19th Sunday B August 11, 2024

When C.S. Lewis wrote The Chronicles of Narnia , he wrote The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe first. In the old order this was the first book in the series. Today The Magician's Nephew is placed first, since it tells of the creation of Narnia by Aslan. In The Magician's Nephew we met Digory, who meets Aslan for the first time. Digory’s mom is ill and Aslan tells him about a fruit that may heal her. It is found in a walled garden. Jadis the White Witch also wants the fruit. She climbs over the wall to get it. The fruit gives her eternal life, but hers is a life of despair and hurt. She acquired the fruit by climbing over the wall; as in today’s Gospel, she is a thief. She did not enter through the sheep gate. The Tree of Youth (also, the Tree of Life) was the first, largest, and most spectacular Silver Apple Tree in existence. It grew at the very centre of the Garden of Youth, and bore shining, silver apples that had wonderful, powerful magical properties, and gave off an ethereal, breathtaking, almost irresistible smell. The tree was enclosed within the Garden, and roosting in its branches was a single Phoenix (and the only one ever seen in Narnia). Though the apples were silvery and incredibly beautiful, their juice was darker than one would expect. The first person to eat the Apples of Youth was Jadis who, dismissing the written warning that the fruits should only be plucked to help others, and not to be eaten for oneself, climbed into the Garden over the wall, and plucked a fruit for herself. After she had greedily eaten the fruit, Jadis claimed that she felt such changes within her that she knew that she would never grow old or die. When Digory spotted her throwing away the core of the apple she had eaten, and saw how the dark juice stained her mouth horribly, he guessed - rightly - how she had entered the Garden, and thought he understood what the last line: For those who steal or those who climb my wall, shall find their heart's desire and find despair meant, for, despite the fact that Jadis looked "stronger and prouder than ever, and even, in a way, triumphant", her face was "deadly white, as white as salt". Presumably ignorant of what she had doomed herself to, Jadis tried twice to tempt Digory into disobeying Aslan: first, by encouraging him to eat the fruit himself, telling him that it would make him alive and young forever. Second, telling him to give the fruit to his ill, dying mother instead, assuring him that it would cure her of her illness. Digory, very fortunately for him and his mother, was able to resist both temptations, and even angrily rebuffed Jadis, who retorted by calling him a fool to throw away his one and only chance of endless youth. When Jadis began to feel the dark and cold inside her, she fled from the Western Wild, to the far north, to presumably begin creating her army. However, as Aslan said, it was actually Jadis, not Digory, who was a fool, given that the fruit would never work happily for any who pluck it at their own will, and that "length of days with an evil heart is only length of misery, and already she begins to know it" - Jadis' immortality meant that the misery that constantly plagued her because of her dark, evil heart would never end. Digory, by resisting the two devastating temptations, actually saved himself and his mother from terrible fates that would have definitely befell them if he had succumbed to either one of the temptations. When Digory returned to Aslan with the Apple of Youth, Aslan told him to throw it on the bank of the Great River of Narnia, where it grew into the Tree of Protection that protected the Kingdom of Narnia from all enemies for 898 years. In just a matter of days the tree along with the rest of the garden presumably disappeared into Aslan's Country. (1) There is a warning posted on the wall of the garden: Come in by the gold gates or not at all, Take of my fruit for others or forbear, For those who steal or those who climb my wall Shall find their heart’s desire and find despair. (2) The witch did not enter by the gates. She used the fruit for herself and will spend her days in despair. Those of us who enter through the sheep gate via the waters of baptism use the fruits of the Holy Spirit to help others. They are not for our use. Many will testify that what we do for others comes back to us in abundance. On this “Good Shepherd Sunday", we enter through the sheep gate and we share what we have found with others. Each time a person is baptized in this space, we gather as a community to help that person in his/her journey as a member of the body of Christ. We come not as thieves; we enter through the sheepgate and, in doing so, we find immortal life and joy and not immortal life and despair as did Jadis the witch. (1) https://narnia.fandom.com/wiki/Tree_of_Youth (2) The Magician's Nephew (1955), page 185