August 10, 2022
This Sunday, August 14, is the Tenth Sunday after Pentecost.
This week’s sermon is Lutheran Worship: Divine Worship
This week’s readings are:
Hebrews
11:17-31 (32-40); 12:1-3
Message: Aslan’s Sacrifice
I. This is where we clearly see Aslan as a Christ figure.
A. “He looked
somehow different from the Aslan they knew. His tail and his head hung low and
he walked slowly as if he were very, very tired.”
B. See Isaiah
53.
C. Aslan is
mocked, tied, shaved, and slain.
i. Notice
the similarity to Jesus’s crucifixion by reading the accounts in the Gospels.
ii. Lewis
even uses the shaving of Aslan’s mane to remind the reader of Jesus’ crown of
thorns.
D. See Psalm 69.
II.
We must not avoid seeing Jesus as our crucified Savior!
A. We are tempted
to focus on Jesus’ glory.
B. But it
is at His death that he rescues us from our sin, just as Aslan rescues Edmund
by dying in his place.
III.
The time after Aslan’s death was a time of sorrow for Lucy and Susan.
A. Jesus’ disciples
and the women who followed Him, too, experienced sorrow, fear, and confusion.
IV.
The horror of the scene is important.
A. It introduces
the reader to an experience of evil.
B. This
horror is held in tension with Aslan’s love for Edmund, and as such it helps us
consider Jesus’ love for us.
C. This supposing of
Aslan’s sacrifice is accessible – not like The Passion of the Christ which
would not be appropriate for children to view.
V. The high cost of salvation is important.
A. The girls ask
one another if Edmund should know what Aslan did to save him.
B. Their
conclusion is that such knowledge would be “too horrible.”
C. They are
wrong, and it is clear in the following books that Edmund does know – and
knowing his Savior and the cost of salvation makes all the difference for him.
VI.
Aslan’s willingness is important
A. Hebrews 12:2
teaches that Jesus endured the cross and scorned its shame for the joy set
before Him.
B. Jesus
willingly and lovingly died for you and for me––for the world!
VII. Note that the Witch thinks that she has
won.
A. “And now, who
has won? Fool, did you think that by all this you would save the human traitor?
Now I will kill you instead of him. … But when you are dead what will prevent
me from killing him as well? … You have lost your own life and you have not
saved his. In that knowledge, despair and die.”
B. Satan
still seeks to take those Jesus died for as his victims.
VIII.
Jesus’ victory and salvation must be revealed to people. Part of our privilege
as Christians is that we get to share the “horrible” good news that Christ died
and rose to save sinners.
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