Here Is Your Brother: Aslan, Anger, and the Grace of Letting Go

“Would you rather have your life ruined or would you rather change?”

That question hits hard when you hold it next to one scene in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

A couple of days ago, here at NarniaFans, we posted “A Moment to Remember” for September 11: a reminder that an ordinary morning can turn in an instant, that the people beside us matter more than most of what fills our days, and that the kind thing should be said while there is still time to say it. That is part of why this scene, and this weekend’s strikingly timed readings, hit so hard together. In the shadow of September 11, they press a hard question: after real hurt, what do we do with anger?

Edmund has done real damage. He betrayed Peter, Susan, Lucy, and the Beavers. He believed the White Witch. He helped place his own family in mortal danger. Lewis does not blur any of that. Edmund’s sin is not small, and the people he hurt have every reason to feel angry.

But Aslan does not leave that anger untouched. After speaking with Edmund privately, he brings him back and says, “Here is your brother.” Then he adds, “There is no need to talk to him about what is past.”

The betrayal mattered terribly. Aslan is not shrugging it off. He is telling Edmund’s brother and sisters to stop holding the past over him. Stop feeding the anger. Stop naming him by his worst act. The boy who walks back into that circle is not introduced as traitor. He is introduced as brother.

That is where the scene turns. Edmund needs forgiveness, yes. Peter, Susan, and Lucy also need to let go of the urge to keep punishing him. Otherwise the Witch loses Edmund, but his betrayal keeps ruling the family anyway.

Sirach Will Not Let Us Coddle Our Anger

The first reading, Sirach 27:30-28:7, opens with a slap: “Wrath and anger are hateful things, yet the sinner hugs them tight.” That image stings because it is true. We hug anger tight. We rehearse it. We protect it. We start treating it like proof that we were right all along.

Sirach does not let us dress that up as wisdom. It presses harder: “Forgive your neighbor’s injustice; then when you pray, your own sins will be forgiven.” Then it asks the question nobody wants aimed at them: “Could anyone nourish anger against another and expect healing from the LORD?”

When physical pain hits, we want relief immediately. We will get up at four in the morning, make the appointment, take the medicine, do whatever has to be done. But spiritual sickness is different. We will cling to the thing poisoning us. We will keep anger on life support and call it caution, dignity, or justice.

Sirach calls it what it is. It is ruin. If we keep hugging wrath tight, it will not protect us. It will rot us.

Aslan Will Not Let Edmund’s Sin Rule the Family Forever

That is why his words to Edmund’s siblings matter so much. They are not told to keep returning to what he did. They are not told to make his failure the permanent measure of who he is. Aslan has spoken with Edmund and restored him to them, and now they are told not to keep dragging the past behind him.

Something did happen. Lewis is not erasing it. He is showing what mercy does with it. The betrayal is no longer allowed to define the relationship.

That is harder than sentimentality. It is harder to release a grievance than to repeat it. It is harder to stop introducing someone in your mind by the thing they did to you. Aslan restores Edmund’s place in the family and refuses to let the past become the family’s favorite weapon.

In other words, they may have every reason to be angry, but they are not allowed to stay there. They are not allowed to hold onto that anger and keep dragging it back into the room. What Aslan asks of them requires forgiveness. They have to let it go.

The Other Readings Keep Tightening the Screws

The responsorial psalm, Psalm 103:1-4, 9-12, says it plainly: “The Lord is kind and merciful, slow to anger, and rich in compassion.” It also says, “He will not always chide, nor does he keep his wrath forever.” If God does not keep his wrath forever, why are we so eager to keep ours?

Romans 14:7-9 widens the claim: “None of us lives for oneself, and no one dies for oneself… whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s.” Even our hurts do not belong entirely to us. Even our anger does not get to rule us. We are the Lord’s. That means our wounds, our grudges, our sense that we have been wronged all come under his lordship too.

Then the Gospel, Matthew 18:21-35, removes every last excuse. Peter asks, “Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often must I forgive? As many as seven times?” Jesus answers, “I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times.” He tells the story of the servant who is forgiven an impossible debt and then turns around and throttles a man over a much smaller one. And Christ ends with a warning nobody can honestly call unclear: “So will my heavenly Father do to you, unless each of you forgives your brother from your heart.”

The word is hard to miss. Aslan calls Edmund their brother. In the Gospel, Peter asks what to do when his brother sins against him, and Christ ends by commanding each person to forgive his brother from the heart.

Sirach condemns the anger we hug tight. The Psalm shows us a God who does not keep his wrath forever. Romans reminds us that even our lives belong to the Lord. And Christ removes every remaining escape hatch: forgive your brother from the heart.

So do not hold onto anger. Do not nurse resentment. Do not build your identity around the injuries you have suffered. Do not keep replaying the past as if bitterness were a virtue.

Then the Our Father Comes for Us Too

We pray it all the time: “forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” That is a frightening prayer if we slow down long enough to mean it.

We are asking God to forgive us as we forgive others. Christ put those two things in the same sentence. We might prefer that he had not. If we cling to wrath, if we keep a running list in our hearts of every old wound, then we are praying words we do not want answered on their own terms.

Help us forgive the people who hurt us, even the ones we feel do not deserve it. That is Christian forgiveness. The hurt was real. Lewis knows that, and Scripture does too. But anger is a terrible master, and if we keep feeding it, it will shape us more than the original injury ever did.

When Aslan Says, “Here Is Your Brother,” What Do We Do?

That is the question this scene leaves us with, because in this moment we are not Aslan. We are Peter, Susan, and Lucy.

We are the ones standing there with legitimate reasons to be angry. We are the ones hearing Aslan say, “Here is your brother.” We are the ones being told, “There is no need to talk to him about what is past.”

Edmund made a catastrophic mistake. It could have cost lives. Lewis does not erase that. But he also does not let Edmund remain forever trapped inside it. And Lewis shows us the future Aslan gives him. The boy who betrayed his family does not go down in Narnian history as Edmund the Traitor. He becomes King Edmund the Just.

Aslan’s forgiveness does not rewrite Edmund’s past. It gives Edmund a future.

The real question is what we do when Aslan turns to us and says there is no need to talk about what is past.

Can we actually leave it there?

Can we forgive those who trespass against us, including the ones we are quite certain do not deserve it?

Or will we hug our anger tight?

Lewis knew better. More importantly, the Gospel does too.