Do Have A Most Joyful Christmas

Earlier this week I had a delightful conversation with my granddaughter about Reepicheep, a mouse character from C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia series. Reepicheep is a large, talking mouse who carries a rapier and wears a red plume tucked in his golden circlet. He is quite pugnacious and quick to defend any affront to his honor. It was fun to think about that little squirt again.

As we talked I suddenly realized that it has been too long since I've read any of Lewis' books. I must get back into them, because they meant so much to me in my college years way back in the 50s.


I have also been pondering how so many are trying to rob me and you of the joy of Christmas and the wonder of it all.
Then I remembered something hidden back in a dusty corner of my brain. I went there and could only find the rag ends of a quote from Lewis' Surprised by Joy. I had to Google to find it:


"A young man who wishes to remain a sound Atheist cannot be too careful of his reading. There are traps everywhere—'Bibles laid open, millions of surprises,' as Herbert says, 'fine nets and stratagems.' God is, if I may say it, very unscrupulous."


It's not that I ever was an atheist, but I must confess that in those years I wasn't feeling very close to God. He seemed to me to be so full of rules to keep, rules that I wasn't very good at anyway. So I felt more and more distant. Besides feeling quite guilty about all that, I felt rather bored by the whole religion thing.


And then I discovered Lewis! I must agree. One cannot be too careful of his reading if he wants to remain an Atheist—or become one. And so I too, with Lewis' help, was surprised by joy. How amazing it has all been, this journey since those days.


Well, that's what happens when one approaches the end of another year. You start to look back and then wonder what lies ahead. Of course, I know what lies ahead somewhere down the road. I remember this especially as I celebrate Christmas and ponder how that great, wondrous mysterious HE who is the source of all that is, became one with me in my rebellion, confusion, anxiety and death. And I gaze upon Him in His mother's arms and know not what more to say. The only words I can find are from the faithful apostle:


"If we have been united with Him in a death like His, we shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His," (Romans 6:5).


Oh what will that be like, that resurrection, that renewal? Like the little child gazing at all those wonders packaged up in bright paper under the tree, I can hardly wait. Do have a most joyful Christmas!