The Dragon Who Needed Deeper Claws

In C.S. Lewis's The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, a boy named Eustace Scrubb becomes a dragon. His greed and selfishness have slowly transformed him on the outside into what he already was on the inside. Miserable and isolated, Eustace tries desperately to fix himself. He scratches at the dragon skin, peeling away layer after layer, but each time he looks down, another thick, scaly hide remains underneath. He cannot claw deep enough to reach the boy buried beneath.

Then Aslan appears. "You will have to let me undress you," the great lion says. And His claws cut far deeper than anything Eustace could manage on his own. The pain is real — Lewis doesn't pretend otherwise — but beneath all those dragon layers, the boy is still there. Aslan tears away what Eustace never could, then plunges him into a well of clear water, and he emerges restored.

This is the gospel in a fairy tale. We try to peel away our own sin, our own brokenness, scraping at the surface through willpower and good intentions. But the damage runs deeper than our claws can reach. Restoration requires a hand stronger than ours — the hand of the Living God, El Shaddai, the Almighty who alone sees the person we were made to be and loves us enough to do the painful, beautiful work of making us new again.

You cannot undress yourself. But He can.