When the four Pevensie children learned that King Aslan was a lion, they were unsure what to think. Should they be afraid? “Is he—quite safe?” Susan asks, “I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.” Mrs. Beaver answers, “If there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than most or else just silly.” “Then he’s not safe?” Lucy asks. “Safe?” Mrs. Beaver replies, “Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the king, I tell you.” Aslan isn’t one to be tamed or controlled. As Mrs. Beaver explains later in the story, “He’ll be coming and going. One day you’ll see him and another you won’t. He doesn’t like being tied down…He’ll often drop in. Only you mustn’t press him. He’s wild, you know. Not a tame lion.”
This scene from the Chronicles of Narnia came to mind when I read Ulrich Lehner’s book God is Not Nice. If you’re wondering about the title, I did also when I first encountered it. So did the publisher who wanted Ulrich to change the title, but he insisted on keeping it as a discussion starter. We have come to imagine God in the twenty first century as nice and non-threatening. We only want a user-friendly god to affirm and reassure us. We do not want a deity to make any demands on us but only to make us comfortable. Ulrich’s point is not that God is mean. The God of Scripture is far more wonderful and mysterious than we can ever imagine. He writes in the introduction, “We all need the vaccine of the true transforming and mysterious character of God. The God who shows up in burning bushes, speaks through donkeys, drives out demons into pigs, throws Saul from his horse, and appears to St. Francis. It’s only this God who has the power to challenge us, change us, and make our lives dangerous. He sweeps us into a grand adventure that will make us into different people.” Like Aslan, Jesus is not tame, but he’s good. For prayer, we turn to one of the earliest church hymns (fourth century) that is still in use today:
Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence
Let all mortal flesh keep silence, And with fear and trembling stand;
Ponder nothing earthly-minded,
For with blessing in His hand,
Christ our God to earth descendeth,
Our full homage to demand.
King of kings, yet born of Mary,
As of old on earth He stood,
Lord of lords, in human vesture,
In the body and the blood;
He will give to all the faithful
His own self for heav’nly food.
Rank on rank the host of heaven
Spreads the vanguard on the way,
As the Light of light descendeth
From the realms of endless day,
That the pow’rs of hell may vanish
As the darkness clears away.
At His feet the six-winged seraph,
Cherubim with sleepless eye,
Veil their faces to the presence,
As with ceaseless voice they cry:
“Alleluia, Alleluia
Alleluia, Lord Most High!”
C. S. Lewis, Chronicles of Narnia.
Ulrich Lehner, God is Not Nice.
Rev. Dr. Peter James served 42 years as the senior of Vienna Presbyterian Church in Vienna, VA — 21 years in the 20th century and 21 years in the 21st century. He retired in 2021 and now serves as Pastor-in-Residence at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.
Even as a pastor, prayer came slowly to Pete. Read Pete’s story.