Last week, I shared part 1 of Advent in Narnia, and today I’ll share part 2! Funnily enough, the excerpt from The Last Battle is where I got the inspiration for Back to Stable Hill.

In The Last Battle, Narnia’s King Tirian finds himself in the worst crisis his nation has ever experienced. He prays desperately that Aslan will send him help, some of those children who always appear in Narnia’s darkest days.

Sure enough, Jill and Eustace suddenly arrive. But to their horror, things only go from bad to worse. No matter what they do, they can’t seem to turn the tide—because this time, Narnia can’t be saved.

They don’t realize at first that they aren’t there to save it. They have been called to make a last stand, to be faithful to the end. They’ve been called to be a light in the darkness, to bear witness to the Truth—called to rescue those who have ears to hear it, and to give other faithful friends courage to stand, too.

This time when Aslan finally appears, it will not be to set things right for a little while and then disappear again. This time he will bring the old, flawed, broken Narnia to an end, and welcome his people into the new one—the better one, the more real and true and perfect Narnia, of which the old was but a pale copy.

The new Narnia is a breathtakingly beautiful place where they can finally hang up their swords and rest, where they can join in fellowship and celebrate with one another—with their families and friends and all the great heroes from Narnia’s history.

Before that happens, King Tirian, Jill, and Eustace fight one desperate last battle to save their beloved land from destruction at the hands of their enemies. Hopelessly outnumbered and soon captured, they’re cast into a stable—a wood hut—where they expect to meet an executioner.

But the moment they pass through the door, they find themselves not in the darkness of the miserable hovel but in the warmth and brilliance of a paradise that extends as far as the eye can see—and farther.

As he looks around in astonishment, King Tirian says, “The stable seen from within and the stable seen from without are two different places.”

“Yes,” says Lord Digory. “Its inside is bigger than its outside.”

“Yes,” says Queen Lucy, thoughtfully. “In our world, too, a stable once had something inside it that was bigger than our whole world.”1

This is what the season of Advent is all about.

At Advent, we remember that there is something so much bigger, deeper, truer than what we can see—so much more real than our present reality.

With reverence and with wonder, we recall that the Child in the manger was the Creator of all things, the One who “became flesh and made his dwelling among us…”2

Poet Christina Rossetti exclaims,

“Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him, nor earth sustain

Heaven and earth shall flee away when He comes to reign

In the bleak midwinter, a stable place sufficed

The Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ!”3

Advent reminds us that he has come to us before, in our darkest moments, when we so desperately needed him—and that he will surely come to us again.

“At the sound of his roar, sorrows will be no more!”4

One day, the last battle will be over. No more wars or rumors of war. No more injustice or inequality or immorality or brutality or evil or oppression of any kind. No more hate.

All of the heartache, the struggle, the sorrow and suffering in this world will finally come to an end—forever. Not one more day to dread in the “school of pain”—only an endless holiday.

When that day comes, we, too, will be called to “come further up, come further in!” to a breathtakingly beautiful world in which all things have been made new.

And we will take our place in “the Great Story, which no one on earth has read, which goes on forever, in which every chapter is better than the one before.”5

This is the hope of Advent, the hope of Christmas, the hope of all those whose hearts thrill to hear, “Aslan is on the move!”6

Taken from: https://cslewisofficial.substack.com/p/advent-in-narnia-pt2

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1 The Last Battle ©1956 CS Lewis Pte Ltd.

2 John 1:14 NIV

3 Christina Rossetti, “In the Bleak Midwinter,” Public Domain.

4 The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe ©1950 CS Lewis Pte Ltd.

5 The Last Battle ©1956 CS Lewis Pte Ltd.

6 The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe ©1950 CS Lewis Pte Ltd.

*Also referenced: Matthew 24:13, 2 Timothy 4:7–8, Matthew 5:16, Acts 1:8, Jude 20–23, 1 Peter 5:9, Hebrews 13:5, Revelation 21:1–5