What I Didn't Get to Say on Sunday (04/19/2026): Alive to See (PT. 2)

There is a character in C.S. Lewis' The Magician's Nephew named Uncle Andrew.
He is present at the creation of Narnia. He is standing there when Aslan, the great lion who represents Christ, opens his mouth and sings the world into existence. Stars appear. Mountains rise. Animals are called out of the ground. It is, by every measure, the most magnificent moment in the history of that world.

And Uncle Andrew misses the whole thing.

Not because he wasn't there. Because he decided not to hear it.

Lewis writes that when Aslan's song first began, Uncle Andrew recognized it was a song. But it made him uncomfortable. It made him think and feel things he didn't want to think and feel. So he told himself it wasn't really singing, just a lion roaring. The longer Aslan sang, the harder Uncle Andrew worked to convince himself there was nothing to hear.
And here is the terrifying part.

It worked.

Eventually, Uncle Andrew could no longer hear the song even if he wanted to. What began as a choice became a condition. He had trained himself out of the ability to perceive what was right in front of him. When Aslan finally spoke, Uncle Andrew didn't hear words. He heard only a snarl.

Jesus said something that should disturb every one of us: "He who has ears, let him hear." That's not a description. That's a warning. Because apparently, it is possible to have ears and still not hear. It is possible to be standing in the presence of something glorious and train yourself, slowly, choice by choice, into an inability to perceive it.

The disciples on the road to Emmaus didn't get there overnight. They had spent three years watching Jesus heal the sick, raise the dead, and feed thousands with nothing. But somewhere along the way, the disappointment of the cross created a filter. And by the time the Risen Christ fell into step beside them, their ears heard a stranger's voice and their eyes saw someone else's face.

This is not a first-century problem.

Every time you dismiss a prompting and tell yourself it wasn't real, that's a choice. Every time grief convinces you that God has gone silent and you stop listening, that's a filter being installed. Every time you protect yourself from hope because hope has let you down before, something in your spiritual perception narrows a little more.

Uncle Andrew didn't become deaf in a moment. He became deaf in increments, one small refusal at a time. Until the song that was changing everything around him sounded like nothing but noise.

R.C. Sproul, reflecting on this same passage from Luke 24, said the disciples had two thousand years of prophecy available to them, and they were still "slow of heart to believe." Not slow of intellect. Slow of heart. The barrier wasn't information. It was the willingness to receive it.

The good news, and this is the part I didn't get to say Sunday, is that Uncle Andrew's story is not your only option. The disciples' story ended differently. Their eyes opened. Their hearts burned. And they ran.

The song is still being sung.

The question is whether you are still willing to hear it.