THE ALPHA AND THE OMEGA: ACT II

As in Act I, two men should read parts 1 and 3 while 2 and 4 are for two women.

(3) But scoffers will come in the last days saying, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things have continued as they were from the beginning of creation.” But do not ignore those fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow about his promise as some count slowness, but is forbearing toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. (II Peter 3:3, 4, 8, 9)

(4) Long ago, in the deep caves beneath those moors, they had seen a great giant asleep and been told that his name was Father Time, and that he would wake on the day the world ended. “Yes,” said Aslan, “While he lay dreaming his name was Time. Now that he is awake he will have a new one.”

(1) But of that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. For as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. (Matthew 24:36-37)

(2) Then the great giant raised a horn to his mouth. They could see this by the change of the black shape he made against the stars. After that – quite a bit later, because sound travels so slowly – they heard the sound of the horn: high and terrible, yet of a strange, deadly beauty.

(3) When the Lamb opened the seventh seal, there was silence in the heaven for about half an hour. Then I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and seven trumpets were given to them. The first angel blew his trumpet, and there followed hail and fire which fell on the earth (Revelation 8:1, 2, 7)

(4) Immediately the sky became full of shooting stars. Even one shooting star is a fine thing to see; but these were dozens, and then scores, and then hundreds, till it was like silver rain: and it went on and on. And when it had gone on for some while, one or two of them began to think that there was another dark shape against the sky as well as the giant's. There were no stars there: just blackness. But all around, the downpour of stars went on. And then the starless patch began to grow, spreading further and further out from the center of the sky. And presently a quarter of the whole sky was black, and then a half, and at last the rain of shooting stars was going on only low down near the horizon.

(1) The second angel blew his trumpet and something like a great mountain, burning with fire, was thrown into the sea.

(3) The third angel blew his trumpet, and a great star fell from heaven, blazing like a torch.

(1) The fourth angel blew his trumpet, and a third of the sun was struck, and a third of the moon, and a third of the stars, so that their light was darkened.

(3) And the fifth angel blew his trumpet, and I saw a star fallen from heaven to the earth. (Revelation 8:8, 10, 12; 9:1)

(2) With a thrill of wonder (and there was some terror in it too) they all suddenly realized what was happening. The spreading blackness was not a cloud at all: it was simply emptiness. The black part of the sky was the part in which there were no stars left. All the stars were falling: Aslan had called them home.

(1) And a third of the earth was burnt up, and a third of the trees were burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up. (Revelation 8:7b)

(4) Minute by minute the forests disappeared. The whole country became bare and you could see all sorts of things about its shape – all the little humps and hollows – which you had never noticed before. The grass died. You could hardly believe that anything had ever lived there.

(3) And I will show wonders in the heaven above and signs on the earth beneath, blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke; the sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood, before the day of the Lord comes, the great and manifest day. (Acts 2:19-20)

(2) At last the sun came up. It was three times – twenty times – as big as it ought to be, and very dark red. As its rays fell upon the great Time-giant, he turned red too: and in the reflection of that sun the whole waste of shoreless waters looked like blood.

(4) Then the Moon came up, quite in her wrong position, very close to the sun, and she also looked red. And at the sight of her the sun began shooting out great flames, like whiskers or snakes of crimson fire, towards her. She came to him, slowly at first, but then more and more quickly, till at last his long flames licked round her and the two ran together and became one huge ball like a burning coal. Great lumps of fire came dropping out of it into the sea and clouds of steam rose up.

(1) But the day of the lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and the works that are upon it will be burned up. (I Peter 3:10)

(2) Then Aslan said, “Now make an end.” The giant threw his horn into the sea. Then he stretched out one arm – very black it looked, and thousands of miles long – across the sky till his hand reached the Sun. He took the Sun and squeezed it in his hand as you would squeeze an orange. And instantly there was total darkness.

(3) Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. (Revelation 21:10)

(4) A long valley opened ahead and great snow-mountains, stood up against the sky.

(2) So they ran faster and faster till it was more like flying than running, and even the Eagle overhead was going no faster than they. And they went through winding valley after winding valley and up the steep sides of hills and, faster than ever, down the other sides, following the river and sometimes crossing it and skimming across mountain-lakes.

(1) But some will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?”

(3) You foolish man! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. So it is with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. (I Corinthians 15:35, 36,42, 43)

(4) At last at the far end of one long lake, which was blue as a turquoise, they saw a smooth green hill. Its sides were as steep as the sides of a pyramid and round the very top of it ran a green wall: but above the wall rose the branches of trees, whose leaves looked like silver and fruit like gold.

(1) Then he showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. (Revelation 22:1-2)

(2) They charged straight at the foot of the hill and then found themselves running up it almost as water from a broken wave runs up a rock out at the point of some bay. Though the slope was nearly as steep as the roof of a house and the grass was smooth as a bowling green, no one slipped. Only when they had reached the very top did they slow up; that was because they found themselves facing great golden gates.

(3) And he showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God, its radiance like a most rare jewel, clear as crystal. It had a great, high wall, with twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels. (Revelation 21:10-12)

(4) And for a moment none of them was bold enough to try if the gates would open.

(2) “Dare we? Is it right? Can it be meant for us?”

(4) But while they were standing thus a great horn, wonderfully loud and sweet, blew from somewhere inside that walled garden and the gates swung open.

(1) And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine upon it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb. And its gates shall never be shut by day – and there shall be no night there! Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and that they may enter the city by the gates. (Revelation 21:22-23, 25; 22:14)

(2) Aslan said softly. “Your father and mother and all of you are – as you used to call it in the Shadow-Lands – dead. The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning.”

(3) For this perishable nature must put on the imperishable, and this mortal nature must put on immortality Then shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy victory? On death, where is thy sting?” (I Corinthians 15:53-55)

(4) And as He spoke He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them.

(1) And I heard a great voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling of God is with men. He will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself with be with them; he will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more.” (Revelation 21:3-4)

(2) And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story, which no one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.