the kirts aside to make room for her
Then she noticed that there was something crunching under her feet.
I wonder is that more mothballs?
she thought, stooping down to feel it with her hands.
But instead of feeling the hard, smooth wood of the floor of the wardrobe, she felt something soft and powdery and extremely cold.
This is very queer, she said, and went on a step or two further.
Next moment she found that what was rubbing against her face and hands was no longer soft
fur, but something hard and rough and even prickly.
Why, it is just like branches of trees, exclaimed Lucy.
And then she saw that there was a light ahead of her, not a few inches away where the back of the wardrobe ought to have been, but a long way off.
Something cold and soft was falling on her.
A moment later she found that she was standing in the middle of a wood at night time, with snow under her feet and snowflakes falling through the air.
Lucy felt a little frightened, but she felt very inquisitive and excited as well
This is the introduction that C.
S.
Lewis gives us to this magical place of Narnia
Now Lucy would would exit Narnia and go back into the professor’s home and eventually all of the kids uh go into Narnia and have a great adventure.
But I’m taken by Lucy’s initial response to Narnia.
She was frightened, inquisitive, and excited.
These are the expected emotions whenever we have an experience where we break through into another world.
Now, C.
S.
Lewis knew this and Scripture shows us.
And if we’re honest, it’s what we often feel when God
intrudes into our familiar patterns in our ordinary days.
Lucy’s discovery is both ordinary
And also extraordinary.
She simply opened a door, yet she stepped into a realm that was brimming with magic and wonder.
There were
fawns and talking animals.
And we too are looking and longing for another world
Even those who would not call themselves Christians or religious people have a longing for something else, something out there
what we would call transcendence.
Transcendence is an experience outside of ourselves
And interestingly enough, in mere Christianity, C.
S.
Lewis argues that this desire for something out there, for transcendence, is itself an argument for the very existence of God.
C.
S.
Lewis writes 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.
And the good news is that God is not withholding this other world from us.
In fact
God wants us to explore this other world that we call heaven
So God sent a way for us to gain access into this other world of of awe and mystery.
God has sent us a wardrobe
and the wardrobe is Jesus in his incarnation.
Jesus comes to our broken down world to rescue the world and to invite us into a real relationship
with the God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
And by becoming human, that is, taking on flesh and blood and
Moving into our neighborhood, Jesus becomes that doorway.
Jesus becomes a portal, a wardrobe into another world.
Jesus said it this way in John 10, Very truly I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep.
I am the gate.
Whoever enters by me will be saved and will come in and go out and find pasture.
C.
S.
Lewis talked about a wardrobe, but Jesus talked about a gate, but these are really the same thing
If Jesus had only been human, he could have speculated about this unseen world, this unseen kingdom.
And if he’d only been divine appearing like a ghostly visitor, he could have only described it
But because Jesus is both God and human in one person, he becomes the passageway into this magical world that the Bible calls heaven.
So let’s explore Narnia just a little bit.
Lewis describes Narnia under the White Witch as always winter and never Christmas.
Uh whenever we have snowy days that turn into weeks and we have gray skies day after day here in northwest Missouri, I will often say to people, the white witch has cast her spell on us.
Now don’t get me wrong, first snowfall is always beautiful.
Uh there’s always a um a sense of quiet and silence because as the snow is falling, it kind of muffles ambient noises, and so
The first snowfall is is is beautiful.
But after a couple of days and into weeks of winter, when that snow collects on the ground and then cars drive by, it starts turning gray and
the skies are gray and it’s it’s not my favorite time of year.
Well, in Narnia, when the kids begin to explore it, they find that the white witch has cast a spell
So that’s always winter and Christmas never comes.
It is a frozen world when the kids first explore it.
Narnia is is frozen by the witch’s spell, and it’s a place that’s frozen by fear and violence and the the absence of rightful kingship
And maybe you’ve known seasons like that.
Maybe you’ve had seasons in your life where your faith felt cold, where God seemed absent, where there was nothing joyful or happy, where
Life seems stuck between longing and disappointment.
Lewis lived in his own spiritual winter.
There were years in his life where.
He was trapped by unbelief and grief and searching his conversion to Christianity, his acceptance of Jesus.
came slowly and reluctantly, uh, through the help of friends like J.
R.
R.
Tolkien and others.
They helped him see that longing itself
is a signpost pointing us beyond the world that we know.
Now I have to tell you, there’s gonna be spoilers.
So if you haven’t read The Lion, the Witch in the Wardrobe, or if you haven’t watched the movie,
There’s going to be a few spoilers here, but the real hero of the story is Aslan the Lion, who represents Jesus.
Aslan would eventually give his life for the children and then rise from the dead.
And it’s interesting to me that reports say that Lewis didn’t consciously decide
uh to put a lion in the story.
Rather the idea of a lion pounced on him.
But Lewis wanted Aslan the Lion
uh to show up as the person of Jesus, that we would see Jesus as Jesus is in this other world
So if Jesus is the wardrobe, Aslan is what we find on the other side.
And again, lots of spoilers here, but with Aslan’s arrival, the snow melts and life is restored and there is a battle, but there’s a victory and joy is awakened.
This is what happens when Jesus shows up on the scene.
Now, again, spoiler alert, there is the very famous stone table scene.
in which Aslan offers his life in exchange for Edmund’s betrayal.
Edmund had been tempted and seduced by the White Witch by Turkish delight
And because of Edmund’s disobedience, it was necessary for Aslan to give his life
But of course, Aslan is slain on the stone table, but the table itself breaks.
When the children go to sea, Aslan is not there.
They’re looking for the body of Aslan.
And then he appears in new life again.
And so in the novel, this is called the deeper magic before the dawn of time
And it’s a beautiful picture of of Christmas and Easter merging together.
It’s the it’s the the purpose of the gospel, to to restore fallen humanity and fallen creation.
Lewis believed that a child’s imagination is not a distraction away from the truth, but it’s a pathway to understand the deep meaning of truth.
The children enter Narnia through curiosity, but there’s also some courage because there’s some fear being in this unknown world.
So they have both curiosity and courage, and these are two things that Jesus praises in children.
Jesus teaches us that to enter the kingdom of God, we must become like children
not childish, but childlike.
That is open to explore mystery
Open to wonder and awe and the willingness to trust Jesus to lead us into this new world
And so if we’re going to look at the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and the exploration of Narnia as a way for us to rediscover the awe and wonder of Christmas,
There are a couple of things that you can do.
So let me give you some sort of practical things you can do as you prepare for Christmas to reimagine the magic and the wonder of it all.
First, number one, slow down enough to notice beauty.
I know December is a busy time, so I am imploring you, slow down a little bit.
Take time to look around.
There is beauty all around us if we have eyes to see it, and if we have a slow enough pace in order to see it.
Number two, before Christmas comes, do something which requires you to sit down and read aloud, whether you’re reading to other people or just reading yourself
Read the Christmas story in Luke 2, or read the first chapter of Matthew, or if you haven’t, read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, but read it out loud
Sometimes we have to hear words coming from our own lips in order to ignite our imagination.
Third thing is welcome small acts of delight in your world
Joy is often the first sign that the snow is melting.
So do something between now and Christmas.
Maybe it’s a small thing.
That brings you joy, that makes you happy.
Watch a new show or watch an old Christmas favorite.
Try a new recipe
Read a new book, but do something that’ll bring you a little bit of joy.
And the last thing I would encourage you to do is to sit with mystery
We spend a lot of our time trying to make sense of things, trying to untie knots, trying to figure things out or explain everything.
But in this Advent and Christmas season, be open to mystery, be open to sit with mystery, and let things be mysterious.
If you have a Christmas tree, here’s what I would encourage you to do.
Light it up and turn off all the other lights in the house and just sit near that lit Christmas tree in silence.
I I do this sometimes in the morning.
I’m an early riser, so I’ll get up before the rest of the family and I’ll make a cup of coffee and I’ll sit in my chair while the house is dark and quiet and
I’ll light the Christmas tree.
I’ll turn all those lights on.
And I’ll just sit there with a warm cup of coffee and just watch the lights.
we have white lights on our Christmas tree and uh my wife has the twinkling setting, so the lights are twinkling.
And in that dark room I’ll just sit in front of those lights and let the mystery overtake me.
Now, I understand for me this is a bit of nostalgia because it does remind me of being a child on Christmas morning.
But sit with mystery and don’t try to figure it all out.
Reflect on the mystery of God coming to us in Jesus, the mystery of the incarnation.
And I think as you sit with mystery that a wardrobe will appear in your imagination.
And you have the opportunity to enter into another world, a different world, a world where God is ruling and reigning.
So find your way into Narnia this Advent and Christmas season
And remember that God is with us.
That the word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood, and God has no plans of moving out.
God is with us.
Whatever trouble or difficulty you’re going through personally or in the community where you live, just know that our troubles are not the end.
Aslan is on the move.
King Jesus is still at work and winter will not last forever.
Well, I hope you enjoyed this reflective episode here on Peaceable and Kind.
That’s all I have for you today.
Go in peace and be kind.
This transcript was generated with AI and may contain errors.