C.S. Lewis, Dragons and Surrender

In C.S. Lewis' book, "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader", there is an amazing scene of surrender and restoration.

It features Eustace, a spoiled and selfish boy who wanders away into a dragon's cave, finds a treasure and falls asleep as he considers how to bring all this wealth back onto the ship without having to share with anyone. He wakes up to discover he has turned into a dragon. Here is where Aslan the Lion (The God-figure) enters the story. Aslan leads him to a bubbling well of water and Eustace has a wound on his leg that he longs to find relief from. Here's what happens:

"The water was as clear as anything and I thought if I could get in there and bathe it would ease the pain in my leg, but the lion told me I must undress first. Mind you, I don't know if he said any words out loud or not. 

I was just going to say that I couldn't undress because I hadn't any clothes on when I suddenly thought that dragons are snaky sort of things and snakes can cast their skins. Oh, of course, thought I, that's what the lion means. So I started scratching myself and my scales began coming off all over the place. And then I scratched a little deeper and , instead of just scales coming off here and there, my whole skin started peeling off beautifully, like it does after an illness, or as if I was a banana. In a minute or two I just stepped out of it. I could see it lying there beside me, looking rather nasty. It was a most lovely feeling. So I started to go down into the well for my bathe.

But just as I was going to put my feet into the water I looked down and saw that they were all hard and rough and wrinkled and scaly just as they had been before. Oh, that's all right, said I, it only means I had another smaller suit on underneath the first one, and I'll have to get out of it too. So I scratched and tore again and this under-skin peeled off beautifully and out I stepped and left it lying beside the other one and went down to the well for my bathe.

Well, exactly the same thing happened again. And I thought to myself, oh dear, how ever many skins have I got to take off? For I was longing to bathe my leg. So I scratched away for the third time and got off a third skin, just like the two others, and stepped out of it. But as soon as I looked at myself in the water I knew it had been no good.

The the lion said - but I don't know if it spoke - 'You will have to let me undress you.' I was afraid of his claws, I can tell you, but I was pretty nearly desperate now. So I just lay flat down on my back to let him do it. 

The very first tear he made was do deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I've ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off. You know - if you've ever picked the scab of a sore place. It hurts like billy-oh but it is such fun to see it coming away.

Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off - just as I thought I'd done it myself the other three times, only they hadn't hurt - and there it was lying on the grass: only ever so much thicker, and darker, and more knobbly-looking than the others had been. And there was skin as smooth and soft as a peeled switch and smaller than I had been. Then he caught hold of me - I didn't like that much for I was very tender underneath now that I'd no skin on - and threw me into the water. It smarted like anything but only for a moment. After that it became perfectly delicious and as soon as I started swimming and splashing I found that all the pain had gone from my arm. And then I saw why. I'd turned into a boy again. 

May this week be a week of surrender. May we stop trying so hard, in our own power, to find relief for the pain in our souls . . . for ourselves or people we love. May we let our soft underbellies show and allow God to remove our scales even if it causes pain. Refreshing water awaits. True identity awaits. Freedom awaits.