The Lion's Gate

 

"I am . . . the bright and morning star"  

Revelation 22:16

Aslan, Mufasa, Judah? There are no words to express the sadness of the terrible killing of Cecil, the lion. Images speak loudest, I guess, and this portrait is rich in meaning.

Yet, I can't help wondering if this tragic slaughter of such a magnificent animal is timely and spiritually archetypal. It seems like an icon of what we're doing to the world as a whole. Why are people still killing the animals? Haven't we evolved past that by now?

And, the children and the poor and the oppressed and the millions who are sick and dying due to poor nutrition are also at risk, living precariously at the mercy of the world's wealthy hunters - corporate, political, and military. Cecil is a symbol of the natural world - the Earth, the animals, the children, the women, the powerless, voiceless, oppressed  - struggling to just survive. They are the children of the Earth, the divine mother. They are those who suffer from wars and famines and are powerless to stop them.

And yet the Lion, the ancient and universal image of the Divine in our midst, that Lion of Judah, the king of nature, holds a powerful prophetic message on many levels.

It is certainly a call to stop the mass killing of the poorest of the poor on our planet through neglect, capital exploitation, and political and military aggression. It's a huge statement, maybe larger than a selfish American hunter's cruel killing of the beloved Cecil.

The slaughter of the lion is reminiscent of the slaughter of Christ who surmounted the grave, who lives eternally. While he is always calling us to step up to the gate to our own inherent divinity, he is equally showing us who he is. In the Gospel of John, he is the gate to life itself.  He is the way to authenticity, abounding joy and peace, all that is real, and eternal life. (“I am the way and the truth and the life." John 14:6 NIV) That door, that way, that gate, is the Lion's gate. It is a way, unlike any other we know.

While the long, slow, excruciating death of Cecil is extremely emotionally troubling, it points the way to the great and eternal Lion's Gate. We all will stop and look up and then be directed to look within, to our hearts.  Do we conspire to kill the innocent or are we courageous, with a lion's heart and stand up and speak out on behalf of those who can't.  Certainly the Earth itself and the animal kingdom is voiceless, as are the human women and children. That is, unless you have eyes to see and ears to hear their voices in their overall deteriorating vitality, dramatic climate change, extinction of species. 

What will we do when we see the Lion's gate? That too is metaphoric of the inner realm, where the true gate is - and is a kind of star gate.  If you see it out there, that means you have found it in here.

Yes,  he is in the heavens, as Aaron Blaise suggests, but he wasn't the first to see that.  C.S. Lewis saw the resurrection of Aslan as a symbol of Christ's eternal realm. He is who He is, the great and eternal Lion.

But even on the most mundane, the commonest of levels, the kind that CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS, or the BBC, will pick up on, the lion's death was not in vain. The world's outrage will insist on change. The conscience of our global community has been awakened. Thankfully, finally. And, hopefully the world's outrage will effect change.