In his classic work “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,” C. S. Lewis writes his version of the Paschal Mystery. Aslan, the Lion and the King, offers himself as a ransom for Edmund, who had violated a law, and “like a lamb led to the slaughter,” he allows the evil witch to lead him to his death.
As Aslan lies on the stone table of sacrifice, bound and gagged, head shaven, the witch taunts him as she holds the stone knife ready for the kill, “But when you are dead what will prevent me from killing him as well?… Understand that you have given me Narnia forever, you have lost your own life and you have not saved his. In this knowledge, despair and die.”
After his death and when the jeering crowds leave, the two girls, Susan and Lucy, quietly go to the stone table to “claim” Aslan’s dead body. Then in a burst of “deeper magic from before the dawn of time,” the stone table breaks and with a flash of bright light, Aslan rises from the dead.
Sounds familiar? It is the Paschal Mystery of Christ, the Cross and the Resurrection, a pattern of life and death and new life that the Gospel for this Sunday talks about.
Mission
We see this in more recent popular narratives. Ben Kenobi, in a dramatic scene in “Star Wars,” switches off his light saber with Zen-like serenity after accomplishing his mission to allow Luke to escape and fulfill his own mission.
Gandalf the Grey in “The Lord of the Rings” stands in the way of the Balrog to allow his company to escape and freely sacrifices his life by destroying the bridge and plunging to certain death. Both reemerge later on in the narrative, transformed.
One could consider this narrative of life-death-new life, crisis-antithesis-synthesis, Cross-Resurrection-Ascension/Pentecost, as a meta-narrative for growth and development.
The Christ story, though, is not just the mother of all meta-narratives. Surely it is not just another fairy tale. It is the critical point in salvation history, in the story of God’s relationship with humanity, where in “the fullness of time” he sends Christ, who freely empties himself of his divinity to be among us, then later offers this life again in loving obedience.
Let us focus on one point of reflection. In today’s Gospel we read the famous line, “Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit.” This is the critical point of choice—to freely choose to die.
In a previous article, I shared one of the gems of wisdom I learned from one of my companions in the journey, Dr. Dido Villasor, who said that unless we choose to clear the obstacles to grace in our life and person, the healing will not take place.
The obstacles in each of our lives will differ. We have different stories because our relationship with Christ is unique.
What we can all learn from is the shared human struggle of getting to the point of choice, freely choosing to clear such obstacles to grace, the choice to surrender a life we have been accustomed to. It is freedom from self that is our initial struggle.
Let me share two stories. One is about an organization and its leader who, despite all the temptations, managed to let go and put into effective implementation a succession plan. Two is the “generic” story of how power corrupts and how absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Case study
There is a case study on succession planning about an organization (I will need to conceal certain details) that thrives on being cutting-edge and on constant competition.
Success in this organization rewards the victors with great power, a sense of being on top of the world. This is the success of the organization’s top boss: He managed to resist the temptation to stay on top indefinitely.
With savvy and humility, he was able to navigate the landmines of ego, both his own and those of the people he worked with. He effectively put in place a system where success was amply rewarded, competition used to inspire, and solid commitment to the organization’s vision and mission given equal value.
Contrast this with our second story, “generic” in nature, but so true in most circumstances. Few people realize that the adage “power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely” was first used by a British politician to refer to a religious leader.
We often start out with the best of intentions, riding high on our white horse of mission and righteousness, but many of us get caught in the trappings of power and refuse to let go. We lose the ability to die to self and allow a life far greater than us to emerge.
The collateral damage is, we do not nurture others and kill all competition, or simply crush any sign of possible competition. The stage is not big enough for more than one star.
I believe this is a temptation for all of us, especially those who are more talented, gifted and blessed with opportunities. These result in more influence and power, with its attendant temptations to be corrupted.
The challenge is not to be obstacle free, but to gain the freedom to choose to let go, to die to self and clear the obstacles to grace.
As obstacles grow, they become more difficult to clear, and eventually dim our vision and sense of mission.
This now distorts the narrative of Christ, the narrative of the Gospels and of scripture.
As Daniel Pink writes in his book A Whole New Mind, “We compress years of experience, thought, and emotion into a few compact narratives that we convey to others and tell to ourselves. That has always been true. But narrative has become more prevalent, and perhaps more urgent, in a time of abundance, when many of us are freer to seek a deeper understanding of ourselves and our purpose.”
When we forget our narratives or don’t know them at all, we lose a great opportunity to evolve from life to death to new life, from crisis to antithesis to synthesis, to live the pattern of the Paschal Mystery in our lives.