Seeing Christ in a bunny tale, part III

To continue from my last installment, I would make the claim that each main protagonist of the warren is a type of Christ. Fiver represents a prophet telling all of the need for salvation, and Hazel resembles the king leading his people toward the promised land, and Bigwig is Christ-like in his representation of the priest – the priest who sacrifices himself on the alter to bring salvation to his people. But more on salvation in a bit, let’s get to the main antagonist of the story.

The chief antagonist in this story is an immense rabbit named Woundwort. He is the self appointed leader of his warren called Efrafa. His part in the story holds a tremendous similarity to the role that Satan plays in the story of redemption. Satan’s hold on the world is the thing that Christ overthrows in His death on the cross. Satan is strong, Christ is stronger. Satan is crafty and smart, but our Lord is craftier and smarter still. Satan put up a tremendous fight, but Christ tells us that He binds the strong man and plunders what he has and this is exactly what Hazel and Bigwig do. Bigwig is sent into Efrafa, which is located at the center of a crossroad. He is sent into this warren with the sole task of confusing the enemy (binding him) and bringing out with him all that desire to come. It is at this point that the story is the most exciting and the most compelling. There is danger at every turn. But Bigwig is unmoved in his duty – to free the captives. The rest of his warren is out in the outskirts waiting to help him at the appointed time. To make a long story short, and not to give away all of the suspense, I will say that they all escape in a tremendous turn of events. You must read this part, but read it with an eye towards redemption. Woundwort is plundered and is confused by the “miracle” by which it happens. Hazel’s warren takes the long trek back to their warren as victors. Bigwig brings salvation out of Efrafa to his people. But in what way does Adams portray salvation in this story? I would posit that he symbolizes salvation in the form of does, yes female rabbits. Let’s see how this played out.

Just as we see with the Israelites who gained the promise land and yet still lacked the salvation through sacrifice to gained eternal life, from the time that Hazel and the others got to Watership Down, they realized that the existence of their warren could not endure because they lacked the very thing that would ensure their continuation -they lacked does. This is Adam’s representation of salvation. It wasn’t until Bigwig sacrifices himself at the CROSS-road and plunders Woundwort does that Hazel’s warren gains the one thing that they were missing - salvation. (Oh, and did I mention that Bigwig was (dead) in Efrafa for 3 days?) There are too many similarities with scripture to pass up.

So here we have the characters of Watership Down following the story of redemption to the letter and each of them representing a type of Christ in bringing salvation to their people. I am amazed that I never caught it before. It is for this reason that this story will continue to be read and loved. Like any picture of a rose painted by an artist, this story is only a shadow of what it represents, but for Christians this can cause us to appreciate the greater story even more.