Truth Unites - The Best Scene In Narnia

Episode Date: November 6, 2025

Gavin Ortlund shares his favorite moment from The Chronicles of Narnia, a scene that shows how even when life feels dark and confusing, Jesus is guiding our every step, just as Aslan guided Shasta.Truth Unites (https://truthunites.org) exists to promote gospel assurance through theological depth. Gavin Ortlund (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) is President of Truth Unites, Visiting Professor of Historical Theology at Phoenix Seminary, and Theologian-in-Residence at Immanuel Nashville.SUPPORT:Tax Deductible Support: https://truthunites.org/donate/Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/truthunitesFOLLOW:Website: https://truthunites.org/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/truth.unites/X: https://x.com/gavinortlundFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/TruthUnitesPage/

In this video, I'm going to narrate my favorite moment in the Chronicles of Narnia, and at the end, I'll share how this scene offers incredible comfort, a comfort that goes beyond any words for those who know Jesus, what it depicts of our relationship with Jesus. All right, so it's going to be, somebody sent me this beautiful painting from Amy Grimes. I don't know who she is, but she painted this, and I'll put up a picture of it on the screen so that you can see as well. What you're seeing here is a scene from the book, The Horse and His Boy.

and this, I use this as an illustration once that someone sent me this painting. I'm so thankful for that. That boy in the green shirt there is Shasta. He's walking in the darkness next to a lion who's named Aslan, and that's the Christ figure. And this is a moment where Shasta is sort of at the end of his rope. He's suffered terrible misfortunes, one thing after another, and he's completely lost in the woods. And a thought occurs to him, and he says, I must be the most unfortunate boy that ever lived in the whole world. Everybody knows that feeling when just everything goes wrong. You know, it's like exactly bad luck. And you end up in something and you're just saying, how has it come to this?

And as he's walking along in the field, it says that he's so tired, he has nothing inside him, he feels so sorry for himself that the tears are rolling down his cheeks. What put a stop to all this was a sudden fright. Shasta discovered that someone or somebody was walking beside him. It was pitch dark and he could see nothing. and the thing or person was going so quietly that he could hardly hear any footfalls, what he could hear was the breathing. And it talks about the horrible shock of just the huge breathing.

You know, he's terrified. And at first he's thinking, is this a giant? He's heard about these wild giants in the northern lands of Narnia where he's never been to before. He doesn't know what to do. Finally, he asks, who are you? And the thing says, one who has waited long for you to speak. Now he's afraid it's a ghost, and so Aslan reassures him by breathing on him and tells him to share of his troubles. And so Shasta chronicles his life story. He's at a hard life. He talks about running away from his home, which was very abusive. He talks about all the misfortune being chased by so many different lions in the course of his journeys and travels.

And he goes on and on about this. And Aslan's response is, I don't call you unfortunate. And Shasta says, don't you think it was bad luck to meet so many lions? And Aslan says there was only one lion, but he was swift of foot. And when Shasta wonders how he knows this, Aslan proceeds, and I won't read all that's on the screen right now, but you can just see the words, I was the lion. And Aslan goes through and chronicles every bit of suffering in his life and explains what he was really doing that Shasta couldn't have known about during each one of those sufferings. After this, Shasta begins to realize who he's talking to, and he says, who are you? And Aslan responds, Myself, said the voice very deep and low so that the earth shook, and again, myself, loud and clear and gay, and then the third time, myself, whispered so softly that you could hardly hear it, and yet it seemed to come from all around you as if the leaves wrestled with it.

C.S. Lewis does a great job in fiction, giving you a sense. I mean, right there, that's a great, it almost feels like Exodus. three, when God says, I am that I am, just this sense of, you know, what a great answer for Aslan to say myself in these three different registers, you know. But this is a powerful moment for Shasta, because, and it says basically he's afraid of Aslan, but he feels glad and happy too. After this, the sun begins to rise. He looks over and he sees this huge lion. It says no one had ever seen anything more terrible or beautiful, but he slips out of the saddle and basically falls at Aslan's feet and the chapter ends with their eyes meeting. I taught on my church this morning on the beatific vision and I talked about what it's going to be like to see God. And this isn't exactly

like that because this is Aslan who's the Christ figure nonetheless. Imagine what it'll be like to stand face to face before God one day. What I love about this moment is I think you see Aslan's personality in this scene more than any other in the entire Chronicles of Narnia in some ways. You see his gentleness. You know, usually Aslan is kind of scary. I kind of like this about the Christ figure in the Chronicles of Narnia. He's not a tame lion. He's not safe, but he's good. Whenever people meet him, especially if they've done something wrong, they're kind of afraid of him, they're trembling, they need to repent, you know, they need to make it right with him, they respect him, they revere him. He's this sort of fearful, majestic

