The Lamp-post and the Burning Bush (Part 2)

There's one more point I wanted to raise with respect to the lamp-post (for now). In fact, it's another parallel to Moses. At the Passover seder (the multistep ritual of the first night(s) of Passover), we say, "In every generation our enemies seek to destroy us. And the Holy One, Blessed be He, saves us from their hands." The truth of this statement is beyond doubt, and even over the past week we have seen God's hand through the brave men and women of the Israeli and United States military. Lewis references this towards the end of The Silver Chair (as discussed here). 

The last phrase of this statement, however, has been cleverly interpreted. "From their hands," does not just mean that God saves us from the enemy's evil plans, but that the salvation comes from the enemies themselves. Thus, it is not simply that God saved the Children of Israel from the Egyptians, but that God's emissary was Moses who was raised by the Pharoah himself. It is the hand of Pharoah that unleashed the salvation.

The Narnian lamp-post was planted, albeit unknowingly, by the White Witch. It stood for generations, a relic of an evil that had entered the world, a sign that evil may materialize but that the light of goodness would continue to shine. Generations passed, the evil did not materialize and the lesson of the lamp-post was forgotten. Then one day, the evil reared its head, but no one paid any attention to the lamp-post, until a young girl stopped and wondered. Why would you plant a lamp-post in the middle of the wood, in a place of darkness? 

The answer (though unknown to her at the time) came immediately, "a very strange person stepped out from among the trees into the light of the lamp-post." The light of the lamp-post wasn't useless it enabled her to recognize the faun Tumnus, to make a friend, eventually to save Narnia. That same lamp-post, planted in Narnia as a weapon used to kill Aslan, was eventually overcome at the hands of a young girl who used the lamp-post to find a friend. From the hands of the White Witch there arose salvation. 

Actually, writing this got me thinking about the following contrast. The stone knife was used to kill Aslan and was brought to the island of Ramandu to rest in honor. The lamp-post was used to in an attempt to kill Aslan, but it stayed in Narnia. Why?

I guess we need another post on this... 

Photo by Sarah Sheedy on Unsplash