C.S. Lewis – Wicomico Presbyterian Church

Telling Stories

John 20:1-18 Many years ago, my parents moved into a nice rental house in a nice neighborhood. This was shortly after I graduated high school. Most of the years I was growing up, we had lived in town houses, in neighborhoods where they were all rentals. They were okay; there was nothing wrong with them. But this place was different; it was pretty nice. I don’t know how they found this place, probably from an ad the owner had put in the newspaper. And we didn’t know why he was renting out the house, he just was. But nothing abhors a vacuum like the imagination. My mother was great at developing stories. My mother’s favorite words were, “I wonder…” as she began to let her imagination spin out a tale that would give meaning to whatever was on her mind. When she began wondering about our landlord, she went to work. She asked aloud, “I wonder […]

Sacred Space

Isaiah 35:1-10 Luke 1:46-55 Frederick Buechner wrote, “Happiness turns up more or less where you’d expect it to – a good marriage, a rewarding job, a pleasant vacation. Joy, on the other hand, is as notoriously unpredictable as the one who bequeaths it.” And joy is as surprising as usual today in our texts. The song from Isaiah is shockingly glorious! Imagine: the gladness of a dry land; a full blossoming in the desert! Weak hands mysteriously and suddenly made strong! Burning sands become a pool of refreshing water; the haunt of the jackals becomes a reedy, mossy swamp. Life-giving water abounds! A highway runs through it called the Holy Way, and not even a fool could get lost on it! The redeemed shall walk there, they will come singing, and everlasting joy shall be upon their heads. Everlasting joy, in the place one would least expect it. The Bible […]

Incarnation (A Christmas Eve message)

John 1:1-14 If you are familiar with the C.S. Lewis story, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, you know it is a winter story – a magical story. It is the kind of story we can hear better at Christmas time. We are, somehow, more ready to open our hearts and minds to the miraculous at this time of year. The story is about four children who go through a magical wardrobe into another world, the land of Narnia, a place where it is always winter but never Christmas. This is the first story C.S. Lewis wrote in his series about Narnia, but it is not actually the beginning of the story – the whole story. There is another book Lewis wrote sometime later that gives the back story to The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. It’s called The Magician’s Nephew. The lion called Aslan first appears in The Magician’s Nephew. He […]