Lions, Witches, & Wardrobes

The Lion - During sacrament meeting on Easter Sunday I flipped to John 20 and started to read the account of the resurrected Lord appearing to His disciples. "Doubting" Thomas did not believe that the Savior had appeared to the others while he was gone. Only upon seeing Christ himself does he believe that He had risen. Vs. 29-"Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed." Growing up in the church it seems like it was always mentioned that it would have been harder to have faith in Christ before His birth when there were only prophets and writings testifying that He would come than it would be to believe in Him today. Some probably feel that this verse applies to those in biblical times, but I think it applies all the more to us today. We have writings and prophets that testify of Christ, but we have not seen Him and have just as little physical evidence of His ministry on the earth as those who lived before He came did. However, while they believed that Christ would come and die for the sins of the world, we believe that He came along with an added belief that He will return again.

The Witch - So much lately I have been seeing people slowly make small mistakes or slip a little in their integrity or just be "naughty" like my dad says (most often when referring to "that Heidi girl" from The Hills). It's little things...wearing super short shorts and spaghetti strap shirts, drinking, people I know as "good Mormon girls" cussing, betraying someone's trust, or being rude to a friend. It's as if for attention people will forfeit integrity...saddening. Anyway, the White Witch in the chronicles is like this. She is a lot like Lucifer with her power, cunning, and alluring outward appearance (at least before she became the White Witch). She lures people in as they can't help but notice her breathtaking beauty, and then she gradually steals away hearts. It makes me sad for these people and reminds me of the scripture, "...it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from [it]." They are lured by a need for attention or by the enticings of the world, and as a dog returns to his vomit so also do fools return to their folly. No man can serve two masters...

The Wardrobe - I'm not usually one to get into fads, so rather than start reading the Twilight series (which I'm sure I would end up liking) I decided to read the entire Chronicles of Narnia.  This is a feat that I might not be able to accomplish until after we have moved back home, but we'll see. In elementary school I read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (click for a treat), but that's where the chronicles and I ended our relationship. Growing up my dad always tried to connect books/movies to gospel principles. This was a stretch for movies like "Star Wars" (the only parallel was using the force required faith). For stories from Christian writers like Tolkien and Lewis however, there were actually many clear biblical symbolisms and parallels. In the prequel to The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, you get to see how the Lion (the Christ figure) creates Narnia. This creation is almost exactly like the account of the Earth's creation in the Bible. You also get to see how the White Witch came into Narnia...I'll come back to that later.