Good morning…

We all have flaws and we all try to hide them. We all make make mistakes and we all hate the consequences. We all self-protect, layer upon layer, and soon our false self takes on a life of her own. Our outsides look one way. Think bullying and boisterous. Think silent and scared. Think narcissistic and know-it-all. Yet on the inside we are all the same, stamped with the LORD’s image, uniquely designed. A friend sent me an article explaining through story our need for the LORD to cut through our self-protective layers to free our true self (http://www.rbcpc.org/media/sermons/transformed-by-confession/).

“’There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.’ This intriguing line opens C. S. Lewis’ Narnia book, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Eustace is a bully who enjoys manipulating others and getting his own way. As a result he has no friends. But when his cousins come to visit he ends up in an adventure that takes him into the fantasyland of Narnia. As part of a group that is exploring new regions, Eustace picks fights with others, pouts, runs away from the group and gets lost. He is the troublemaker in the story. Finally, his consequences catch up with him when he finds a dragon cave on an island and falls asleep on the dragon treasure. When Eustace wakes up he is fearful that dragons are sleeping on either side of him. He wants to quietly creep away from the cave, only to hear the movement of the dragons right behind him. As he arrives at a pool of water to drink, he looks into the pool and discovers to his horror that he has become a dragon. In fact, the dragon claws to his left and right were his own arms and legs. His dragon heart has turned the rest of him into a dragon.

Eustace, as a dragon, realizes for the first time how lonely it is to have no friends. He recognizes that he has been mean and hurtful to his cousins and others on the trip. He begins to appreciate how terribly he has treated the rest of the group. He doesn’t like what he is learning about himself.

Poor Eustace heads back to camp in the form of a dragon. At first the group is fearful, but eventually he is able to communicate that he is really Eustace inside the dragon’s skin. As a dragon he discovers that he can help his fellow travelers. He flies and gets food for them. He uses his breath to light their fires. It quickly becomes clear that they like Eustace better as a dragon than as a human.

Then, after nearly a week as a dragon, Eustace returns to camp one day as a boy. With humility he tells the story of his transformation to his cousins. Aslan, the huge lion who represents Christ in the land of Narnia, came to the dragon at night and invited him to bathe in a pool of special water. Before dipping into the water, the lion insisted that the dragon undress. Eustace, at first, was confused by the instructions. How does a dragon undress? Then, realizing that dragons are similar to snakes, he came up with the idea of scraping the outer layer of skin off like a snake shedding its skin.

Indeed, Eustace tried to change back into himself by rubbing at his dragon scales for some time until he could feel the outer layer begin to peel. He then tore enough of a hole in his outer dragon skin to allow him to step out of the skin. But when he shed the entire outer layer, stepped out of it and returned to the water, he could see in the reflection that he was still a dragon. He worked to scrape off another layer, but found, though he was slightly smaller than before, he was still a dragon. He continued peeling off layer after layer like an onion, but still discovered that he was not turning into a boy. Finally, Aslan offered to help. If Eustace would lie down on his back, Aslan would take his sharp lion’s claw and cut through the layers of the dragon skin all at once.

Eustace says it felt like peeling a scab. At first it hurts, but then it feels good to have the tender but healthy skin exposed. So Eustace lay on his back, with his arms and legs open, and let Aslan do the painful surgery. Aslan’s sharp claw dug deeply into the dragon’s chest. Eustace thought for a moment that Aslan would cut into his heart. Aslan’s claw hurt immensely for a brief moment, and yet it felt so good to have all the layers of dragon skin peel away. The new, nicer Eustace emerged from the dragon by letting Aslan perform surgery on him.

Here is the question. When we think of confession, do we think of it as scraping our own scales off? If we work really hard, can we break our bad habits and change ourselves? If this is our image of confession, then we are doomed to failure. On the other hand, what if we saw confession as opening our lives to the Lord’s surgery? Confession is the joyful discovery that we all need help and none of us can change ourselves. Only Jesus is able to do the soul surgery needed to transform us.”

Although he was weak when he was nailed to the cross, he now lives by the power of God. We are weak, just as Christ was. But you will see that we will live by the power of God, just as Christ does. Test yourselves and find out if you really are true to your faith. If you pass the test, you will discover that Christ is living in you…
2 Corinthians 13:4-5a (CEV),

Sue