I need to be honest from the start. For most of my life, I never studied much about C. S. Lewis. The circles I ran in were often critical of him, and I carried those opinions without ever checking for myself. Reading him might be a waste of my time.

However, I recently began reading and rereading him for myself and even taking a Hillsdale College course. I started with The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, then The Screwtape Letters, and Mere Christianity. To my surprise, I found depth and honesty that spoke straight to my heart. Lewis doesn't write as a man hiding from the real world. He writes as one who has tasted joy and sorrow, who has buried friends, faced war, and wept over the woman he loved. He speaks of faith in a way that steadies the soul.

That is why his words about death hold so much significance. He once said,

"I am not afraid of death. I am, however, afraid of the process of dying."

That kind of honesty is a gift. He wasn't pretending to be fearless. He admitted that our bodies are weak and the journey home may be hard. But death itself, what lies beyond that, was different.

Lewis often pictured death not as the end but as the beginning. He wrote,

"There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind."

That is not sentimental talk. That is resurrection hope. He saw dying not as being cast out, but as being welcomed home.

He once said,

"The door on which I have been knocking all my life will open at last."

That struck me deeply. Every longing we have, every ache for beauty, every hunger for love, every restless desire for justice, it's not wasted. It's been the sound of us knocking on that door all along. And one day, by the sheer grace of God, the door swings wide, and on the other side is not emptiness but Christ Himself.

The Bible says it this way:

"We know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens" 2 Corinthians 5:1.

We groan in these bodies, but it is not groaning into the void. It is groaning toward home.

When Lewis calls death a door, I say Yes, that's it. Death is not the landlord evicting us into the cold. It is the Father opening the door to welcome us to supper.

Lewis sometimes described this world as the Shadowlands. What we experience here, even the best of it, is only a dim outline of the real country. Our joys are bright, but they fade. Our loves are deep, but they ache. Our glimpses of beauty are like silhouettes, pointing beyond themselves.

Paul said the same thing in other words:

"For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face" 1 Corinthians 13:12.

Right now, we live in shadows, but that doesn't mean the light isn't real. It means the light is so strong it casts its outline even into this broken world.

This perspective steadies me. Sometimes, life feels confusing. It feels incomplete. It feels like we're stumbling in half-light, longing for clarity. Lewis would say that longing is not proof of failure but proof of design. We were made for a world without shadows.

And yet, let me be clear: shadows are not harmless illusions. Evil in this world is real. Pain is real. Death is real. But they are not final. They belong to the realm of shadows, and one day the dawn will banish them forever.

That's why Paul could write,

"The whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now" Romans 8:22.

Even the groaning is part of the shadow world, but it points us forward to the day when the shadows will vanish in the light of Christ's presence.

Lewis's words on death were not just a theory. He loved and lost. When his wife Joy died of cancer, his grief was unspeakable. He wrote,

"Her absence is like the sky, spread over everything."

I hear that, and I think of how grief colors every corner of life. It's not just in the empty chair at the table, it's in the silence of the house, the memory that ambushes you, the laugh you'll never hear again in this life. Lewis felt it all. He even said it felt like God had slammed a door in his face.

Now here's where I want to pause. Because some of you have felt that, too, maybe you wouldn't dare say it out loud, but you've prayed and it felt like the heavens were brass. You've asked for comfort, but all you've heard is silence. And you wonder, "Where is God in this?"

Lewis helps us by being that honest. But he doesn't stop there. He shows us that faith does not erase grief, but it steadies us in it. He wrote down his anger and questions, and over time, something shifted. He discovered that God had not left him. The door was not locked. The silence was not absence.

The Psalmist knew this, too:

"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me" Psalm 23:4.

Notice, He doesn't take us around the valley. He walks with us through it.

That is the difference grace makes. We don't grieve as those who have no hope. We weep, yes. Jesus Himself wept at Lazarus's tomb. But our tears fall into hands that are strong enough to carry us.

Lewis said something else that I treasure:

"Christians never say goodbye."

That wasn't a nice phrase to comfort himself. It was his declaration of resurrection hope. For him, Joy was not gone. She was waiting.

That's the power of Christ's resurrection. Paul says,

"If we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him" 1 Thessalonians 4:14.

I love how Lewis wrestled his way into that truth. He didn't pretend. He didn't paste on a smile. He walked through the questions until he found himself held by the One who had already walked through death.

And here is where I want to respond to Lewis with all my heart: he was right. The gospel doesn't tell us not to fear because death is a natural part of life. It tells us not to fear because Christ has conquered it.

The Bible calls death "the last enemy" 1 Corinthians 15:26. And it is. It breaks our hearts. It steals from us. But in Christ, the enemy is already defeated. Paul mocked the grave:

"O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" 1 Corinthians 15:55.

The sting has been pulled. The venom is gone. Death may growl, but its teeth are broken.

When Lewis said,

"There are better things ahead than any we leave behind,"

I find myself saying amen. This world, even at its best, cannot compare with the glory to come. Romans 8:18 says it this way:

"For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us."

So what does this mean for us right now?

First, it steadies our fear. Christ holds the keys.

"I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore" Revelation 1:18.

The door is not locked. When it opens, Jesus will be standing there.

Second, it comforts us in grief. Tears are holy. They mean we have loved. But they do not drown us, because we know reunion is ahead. The people we miss most are not lost to us forever. They are safe with Him, and one day the door will open for us too.

Third, it gives urgency to life. Paul ended his resurrection teaching in 1 Corinthians 15 not with speculation about the future, but with this:

"Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord" verse 58.

Because death is defeated, nothing we do for Christ is wasted.

I have stood by gravesides. I have sat in hospital rooms where machines hummed and families wept. I know the heaviness of death. But I've also seen the power of this hope. I've watched songs rise through sobs. I've seen faith hold people when they had no strength left.

Friend, you don't have to be afraid of the door. It is not locked. It is not dark. Jesus has gone before you. And when it opens, it will not open into nothingness. It will open into light, into home, into the arms of the One who has loved you from the beginning.

As Lewis wrote in the final pages of The Chronicles of Narnia,

"Now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story… in which every chapter is better than the one before."

That is the gospel. That is our hope. That is what awaits when the door opens.

We walk in shadows, half in light,
Longing for day, but dwelling in night.
The laughter we loved, the tears that we shed,
The silence that lingers where words once were said.

Lewis reminds us, with tender refrain,
“To die is no loss, but unspeakable gain.”
The door we have knocked on, year after year,
Will open at last, and the Savior appear.

Grief spreads its sky, unbroken, unkind,
Yet faith steadies hearts that are trembling inside.
For sorrow may whisper, “The silence is proof,”
But Christ in His mercy still holds up the roof.

Death is an enemy, bitter and bold,
But Christ broke its teeth, its venom turned cold.
The sting is removed, the grave cannot win,
The shadow world fades as His light rushes in.

We do not say goodbye when loved ones depart,
For hope is a flame still lit in the heart.
They’ve only gone ahead, through that radiant door,
Where each chapter is brighter than all ones before.

So we walk through the valley, not shaken by fear,
The Shepherd who loves us is ever so near.
And when the door opens, the shadows will cease,
We’ll step into glory, into endless peace.