Further Up & Further In

Another Name

Lucy was 10.

She'd been growing her hair out for two years, ever since they got back the first time. She wanted it long, like it had been in Narnia. She wanted to be able to braid it again, and fiddle with the ends when she was nervous. She missed the feeling of tying it back to get it out of her face, and she missed having Susan style it for formal occasions.

But when she and Edmund returned from their voyage on the Dawn Treader - when they returned for the last time - she cut it. She wouldn't be going back to Narnia. And, oh, she knew she'd probably grow it out again, but for the moment she needed to separate who she was then from who she would be now. She needed - was supposed to - start something new. So, Lucy Pevensie asked her mother to cut the golden hair she had so lovingly grown for the last two years, and willed herself to start over.

Susan still made an effort to style it for her, tying a ribbon to the side and insisting it looked just as beautiful. Lucy was grateful, of course. But she missed her long hair, and she missed Narnia, though she missed neither as much as she missed Aslan.

It was Easter when it all came together.

The Pevensies had always, technically, been a Christian family, but they'd never put that much time (or depth) into it. Surely there was a God, they thought, but they'd never put much effort into a personal relationship with him. They attended church on the big days, such as Easter and Christmas, and they hadn't considered the need for anything more.

Maybe that was part of the reason Lucy missed it for so long. She couldn't understand the value in her religion, because her parents inadvertently didn't teach it to her. Aslan was tangible. God was distant. And, oh, her parents' didn't mean for it to happen, but they didn't seem to understand it themselves.

Or maybe it was because up until then, she'd only been concerned about finding Aslan in Narnia, and had never considered that she should find him in England, too. That was a new command. But there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. Now; now Lucy was searching everywhere.

So there was something different about that Easter Sunday.

The Pastor spoke first of Good Friday, which had just passed. He reminded the congregation of how Jesus had been arrested, but hadn't fought back. He talked about how the soldiers mocked him. He mentioned the disciples and family who watched as he died. It was excruciating, and tragic, and confusing. It was everything.

Something happened inside Lucy. One second she was sitting restlessly, the way a ten-year-old usually does during the sermon, and the next she was hooked. Her heart rose in her chest, and she held her breath. She knew what happened next. In her head she did, anyways. But her heart was on the edge of its seat, as was Lucy herself.

On the third day, a group of women went to the tomb, and found his body gone. The stone was rolled away, and it was impossible. They might have left the body alone. Who's done it? What does it mean?

"They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead." (John 20:9) Though the Witch knew the Deep Magic, there is a magic deeper still which she did not know.

Lucy's hands scrambled for the extra bible placed in the holder in the back of the pew in front of her, and she turned furiously to the chapter the Pastor was reading. The curls her mother had done for her the night before bounced as her head flew back and forth, following her fingers as she read.

This man, this Jesus, died on a cross, and the curtain in the temple split. ...the table would crack...

Jesus didn't fight back. ...Lucy and Susan held their breaths waiting for Aslan's roar and his spring upon his enemies. But it never came... He went willingly to his death. And Jesus, oh, he was given a crown of thorns; a scoffer's crown. ...the shorn face of Aslan looked to her braver, and more beautiful, and more patient than ever... He had died. He had risen.