The Great Divorce

The other day, I was reading C. S. Lewis’s The Great Divorce. He is one of my favorite authors, and not for the Chronicles of Narnia. He is one of the great thinkers of the faith for our time.  The Great Divorce has nothing to do with divorce. The book is one long parable. Lewis writes this book in the form of a story, and it’s strange to explain, but I will try. The story is from the perspective of a man that has just died, and then is almost in Heaven. It’s kind of a purgatory-esque place where people who have died recently are gathered, and angels meet them. There, conversations take place. Angels come to meet people and ask them to join them in the journey forward, deeper into Heaven and to Christ. The interesting part of the book is how C. S. Lewis portrays these conversations. The angels are pleading with them to come, because the ghosts of the humans have to give something up in order to move forward. It’s incredibly interesting.

For example, in one conversation, there was a self-righteous man. He argued with the angel, saying he was only there to get what was rightfully his. He ranted and raved about how he had done the best he could and he wasn’t perfect, but he was a good person. The angel tried to convince him that he didn’t deserve anything, that he in fact deserved hell. The man wouldn’t give in. He was too proud, and chose his pride over moving towards Christ.

Another conversation took place between an angel and what I’ll call a controlling mother.  This conversation was hard for me to read, but not because I’m a controlling mother. The angel was begging with her. Her problem was she saw everyone in her life as they related to how they could serve her.  She ranted to the angel about how her son had betrayed her, when in reality he simply made his own choices. She ranted about her husband who abandoned her, when she really pushed him away by being overly controlling. The hard part of this conversation was at the end, the angel, at the verge of giving up, asked her if “you could, just for a moment, think of something other than yourself?” That was convicting.

The point of this book is for us to see Christ and experience Heaven, we have to give up whatever is in our way.  This isn’t meant in a physical way, such as giving up a nice car or house or something. It’s meant in a deeper way. I have to sacrifice who I am and what I love to find Christ. I have to put parts of me to death, in order that Christ can bring them back to life. This week I’ve been learning, through C. S. Lewis, what it means to offer myself as a living sacrifice, like Romans 12:1 says. The cool thing is this. On one hand, when we refuse to put things to death, to submit things to Christ, they eventually die as weak, polluted things, like the love a mother has for her family that goes too far to the point of obsessive control. On the other hand, when we put things in our life to death, such as lust (which is simply a polluted, twisted version of love), Christ breathes life into them. Once lust is killed, the love that can rise in its place is supernatural.

I hope this made sense. If not, let me sum it up. Christ wants us to put to death the things in our life that keep us from him, such as our pride, lust, or self-righteousness. He wants these to die so that he can raise His characteristics in their place.

What in your life do you need to put to death?

What could Christ do in your life if you were rid of that?

Will you let him? 

Andrew Saffell