Can you not see these people in your mind's eye? Can you not picture the Samaritan putting the injured man upon his donkey? Can you not envision the shepherd tromping over hill and stream looking for his lamb?

You cannot conceive of Christian faith without these people. They illustrate the power of the baptized imagination. It is my conviction that the most enduring legacy of C. S. Lewis will be his stories for children, for they show us all how to visualize the faith, the hope, and the love that constitute the essence of our Christian religion. All of us need a wardrobe through which to walk into the Christian faith. May God raise up, perhaps, from this congregation, boys and girls, men and women, whose skill with the story will be put to gospel use.

C. S. Lewis spent his life in Oxford, England. For a few years, beginning in 1954, he traveled by train to Cambridge where he taught as professor of English literature at Magdalene College. He was far and away the most popular scholar at either Oxford or Cambridge. His lectures attracted huge audiences, his sermons packed the pews, every book became a best seller.

Some of you may have seen the recent movie version of one episode in his life -- his marriage. It was called Shadowlands and starred Anthony Hopkins in the title role of Lewis. He fell in love with Joy Davidman, even though she was Jewish, divorced, and suffering from cancer. They were married in a bedside ceremony, and later in a church. They were together but a few years until she died. And on November 22, 1963, Clive Staples Lewis also went home to be with his Lord, shunning publicity in death as he had in life.

C. S. Lewis was buried at Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in Haddington Quarry, on the outskirts of Oxford. It is a small, quaint village church, built of stone; it is where Mr. Lewis worshipped all the years of his Christian pilgrimage. He was very faithful to the worship of his church.

Holy Trinity Church is not easy to reach, by car or by bus. It sits in the middle of a housing development, off of the main road. Around the church is the cemetery. It consists of very old stones, surrounded by walls of stone and iron. Through the middle of this cemetery is a path, worn down to dirt.

You don't need the signs that point the way; all you need is that path. It is the pilgrim path of countless thousands who come, week by week, year by year, to stand beside the simple stone slab that marks the place where the famous scholar, writer, poet, and storyteller is laid to rest.

Not just to stand, but to kneel in thanksgiving to a God for opening the mind and soul of this supremely gifted man ....

- in gratitude to this man, who offered back to his God the very best that he had ....

- in admiration for the ways, from wormwood to wardrobes, in which God sweetly, silently draws all of us into the delightful, eternal theater of His grace.

Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gifts!