I’ll be 45 this year, and 37 of those have been spent visiting Narnia every chance I get.

Every time I go back to Narnia, I find something I’ve never noticed before.

Yesterday, it was the chapter of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe where Aslan, Susan, and Lucy storm the White Witch’s castle and Aslan breathes on all the creatures she had turned to stone during her long reign of terror.

Now, it’s not that I hadn’t noticed an entire chapter. Though it is easy to gloss over, coming between the thrill of Aslan’s resurrection and

It’s not even that I’d never thought through it theologically. I had. One immediate application is Christ’s vindication of the saints and martyrs through resurrection. The White Witch is, after all, a Satan-figure. The fact that these petrified Narnians litter her castle is reminding us that the worst that the Devil can do to believers is pause us—not end us. The Witch, after all, has not obliterated the rebel Narnians. She only petrified them.

Anyway, point is—it’s not that I’d ignored the chapter (though I will admit to neglecting it). It’s that I hadn’t made a connection between that portion of the story, and our Christian experience now.

See, Aslan goes into the Witch’s castle and un-petrifies those who’ve been turned to stone just after his resurrection. Then they go join him in battle against the Witch and her dark army! So we could also understand those Aslan has liberated as the Church Militant.

One is surely reminded of the scene in the Gospel of John where the newly resurrected Christ appears before His frightened, miserable disciples. He said to them: “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, I also send you.” After saying this, he breathed on them  and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” (John‬ ‭20‬:‭21‬-‭22‬ ‭CSB‬‬)

Aslan’s breath functions like the Holy Spirit. It not only frees the petrified Narnians from the grip of terror and futility; Aslan’s breath comes with a commission to join him in the fight against the Witch’s tyranny.

The thing that really caught my attention about the chapter this time through was the joy of the Narnians as Aslan’s breath brought them back to life. Look at how wonderfully C.S. Lewis captured the scene:

Everywhere the statues were coming to life. The courtyard looked no longer like a museum; it looked more like a zoo. Creatures were running after Aslan and dancing round him till he was almost hidden in the crowd. Instead of all that deadly white the courtyard was now a blaze of colors; glossy chestnut sides of centaurs, indigo horns of unicorns, dazzling plumage of birds, reddy-brown of foxes, dogs and satyrs, yellow stockings and crimson hoods of dwarfs; and the birch-girls in silver, and the beech-girls in fresh, transparent green, and the larch-girls in green so bright that it was almost yellow. And instead of the deadly silence the whole place rang with the sound of happy roarings, brayings, yelpings, barkings, squealings, cooings, neighings, stampings, shouts, hurrahs, songs and laughter.

The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, ch16

Reading this, the joy the unfrozen chosen experience in their salvation is palpable.

And that joy, that gratitude, breaks out quickly into action: They’re all eager to go fight with Aslan in his battle against the Witch and her cruel allies.

It makes me wonder: Why then do our churches often look, sound, and feel more like museums, than this colorful celebration we read about here?

Understand, I’m not suggesting we need to be barking like dogs and braying like donkeys, like we hear of happening in revivals of the Second Great Awakening.

Indeed, the Second “Awakening” led to the crisis we’re seeing now. Instead of trusting the Gospel and the means of grace to do what God promised they would, the preachers of the Second “Awakening” relied on techniques of lighting and sound, and means of emotional manipulation—all to try and convince us that we weren’t still standing in a hall of statues.

In the wake of the Second Great Awakening, there was left whole swaths of the northeastern U.S. known as “the burned-over district.” In these areas, religious enthusiasm had burned out of control, then disintegrated into the smoke and ashes of heretical sects, doomsday cults, and utopian social experiments. This experience left the locals burned out on religion.

But the man-centered theology, and manipulative ways and means of the Second Great Awakening have continued burning through American evangelicalism for more than two centuries, til we’re all living in a kind of burned-over district. Yes, even in the Bible Belt.

The altar call; the downgrade of Gospel proclamation to sanctified life-hacks; reducing conversion down to a free-will decision to “accept Jesus into your heart”—not to mention the ever-present specter of Pietism (quiet times and human effort and affections-centered accounts of discipleship); various forms of the Social Gospel (both left and right-wing versions); and replacing a hopeful vision of a future bodily resurrection with the escape-hatch of “going to heaven”—all these and more have made it so that many who have been burned and burned out by American pop Christianity are now cynical to the point of being hardened against the true Gospel.

I suspect, though, that if we were to simply go back to the Gospel in its purity and simplicity, we would see a genuine (not manufactured) revival breaking out in our churches. Listen, beloved, to the wondrous story. Because it’s a lot more like Aslan liberating the statues by his power and virtue; than restless consumers “making a decision” to try Jesus.

And you were dead  in your trespasses and sins in which you previously walked according to the ways of this world, according to the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit  now working in the disobedient. We too all previously lived among them in our fleshly  desires, carrying out the inclinations of our flesh and thoughts, and we were by nature children under wrath  as the others were also. But God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love  that he had for us,  made us alive with Christ even though we were dead  in trespasses. You are saved by grace! He also raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavens in Christ Jesus,  so that in the coming ages he might display the immeasurable riches  of his grace through his kindness  to us in Christ Jesus. For you are saved by grace  through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift — not from works, so that no one can boast. For we are his workmanship, created  in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time  for us to do.

‭‭Ephesians‬ ‭2‬:‭1‬-‭10‬ ‭CSB‬‬

Read that again, beloved: But God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love  that he had for us,  made us alive with Christ even though we were dead  in trespasses. You are saved by grace!

God—out of His own grace and mercy, and by His own power—making dead sinners alive in Christ, creating them anew, and giving them particular good works to do, that He foreordained … that sounds a lot more like Aslan bringing those stone cold statues back to life and bringing them along to fight the good fight with Him; than whatever it is we’ve been doing lately.

If only we could truly see ourselves and every redeemed person as a miracle, born again by the Holy Spirit, raised in Christ to walk in newness of life—we would see our churches as full of joy and purpose as those unfrozen statues.

We would see that the Church is an enchanted people, and that the success of our mission is sure, because the success of the Lord is sure.

We would gladly follow Jesus as He goes forth to destroy the Devil and his works (1 John 3:8). We would go forth into our vocations and neighborhoods and nations declaring the good news, and promoting whatever is good, true, and beautiful. All under a banner of promise that says: The God of peace will soon crush Satan  under your feet (Romans‬ ‭16‬:‭20‬ ‭CSB‬‬).