I have been rereading Lewis's Miracles. This morning the chapter titled "The Propriety of Miracles" was next in line. There Lewis considers whether miracles fit (are consistent with) the story of the universe. In other words, do miracles make sense in the story or are they a plot device an inept author uses to get out of a hopeless muddle? Says Lewis, "Some people probably think of the Resurrection as a desperate last moment expedient to save the Hero from a situation which had got out of the Author's control."
Lewis tells us that we may set our minds at rest. If he thought miracles were like that, he would not believe in them. "If they have occurred, they have occurred because they are the very thing this universal story is about. They are not exceptions (however rarely they occur) not irrelevancies. They are precisely those chapters in this great story on which the plot turns. Death and Resurrection are what the story is about; and had we but eyes to see it, this has been hinted on every page, met us, in some disguise, at every turn, and even been muttered in conversations between such minor characters (if they are minor characters) as the vegetables."
Is it any wonder then, that death and resurrection show up in so many of our "merely" human stories? For example, Snow White, in the story that bears her name, dies (as it were) three times and rises again each time. Her third resurrection is the most meaningful and longest lasting, for the dislodging of the poison apple "happened" as a result of the Prince's great desire for her. The story ends with the marriage of Snow White and the Prince. The wedding is also the occasion of the death of Snow White's nemesis, her cruel step-mother.
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