“It’s all right!” Mr. Beaver was shouting from somewhere beyond the mouth of the cave. “Come out, Mrs. Beaver. Come out, Sons and Daughters of Adam and Eve. It’s all right! It isn’t her!”
Not her! Lucy hardly dared to believe it. All night long, while the silent snow drifted down through the arms of the great trees, she had shivered in the darkness of the underground burrow, listening breathlessly for the sound of the Witch’s sleigh bells. Through the black hours their dreaded jangle had haunted her dreams. More than once she had awakened in a cold sweat, imagining that the Queen was upon them at last.
Then came a moment of truth. In the gray dawn, just outside the door, the unmistakable ring of harness bells! It was with trembling lips that Lucy had watched Mr. Beaver slip out into the half-darkness for a closer look. And now she could hear him calling, “Come out! It isn’t her!”
Who, then? That’s the question that filled every mind as they trudged through the wood toward the clearing. They had their answer as soon as they saw him: a great, glad giant of a man, all in red, with a snowy white beard streaming down over the breast of his ample robe.
“I’ve got in at last!” boomed Father Christmas, for of course it was he. “She has kept me out for a long time, but her magic is weakening.”
Lucy shivered, more with excitement than with the cold. “Always winter and never Christmas,” that’s what Mr. Tumnus had said about the Witch’s enchantment. It was a dreary, depressing thought. But now, it seemed, all that was about to change. For here he was! And “Aslan,” she heard Father Christmas saying, “Aslan is on the move.”
He had gifts for each of them, of course: a sword and a shield for Peter; a bow, quiver, and a little ivory horn for Susan. For Lucy there was a dagger and a wonderful diamond flask filled with a healing cordial.
“And now,” said Father Christmas, smiling, “here is something for the moment!” And suddenly in the middle of the snowy wood there appeared cups and saucers, cream and sugar, and a great big steaming pot of hot tea.
The best tea I’ve ever had, thought Lucy as she sat in the cold shadows of the Beaver-burrow, cradling her cup in her hands. Somewhere outside in the growing light, a great voice trumpeted a triumphant farewell: “A Merry Christmas! Long live the true King!
Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king.
(Matthew 2:1, NKJV)
This brief passage from the gospel of Matthew contains the very essence of the Christmas message, a message that may come home to us all the more tellingly if we simply reverse the clauses: In the days of Herod the king, then Jesus was born.
They were dark days, bleak days — days devoid of hope for justice-loving, God-fearing, Torah-believing Jews. Herod the Great, ruler of the providence of Judea from 37 B.C. to 4 B.C., was without a doubt one of the most ruthless and tyrannical princes ever to hold sway over that bloodstained and sorrow-stricken little corner of the world. Herod, master of cruelty and intrigue. Herod, king of envy and paranoia. Herod, a man who could slaughter infants and murder his own wife and sons without batting an eye. He was in control when God entered history as a tender, helpless babe, a trembling point of light on the edge of a vast, encircling darkness.
Imagine what it would have been like if that light had never dawned — if that bleakness had gone on without interruption, without variation, without end, like a stone-hard, barren-faced desert stretching to the horizon and down the other side of the world.
Enter Narnia
Unbroken winter, grim and cheerless — such is the backdrop against which the story of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe unfolds. No sooner have we stepped into Narnia than we discover that the entire land lies under a shadow every bit as thick and gloomy as the one that covered Judea in the days of Herod the king. For here in Narnia, thanks to the White Witch, it is “always winter and never Christmas.”
The imagery hits home with each and every one of us. Like a week without a weekend or a school year without the holidays, winter without Christmas would be simply unendurable.
That’s why the Celtic and Teutonic tribes of northern Europe invented Yuletide in the first place; at the darkest hour of the year, they celebrated the return of the light. That’s why the flap over the pagan origins of Christmas and the endless debates about the precise timing of Jesus’ birth are largely beside the point: They fail to recognize the symbolic significance of the Christian adaptation of solstice festivals.
But the symbolism is too beautiful and too powerful to miss. It underscores an aspect of the Christmas message that we dare not neglect. It was during the days of Herod the king that the Savior was born. And it is in the bleak midwinter of personal failure, heartbreak and disappointment that Jesus delights to encounter us today.
It’s in such a context that Father Christmas comes sledging onto the stage of the Narnian drama. He makes his entrance to the accompaniment of bells, laughing aloud in the silent, snowy wood. Like Gandalf the White at the edge of Fangorn Forest, he appears at the turn of the tide. Like John the Baptist on the banks of the Jordan, he arises in the desert as a harbinger of hope, a voice crying in the wilderness.
More to the point, Father Christmas comes bearing gifts — gifts that equip; gifts that enable; warming, cheering, heartening gifts. All these and more come tumbling out of the bulging sack atop his sleigh. And when the presents have all been handed out, he does an even more remarkable thing. In the cold, unnatural stillness of the bewitched world, he produces a cozy reminder of homely hospitality: a steaming pot of tea. It’s more than just a bit of momentary comfort; it’s a promise. For as the tea is poured and the sugar passed, Narnia is shaken to its foundations with the expectation of coming change.
Enter Christ
For lo, the winter is past, The rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth; The time of singing has come. (Song of Solomon 2:11-12, NKJV)
Are you listening? Did you hear? It isn’t her — it’s Him. The witch’s magic is weakening! You thought it would last forever, but the ice is melting and the winter of your discontent is drawing to an end. This is the meaning of Father Christmas’s unforeseen appearance in the Narnian woods. It’s also the intensely real, eternally rock-solid, and deeply personal significance of the birth of Jesus — that same Jesus who was born during the days of Herod the king. 