person. I kind of like that. Feels true to the character of Christ in the Gospels. But in this conversation, as is true also to the character of Christ, there's this compassion that comes out. and you see Aslan, he's not really rebuking Shasta for anything. He's kind of helping him along. The next day, and you see he's actually guiding Shasta. The next day, Shasta realizes that he'd walked through the pass between the mountains into Narnia. Aslan was walking right beside him, guiding him exactly where he needed to be. Now, there's so much that's wonderful about this passage that I love. Let me just sum up what I think is the best part with these words, I was the lion, this sense of Aslan's guidance. At the very

moment that Shasta thought was the lowest moment in his life. He's about to enter into the best season of his life. Everything seems to him to have gone wrong, but it's actually unfolding perfectly according to plan. And when he thought he was all alone, Aslan was actually walking right next to him, guiding his every step. Think of Aslan looking back and saying, oh, I was the lion who did this. I was the lion who did that. You didn't know at the time that I was actually directing you, guiding you and with you, but I was. And I think that's a comfort that every Christian can have. In the same sort of Shasta moments, when you feel lost, forsaken and alone, like lightning has just struck, a curveball has been thrown at you, you're trying to, you're disoriented, we all feel

those emotions from time to time. We need to remember, Christ is actually the closest in those moments. During a season of my life where my wife and I were going through uncertainty with respect to our future many years ago, we memorized this passage from Psalm 121, which is a pilgrimage Psalm. And I would just constantly think of verse 3, he will not let your foot be moved. And the promise on this is God is not asleep on the job. God is watching over you. And as you're on your pilgrimage, your foot is not going to slip off the path and you're not going to go flying down the side of the mountain. God is watching over you with attentive care. He will not let your foot be moved. every time we would feel anxiety and pray, I would just take those, this is a great thing to do, is take a

promise from Scripture, and every time you're struggling with something, take the promise and speak it into the struggle. So if it's fear, if it's temptation, if it's despair, whatever it might be, take the truth of God's word and speak it into those emotions. That's what we would do, just take that verse, he will not let your foot be moved. Every time we would feel anxiety, we would take that promise into the struggle. And I think that's something that every Christian, everyone who knows Jesus, because the Bible teaches that God is watching over our lives meticulously. Your foot will not be moved as you follow him. God, even if it feels like God is sleeping, he's not.

He's watching over you with this attentive care and think of this happy thought. One day when you make it to heaven and you're with God, he'll look back on your life and he'll say, in effect, I was the lion. I was the one who didn't allow you to get that job and you didn't understand why. I was the one who made you turn left or made you turn right at that moment, and you didn't understand why. Some of the suffering we go through in this life, we understand after some time. You know, maybe you're 25 years old and something horrific happens. But by the time you're 35, you have more perspective about it.

You're able to say, oh, that's what God was doing through that. But other times, you never understand it. Your whole life, you just look back and you're just saying, what, why did that happen? I don't understand that. but from the perspective of heaven, God will be able to say, so to speak, I was the lion. There will be no more ambiguity and no more mystery. He'll be able to explain, you'll be able to look back in your life and understand all those times. You felt like you were walking alone, and yet he was actually directing you, guiding you, and working in those ways.

Final objection to this is some people say, well, what about horrible evil that happens? I mean, what about really horrific things? Can we still trust that God is guiding us in the midst of that? And this is very tricky because we don't want to deny the evil that we don't want to act like evil isn't really wrong. It is. But when we look to the cross and we look to how God redeemed even Good Friday and brought it through to resurrection Sunday morning, I think we can truly say.

If he did that with the greatest evil, he can do that with the evil in our lives. There is nothing that can thwart God's purposes in our lives. even the worst things fall under the scope of God's omnipotent and good purposes for those in Christ. So when you feel abandoned and forsaken, when you feel like you're walking in the middle of the woods, I would use this as a sermon illustration once, and I got so moved by thinking about this scene because I love the scene that somebody in the audience found me this picture and sent it to me, thank you for doing that. Now it hangs. It's one of two things that hang outside my office door. The other is Isaiah 58, which is the theme verse that I think about every day for Truth Unites.

So remember that scene. Remember those emotions, and remember, he will not let your foot be moved.