DOING SOMETHING ABOUT THE DRAGONS

      In the story The Voyage of the Dawn Trader, C.S. Lewis creates the character of a boy named Eustace Grubb. Eustace is extremely obnoxious, selfish, and certain that everyone on this voyage is against him. In the story, the ship Dawn Trader stops on an uninhabited island for repairs. It is on this island that Eustace finds real trouble; his greedy, selfish behavior meets serious consequences. As he wanders off alone, Eustace finds a huge pile of treasure in an abandon dragon’s cave. He stuffs his pockets with as much of the treasure as he can carry, then falls asleep in the cave. While Eustace sleeps, dark dragon-like thoughts fill his mind and heart. When he wakes, he finds that he has become a dragon.

      Ashamed, dismayed, and repentant, Eustace tries to be different, to change back into a boy, not the same boy, but the boy he knows he should be. However, trying as hard as he could, Eustace could not change himself from the dragon he had become into the boy he now longed to be.

      Then one day Eustace meets the great lion king Aslan, who offers to help remove the dragon skin that holds Eustace captive. In the story, Eustace describes the pain as Aslan tears off each layer of dragon skin, revealing a new boy, a new life, and a transformed personality.

      I think we all know where we are in this story. You see we all need to be de-dragoned, not just one time, but daily. Our lives have become encrusted with layers of behaviors that are keeping us from being the person God intends for us to be. Those behaviors, attitudes, thoughts need to be peeled away by the action of Jesus Christ, the Lion of Judah.

      The psalmist writes about this awesome transformational process in Psalm 51: 2,10. “Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a right spirit within me.” I pray, along with a repentant King David, for the washing of transformation, a clean heart, and a right spirit, the spirit of Jesus.

      We must lay aside this notion that we have the power to change ourselves, the power to shed the dragon skin that enslaves us to sin. Our efforts at self-improvement will only result in feeble attempts to remove one layer only to discover another underneath.

      Maybe this is why Paul writes in Romans 12 to offer ourselves “as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God.” When we offer ourselves, Jesus will prepare us for sacrifice.

      Just as Eustace trusted the lion king Aslan to peel away the layers of dragon skin, you and I can trust King Jesus to take away all those layers of sin that keep us from being the person he wants us to be.

Rev Tim McConnell, Long’s Chapel UMC, July 28, 2013