The Importance of Not Being Susan

Otherwise it stretches credence, but the gospel wasn’t hard to believe once I read some of C. S. Lewis’ writings forty or so years ago. Not so much Mere Christianity as all seven Chronicles of Narnia books, and watched their four movies that BBC made, to the point of memorizing script and becoming family with the Pevensies. 

The importance of faith comes home in Susan, who, because she has grown too sophisticated to believe, does not appear in The Last Battle. Whether one is a child, an adult, or struggling between the two, it’s just plain sheer decision, isn’t it. Choose now, choose today; or at least think about it and get back to me. The sadness of being Susan is almost too lonely to bear, so come sola fide if necessary, just standing on the promises. If not credo, then slip in under the tent of Πιστεύομεν and mingle unobtrusively with the crowd. Come as a child or not at all.

What’s with it? Mark reports the angel saying Jesus would meet his friends in Galilee; but, terrified, the women flee and say nothing to anyone. Matthew says he promised to meet them on a mountain in Galilee then did so. Luke gives Jesus a busy Easter afternoon and evening, with a supper of broiled fish, after which they walk out beyond Bethany where he is carried away into heaven. Ostensibly written by the same fellow, Acts reports Jesus hanging around forty days after Easter Day, appearing here and there - now and then - to this one and that one as he will -- before being carried up to heaven in the presence of disciples. John has the resurrected Jesus meeting his disciples on the beach and cooking breakfast for them.

Common seems to be a fleeting inconclusiveness between solid and diaphanous. An Episcopalian who prefers metaphor and inconsistency to pat and certain, I reckon he’s different things to different people at different times, and, having learned his lesson about us, is too elusive to be pinned down again. My theology professor at Gettysburg said "that he returned at all after what we did to him is evidence we are forgiven and still loved."

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