On This Day November 22 1963

C.S. Lewis Remembered

Khen Lim




Image source: thedailybeast.com

On this day November 23 fifty-two years ago, the world mainly recalls it as the day U.S. President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas in broad open daylight but in Christendom, we lost one of our most treasured commentators and writers who had gone the way of his Lion, Aslan. His name was Clive Staples Lewis, but we may be more familiar with C.S. Lewis. To his friends, he was affectionately called Jack.

We recall Jack as one of the world’s most gifted writers, a professor of English Literature at Oxford and Cambridge Universities. With his Chronicles of Narnia, he captured the imagination of young and adult readers throughout the world with a total of seven books in all that tell the story of boys and girls who, in the days of the Second World War, were sent to live in the countryside in order to escape the bombing that London was suffering from.

In a country manor, they find an unusual but alluring wardrobe closet in which they magically climbed into and walked straight out to a fictional land protected by Aslan, a magnificent lion who symbolised Christ.

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More than just riveting, the stories of Narnia became highly effective in converting many to faith in Jesus Christ. We see Aslan the Lion who gave his life to save others. To Christians, this was a thinly disguised but delightful facsimile of Christ our Saviour. To non-believers, the story brought home an impact of significant proportions and for some of them, the inspiration of Aslan was a powerful introduction to Christ the Redeemer.

At 14 years of age, Jack was happily an avowed atheist, perfectly contended until a personal analysis brought him to the conclusion that Christ was the only logical way to reconcile the most honest view of man and the universe around which he exists. 

Sixteen years later, he duly accepted Christ and thus began a succession of twenty-five influential Christian publications of which possibly, the most famous of his non-fictional books was Mere Christianity, a simple but logical telling of why the Gospel is so irresistibly acceptable.

Even while Jack was exceptional in fascinating children with his storytelling, he was also profoundly talented in challenging the most scholarly philosophers with his keen logic. For Jack, two works stood out as his best – English Literature in the Sixteenth Century was one and the other was Abolition of Man, which the Encyclopaedia Britannica called it one of the greatest books the world has ever seen.

Sadly Jack’s health was problematic. With serious kidney issues, he endured many transfusions and was once in a coma. Despite all of this, nothing stopped him from indulging in the written word whether it was writing or reading.

Those who were closest to him found Jack’s anticipation of death unusual because he was cheerful, peaceful and calm. In fact a week before he passed away, Jack shared with his brother, saying, “Warnie, I have done all that I was sent into the world to do and I am ready to go.” Warnie would later remark that no one had ever been this tranquil in death.

At 5:30am on November 22, 1963, Warnie heard a crash in his bedroom and summarily found Jack unconscious. Hardly a few minutes later, he died.

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In 1993, BBC co-produced the motion picture Shadowlands together with Gateway Films and won an Emmy for Best Drama for its exceptional portrayal of C.S. Lewis, a motion picture worth viewing if you haven’t.

You can read its movie review by Dr Bruce L Edwards at a C.S. Lewis fan site here. You can read another review at the Christian Film Database here.

Thank you, Mr Lewis, for your wonderful and unforgettable contribution to the modern Christian. We salute you.