What A Beautiful Name image

What A Beautiful Name

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Reading The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe to my son again last week, I was struck once more by the glorious moment when the children first hear the name "Aslan." My son, who has read the book once before, had asked me in chapter three when the Lion would come into the story, so by the time we reached chapter seven, it felt long overdue. Then:

“They say Aslan is on the move—perhaps he has already landed.”

And now a very curious thing happened. None of the children knew who Aslan was any more than you do; but the moment Beaver had spoken these words everyone felt quite different. Perhaps it has sometimes happened to you in a dream that someone says something which you don’t understand but in the dream it feels as if it had some enormous meaning—either a terrifying one which turns the whole dream into a nightmare or else a lovely meaning too lovely to put into words, which makes the dream so beautiful that you remember it all your life and are always wishing you could get into the dream again. It was like that now. At the name of Aslan each one of the children felt something jump in its inside. Edmund felt a sensation of mysterious horror. Peter felt suddenly brave and adventurous. Susan felt as if some delicious smell or some delightful strain of music had just floated by her. And Lucy got the feeling you have when you wake up in the morning and realize that it is the beginning of the holidays or the beginning of summer.

Or, as Charles Wesley put it:

Jesus! the name that calms our fears,
that bids our sorrows cease.
‘Tis music in the sinner’s ear;
‘tis life, and health, and peace!

What a beautiful name it is.

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