Chapter 15: The Wonders of the Last Sea

Water is underrated.

How often do you LONG for water? What rapturous adjectives describe it? How many of you are looking forward to water for your Christmas dinner?

I found myself thinking about the attributes of water (or lack thereof) as I read about the "sweet" water at the end of the world. The little value the water seemed to have was lost when Reepicheep clarified "sweet" meant "fresh," as in not salt (I was imagining a favorite flavor – or something with a kick!).

So the Narnians braved this amazing journey to the end of the world to find…water. How disappointing.

Or is it? Perhaps the issue is not the lack of water’s value, but the lack of my appreciation of it. Are my circumstances causing me to miss something important here?

• I am reminded of camping. We bring in all of our water, and suddenly every drop is guarded as we cook, clean, and drink.
• I think of the Haitians. Newly tortured by cholera (a water-borne killer), fresh water actually means life to them.

Hmmm…

The description of this wonder of the last sea continues:

• The water "shone like glass."
• After drinking, the King was changed. "Not only his eyes but everything about him seemed to be brighter."
• Caspian says, "That’s real water, that. It – it’s like light more than anything else."
• "It’s the loveliest thing I have ever tasted," Lucy said with a kind of gasp. "But oh – it’s strong. We shan’t need to eat anything now."
• After drinking, "for a long time they were all silent. They felt almost too well and strong to bear it."
• "Hardly a word was spoken on board all that day, till about dinner-time (no one wanted any dinner, the water was enough for them)…"

There is something deep going on. Holy, even.

This water is filling and changing them in a way they had never been filled or changed before. The water was enough for them.

(There is a beautiful connection here to the commentary from Chapter 12: The Dark Island. Lucy was changed… )

Listen to what Scripture says about water and thirst:

• Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. (John 7:37-39)
• God describes the restoration of His people: "They will neither hunger nor thirst, nor will the desert heat or the sun beat upon them. He who has compassion on them will guide them and lead them beside springs of water." (Isaiah 49:10)

Sounds…nice. I am underwhelmed.

Perhaps my problem is that I don’t often (ever?) feel thirst, the real thing. We know such immediate responses to this instinct (and often meet it as a want rather than a need), that the power of being thirsty is lost. We don’t relate to what God means.

And then we equate His response to our spiritual thirst to the physical thirst we barely know. And we are disappointed. Or underwhelmed.

Perhaps His response to our souls is much deeper, more alive, beyond what we ever thought or could have imagined. Perhaps His living water is like light – that shines and changes us.
Perhaps His love is not just a version of love we’ve tasted before, but an entirely different love so strong that, like Lucy, we can hardly bear it. We find no need for the ordinary just as the Narnians found no need for food. Perhaps there is a silence wherein we find that He is enough.

C.S. Lewis wrote, "If we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desire, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased." (The Weight of Glory)

Where do you settle for too little?