Day 10
One of the most beautiful images of how our confession and repentance “purifies us from all unrighteousness” is found in CS Lewis’s fantasy novel, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. It paints a picture for us of how God’s perfect power and perfect mercy plays out in our lives. A young boy named Eustace finds himself transformed into a dragon after allowing selfishness, pride, and greed to dominate his life. He had placed on his arm a forbidden golden bracelet that, once he became a dragon, bit and cut into his flesh, tormenting him night and day. Aslan, the great Lion (who represents Jesus), meets Eustace in the agony brought on by his sin, and sets him free.
“Then 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 so 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 plea- sure of feeling the stuff peel off. You know - if you’ve ever picked the scab off 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... And there was I 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...”
We all need to be turned into ourselves again. We all need our sin peeled away so that our hearts that have become hard and calloused, can become what they were meant to be. Repentance does this. Submission to the powerful, merciful hand of God in our lives does this.
“It would be nice, and fairly nearly true, to say that ‘from that time forth Eustace was a different boy.’ To be strictly accurate, he began to be a different boy. He had relapses. There were still many days when he could be very tiresome. But most of those I shall not notice. The cure had begun.”
The cure has begun.
