Christians claim that the incarnation: the conception, birth, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ is the central chapter of world history. How do you measure such a one-off event? The writer, C.S. Lewis, develops a reliable test: Does this 'Grand Miracle' fit in with the rest of the Author's other work - nature itself? Does this event illuminate and add meaning to the rest of creation? Notes below:
This is an illustration of the first half of C.S. Lewis' sermon 'The Grand Miracle', which was a quick summary of Chapter 14 of his Book called 'Miracles'. You can find fuller explanations there. The sermon was given at Eastertide in the final year of WW2 in 1945. I have broken it up into two parts.
You can find the book here: https://www.amazon.com/God-Dock-C-S-Lewis/dp/0802871836
(0:25) This reductive effort is nothing new. The most famous example of this stripping attempt is the Thomas Jefferson Bible where he tries to reduce the New Testament to 'God and Morality' and exclude the miraculous, that is, any interference by God into the normal course of nature. Lewis thought this 'a form of godliness, but denying the power of God' to intervene and save in naturally hopeless situations (1 Timothy 3.5, Isaiah 53.1, Psalm 18.17).
(1:20) God 'incarnate' means God 'made flesh'. 'Carn' is the same root word behind the word Carnation (flesh-coloured flower).
(1:50) 'All the other well-established Christian miracles are part of the Incarnation; they all either prepare for, or exhibit or result from the Incarnation.' By this I take it Lewis means that all the miracles from Genesis to the miraculous conception of John the Baptist prepare us for Christ's coming, all the miracles during Christ's time on earth reveal Christ as the Son of God, and all those performed by the Apostles and later believers result from Christ's incarnation. See Chapter 15 of 'Miracles' for more details on this 'revealing' aspect.
(3:09) For the 'Symphony of Nature' I have used a movement in Holst's 'The Planets' based on the medieval solar system. Just imagine, the majestic middle 'section D' had been lost from the Jupiter piece of the Holst manuscript, and this movement had become famous simply for the opening and closing repetitions of sections A - C (which are brilliant in themselves). Say then, a person claims to have found section D in Holst's attic many years later. How could we tell that 'section D' was original to the whole? What would give it away as authentic? Where do you hear the echoes of section D in the rest of the work? Are there some things in the character of the piece that section D brings out more clearly?
(5:47) The original paragraph is this: "This thing is human nature but associated with it, all nature, the new universe. That indeed is a point I cannot go into tonight, because it would take a whole sermon - this connection between human nature and nature in general. It sounds startling, but I believe it can be fully justified".
Lewis has more on this in 'Miracles', the essay: "God raised one man (the man who was Himself) from the dead because He will one day raise all men from the dead. Perhaps not only men, for there are hints in the New Testament that all creation will eventually be rescued from decay, restored to shape and subserve the splendour of re-made humanity (e.g. Romans 8.22: 'For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now. Not only that, but we also who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body').
(6:23) Christ was not myth with a man added, nor was Christ just a man with myth added, �He was myth that became fact (See Lewis' essay 'Myth became Fact').
(8:33) Lewis asks how it is that the 'dying god' myth, so universal in pagan religions, actually became a historical fact in that one religion in the entire ancient world that did not have any hint of nature worship. How very curious.
(9:37) 'The Lamb (of God), slain from the foundation of the world' (Revelation 13:8).
(13:05) Vicarious - performed or suffered by one person as a substitute for another or to the benefit or advantage of another.
