C.S. Lewis and the Grand Miracle of Easter

Note: Although there certainly are many more, here are a few of my favorite quotations from the writings of C.S. Lewis that only add to the joy and supreme gladness of this day.

 

On Miracles

In the Christian story God descends to reascend. He comes down; down from the heights of absolute being into time and space, down into humanity; down further still, if embryologists are right, to recapitulate in the womb ancient and pre-human phases of life; down to the very roots and seabed of the Nature He has created. But He goes down to come up again and bring the whole ruined world up with Him. One has the picture of a strong man stooping lower and lower to get himself underneath some complicated burden. He must stoop in order to lift, he must almost disappear under the load before he incredibly straightens his back and marches off with the whole mass swaying on his shoulders…

…In this descent and ascent everyone will recognize a familiar pattern: a thing written all over the world. It is the pattern of all vegetable life. It must belittle itself into something hard, small and deathlike, it must fall into the ground: thence the new life reascends…

…The doctrine of the Incarnation, if accepted, puts this principle even more emphatically at the centre. The pattern is there in Nature because it was first there in God. All the instances of it which I have mentioned turn out to be but transpositions of the Divine theme into a minor key. (C.S. Lewis, Miracles, p. 179-181).

Thus, as Lewis goes on to say in a later chapter:

He [Jesus] is the ‘first fruits,’  ‘the pioneer of life.’ He has forced open a door that has been locked since the death of the first man. He has met, fought, and beaten the King of Death. Everything is different because He has done so. This is the beginning of the New Creation: a new chapter in cosmic history has opened. (C.S. Lewis, Miracles, p. 237).

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

“…though the Witch knew the Deep Magic, there is a magic deeper still which she did not know. Her knowledge goes back only to the dawn of time. But if she could have looked a little further back, into the stillness and the darkness before time dawned, she would have read there a different incantation. She would have known that if a willing victim, who had committed no treachery, was killed in a traitor’s stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backward.” (C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, p. 163).