Narnia 1: No Christmas

Children’s Homily: “What If There Were No Christmas”

We begin our Narnia adventure in England some 60 years ago. It was a dangerous time in England and four children left their London home to stay in the country home of an old Professor. On the first page of the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, we are introduced to Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy, the Pevensie children who came to stay with Professor Kirke. It was summer in England and on their first night in Professor Kirke’s country home the children spoke about exploring outside the next day. But when they woke up it was raining, and they agreed to explore inside the house instead.

They looked into several rooms, including a room that was completely empty, except for one piece of furniture. Does anyone know what the piece of furniture was? [a wardrobe] While the others went off to look at other rooms in the house, Lucy stayed behind to look inside the wardrobe. She saw some long fur coats inside, and she stepped between them and rubbed her face in them. There was a second row of coats behind the first row and she went deeper into the wardrobe to investigate them. She stepped even further into the wardrobe and reached for the back of it, but she couldn’t yet touch the back panel.

“This must be a simply enormous wardrobe!” thought Lucy, and then as she investigated even further, she felt something soft and powdery under her feet. It also felt very cold. The next thing she knew, she was touching tree branches. Lucy had entered Narnia through the wardrobe, and before she could figure much of this out, she was standing by a lamppost talking to a Faun (that’s spelled F-A-I-N). Does anyone know what a faun is? There is a picture here in my book. From the waist up, a Faun looks like a man, but from the waist down, a Faun looks like a goat.

The Faun was named Mr. Tumnus, and he told Lucy that it had been winter in Narnia for a very long time. He told Lucy about the White Witch who ruled Narnia and had placed an enchantment over Narnia so that it was “always winter and never Christmas.” Because of the White Witch, Narnia had become a bad place to live. She controlled Ghouls, Ogres, Cruels, Hags, Spectres, Wraiths and Horrors. The White Witch and all her minions had made Narnia a terrible place for the good creatures. This is the bad news about Narnia, but there is some good news to come. But not today. This is as far as we will go today.


“What If There Were No Christmas”
Isaiah 64:1-9a

“Before Aslan comes, Narnia is in perpetual winter without hope.”