One of the treats of Christmas that I am looking forward to (as well as mince pies, a chocolate orange, a good novel and a Hitchcock movie) is taking the family to see The Lion, the witch and the wardrobe. Already the new film is creating hot discussion on every radio talk show and children’s television, and commercial spin-offs abound. Will Dawn French now be typecast as a beaver?

A surprising number of people are claiming that C.S.Lewis never intended the story to have any spiritual symbolism, as though the similarities between the book’s plot line and that of the Bible are just an accident. This view has been put about recently by Philip Pullman among others, and is an astounding denial of the real meaning of the story. C.S. Lewis was a determined atheist who reluctantly became a Christian, describing his conversion experience in his book Surprised by joy. As well as teaching English at Magdalene College Oxford he wrote a wide range of essays about his Christian faith, which still sell to a huge following around the world. During the Second World War he broadcast a series of talks which were later published as the book Mere Christianity, arguably the best of all his writing. If you read Mere Christianity while reading the Chronicles of Narnia to your children, you will realise where he is coming from. If that sounds a little daunting, then allow me to explain some of the key symbolism of the story.

1. Has Lucy gone mad? When Lucy returns through the wardrobe after her second visit and claims that Narnia is real, even though the back of the wardrobe suggests otherwise, her brothers and sisters go to ask the Professor if she is mad. He reasons with them. 'There are only three possibilities. Either your sister is telling lies, or she is mad, or she is telling the truth.' Since Lucy isn’t known as a liar, and does not appear made, she must be telling the truth. In Mere Christianity Lewis makes the same point about Jesus. He said he is the Son of God. We must therefore conclude that he is either mad ‘like a man who says he is a poached egg’, or the devil of hell, or we must fall at his feet and worship him for who he says he is. That is the issue at the heart of the stories: will we believe in the supernatural, and that God has become a man like us, intruding into our world in the person of Jesus.

2. The curse of the White Witch. The hate character is the White Witch, who has the whole of Narnia under her thumb, so that it is always winter and never Christmas. Those who oppose her are turned into stone statues that decorate her castle, waiting for the time when the curse will be broken. This is a powerful symbol of the Bible’s explanation of evil. Satan has taken control of God’s world, and brought us under the curse of death. The human race is enduring a terrible winter of spiritual darkness, rebelling against God and pretending that evil is good and truth is lies. Perhaps this is the most important idea of the whole story, because it is the part of the Bible most ignored by the British public. People cannot make sense of the world as it is because they fail to understand evil, and the curse of death that the Bible says has come upon everyone because of our rebellion against God. The statues in the witch’s castle symbolise those who have died because of the curse of sin.

3. The coming of Aslan. At the heart of the story is the coming of the great Saviour of Narnia, Aslan the Lion. He symbolises Jesus more exactly than many people realise. The people hope for his coming over many years, and when he comes it is Christmas. He comes to do battle with the White Witch, who dreads even the mention of his name, though his name gives a strange thrill to his followers whenever they hear it.

4. The substitute for Edmund. Edmund’s treachery early on in the story is a close parallel to Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit (for which read Turkish Delight) in the garden of Eden. How can Aslan forgive Edmund and make him a King in Narnia? Only by a great sacrifice being made by the great substitute. When Aslan takes Edmund’s place and allows himself to be lashed to the stone table and killed by the witch, the symbolism of the cross of Jesus could not be more moving or profound. When Jesus died on the cross, he did so not just to identify with us in suffering and ‘eel our pain’, but he died as a substitute. The punishment of evil fell on him. It was God’s wrath that fell on him, though Satan was desperate to destroy him as well.

5. Aslan lives. After his death, Aslan comes back to life. Tell me off for ruining the story, but if you know the facts of the first Easter, you won’t be surprised. Jesus rose from the dead and in so doing broke the power of Satan. Aslan storms the Witch’s castle and breathes life into the statues, a symbol of the day of Pentecost when the church was born and thousands became Christians. The battles that follow symbolise the continuing struggle between good and evil that have been the normal experience of Christians since Jesus.

There is much, much more hidden in the text of the Chronicles of Narnia, most notably the final triumph of good over evil which will come at the end of time, symbolised in the final book in Lewis’s sequence The Last Battle.

You can be annoyed with Lewis, as many people are, for concealing the Christian story under such an enchanting fantasy. But beware of hating him too much. It will only show you in your true colours, where ultimately we are on the side of Christ or we are enslaved to the dark side.

Jim Sayers