The Dragon Who Needed New Skin

In C.S. Lewis's The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the boy Eustace Scrubb is selfish, greedy, and thoroughly unpleasant. After falling asleep on a dragon's hoard, he wakes to discover he has become a dragon himself. His outward form finally matches his inward condition.

Desperate to fix himself, Eustace scratches at the scales, peeling off one layer only to find another layer of dragon skin underneath. Again and again he tears at himself, but the dragon remains.

Then Aslan appears. The great Lion tells Eustace, "You will have to let me undress you." And with his claws — claws that cut far deeper than anything Eustace could manage — Aslan tears away the dragon skin down to the very heart of the boy. It hurts terribly. But when it is finished, Aslan throws Eustace into a pool of clear water, and he emerges fully human, fully restored.

This is the gospel of restoration. We try endlessly to peel away our own sin — our bitterness, our selfishness, our shame — only to find another layer underneath. True restoration requires hands stronger than our own. It requires a Savior willing to reach into the deepest, ugliest places and do the work we cannot do for ourselves.

The good news is this: the same God who sees the dragon also sees the person underneath — and the Almighty will not stop until that person is free.