The Treaty of Versailles, the official
end of World War 1, took place 100 years ago this summer. It was
signed on June 28, 1919, exactly five years after the assassination
of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the spark that lit the match that began
the great war. Although the armistice of November 1918 ended the
combat, it took months of negotiations for the peace treaties to be
concluded.
Earlier this year, historian Joseph
Loconte spoke at the National World War 1 Memorial and Museum in
Kansas City, MO. He was there to present his book, "A Hobbit, a
Wardrobe, and a Great War."
Loconte said that when the last soldier
was killed just one minute before the armistice, an appalling silence
prevailed. That's a good description of what took place in the weeks
and months after the war. Despite the parties and the parades marking
the end of the war, an appalling silence prevailed.
Historian Paul Johnson has called World
War 1 "the primal tragedy of modern world civilization, and the
main reason why the 20th century turned into such a disastrous epoch
for mankind." As Winston Churchill famously said - "All the
horrors of all the ages were brought together there."
World War 1 was called the The Great
War. It was supposed to be the War to End all Wars. Some even called
it The War to Usher in the Kingdom of Heaven. But it didn't quite
work out that way. It was more like the reign of Sauron ushering in
the Kingdom of Mordor.
Two of the greatest authors of the 20th
century, J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, fought for Britain in the
Great War. Tolkien was a 2nd lieutenant in the British expeditionary
force, and as such fought on the western front in the war. He took
part in the Battle of the Somme, one of the bloodiest battles in
human history. Lewis was also a 2nd lieutenant in the British army,
and he had what you might call a baptism by fire, unceremoniously
arriving into battle on the day of his 19th birthday.
By the time Tolkien returned home due
to trench fever, his battalion had been almost completely wiped out.
"By 1918 all but one of my close friends were dead." Nearly
the same could be said of Lewis. Both of them were literally,
physically, and emotionally scarred from the dreadful experience. To
the shell shocked veterans who survived the war, the mood was one of
cynicism, despair, and disillusionment.
It was a true spiritual crisis in
Europe as people tried to cope with the new normal and pick up the
pieces of a former life. For Tolkien and Lewis, however, this was not
their first brush with tragedy. Before they experienced the horrors
of trench warfare, they both had lost their mothers to death at an
early age. You might say they both lost their fathers as well -
Tolkien's father to death, and Lewis' father to despair and
melancholy on the death of his wife. These shared experiences would
bring them together and strengthen their bonds of friendship and
fellowship.
Although they both fought in World War
1, Tolkien and Lewis did not actually meet until 1926, several years
after the war had ended. They met in Oxford, where they had both
become professors of English literature. They quickly became friends
and enjoyed walking, talking, smoking, and drinking together. They
would later establish the writers group known as the “Inklings”,
meeting at the Eagle and Child pub each week to read and discuss each
other's literary work.
Josoph Loconte writes, "It's hard
to think of a more consequential friendship in the 20th century - a
friendship that emerged out of the sorrow and suffering of World War
1. What they experienced on the battlefields of Europe shaped the
worlds of Middle Earth and Narnia."
Both Tolkien and Lewis wrote grand
tales of epic lands in the midst of a great struggle between good and
evil. For Tolkien it was “The Lord of the Rings”, and for Lewis,
“The Chronicles of Narnia.” It was their way of taking all of the
evil and ugliness they had experienced in World War 1, and turning it
into something good and true and beautiful. As the patriarch Joseph
famously said to his brothers at the end of the book of Genesis, “Man
meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.” It's the answer to
Sam Gamgee's question in The Return of the King - “will everything
sad finally come untrue?”
This is a picture of Luther's “theology
of the cross” – the unexpected and mysterious way in which God
orchestrates and delivers His plan of salvation to the world. For it
is in suffering, pain, and even death that God chooses to work His
deeper magic and bring about redemption, restoration, and new life
for all people.
Ultimately it is at the cross of
Calvary, through the shed blood of Jesus Christ, the great Lion of
Judah, that the stone table is broken, and everything sad does indeed
finally come untrue. In the supreme “eucatastrophe” of His death
and resurrection, we finally have peace with God, forgiveness of
sins, and the promise of life eternal with Him in heaven.
But suffering and death always come
first. Crucifixion comes before resurrection. The cross comes before
the crown. The glory comes at the end of the story … but oh how
glorious it will be.
“For our present sufferings are not
worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.” -
Romans 8:18
Though the world wars are over, the
world is still very much at war. Here in this first week of
September, as we commemorate the day of Tolkien's death, the specter
of war is still before us, as it will be until Christ comes again.
But even in the midst of the chaos and confusion of this world,
Tolkien and Lewis help us to remember that God is still in charge and
that Jesus still sits upon the throne. He rules over our ruins, with
the promise that a renewed Cair Paravel is coming, and that a
restored Minas Tirith awaits.
“I'm glad that you're with me ...
here at the end of all things.”
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