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: