The Last Battle - some thoughts and a serious question

I have just finished reading the Chronicles of Narnia last night.

Took me from Chinese New Year's Eve (Jan 28) till yesterday to finish all 7 books, amidst my heavy work scheules and intensive MBA class in the last 9 days. Took a bit long...

The last book, with name “The Last Battle”, is talking about the end of the world, and what becomes of our world in the renewed world after the end of time.

I couldn’t tell you what the story line is, lest you lost the fun of reading it yourself, but this much I could tell you. I have this warm feeling, like a whirlpool of pleasantly warm water, surging in the inside of me.

I felt so happy, and in fact relieved, that the end of this world we know is really a beginning of new and much better world, and that this new world will never cease. What’s more, in this new world, you will never feel sad, or afraid, or anything of that sort. I know we are supposed to know this through the Revelations, but reading about it in a story book is very different, believe me.

What are especially relevant to me are that you might be able to swim (which I never dared), and you could see with perfect eyesight such that however near or however far you could still see as clearly (I am short-sighted, my eyes degenerated prematurely, and I have many relapses of macular edema).

I daresay I long to be in this new world a lot.

But am I fit for this new world?

Well I think I share the same feeling of Puzzle the donkey, the same one who was deceived into pretending to be Aslan, the saviour. I will definitely feel ashamed in the face of my Saviour, but I have the faint hope (well, I know I should feel more sure, but this is just my character) that I will be accepted by Him regardless of my own perception of myself. He certainly looks at things differently.

Think about the young Calormene nobleman Emeth. (By the way the Calormenes are a people living south of Narnia. They have no fear of the true God, and are generally mean and evil.) He had in his whole life believed in a different “god”, which is a demon in fact, yet his deeds were noble and righteous all along. Then he found out after the end of the world that Aslan was the real God, and thought that he would be doomed.

Yet to the contrary, Aslan received him as a loved one, because he said that:
"Not because he (Tash) and I (Aslan) are one, but because we are opposites, I take to me the service which thou hast done to him. For I and he are of such different kinds that no service whick is vile can be done to me, and none which is not vile can be done to him. Therefore if any man swear by Tash (the evil one) and keep his oath for the oath’s sake, it is by me that he has truly sworn, though he know it not, and it is I who reward him. And if any man do a cruelty in my name, then though he says the name Aslan, it is Tash whom he serves and by Tash his deed is accepted.”

How easy it is then to understand the Bible saying, “You called me Lord, Lord and you still don’t know me” in a parable told by Jesus!

But I must admit that by putting it this way, C S Lewis had posed a theological difficulty. Does it mean that one can NOT acknowledge the true God as God, but by way of one’s good deeds that one will still find favour in the Saviour’s eyes on the Judgment Day? Then does it mean that no one needs to be a Christian, or own up as a Christian in this mortal life?

I certainly do not believe so! One has to acknowledge that God is God when one knows that there is this God and heard about His deeds. I am not 100% sure about those who have never heard of God, but definitely not so otherwise.

What do you think?