So, who’s seen “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader?”
Next question: who’s read it?
Since the Chronicles of Narnia is my all-time favorite book series, and since it’s deeply ingrained in my childhood memories (I used to pretend to be Lucy—I even made myself a vial necklace), I waited eagerly for the “Dawn Treader” to come out. To my happy surprise, it came out on December 8th in Colombia.
Like always, there are incongruencies between the book and the movie. Aside from the issue of the invented green smoke (the producers must have seen too much LOST), the movie is lacking in its interpretation of the Eustace the dragon episode. Read Eustace’s vivid description of being “un-dragoned” as he recounts the experience to Edmund.
But the lion told me I must undress first. . . .
I was just going to say that I couldn’t undress because I hadn’t any clothes on when I suddenly thought that dragons are snaky sort of things and snakes can cast their skins. Oh, of course, thought I, that’s what the lion means. So I started scratching myself and my scales began coming off all over the place. And then I scratched a little deeper and, instead of just scales coming off here and there, my whole skin started peeling off beautifully, like it does after an illness, or as if I was a banana. In a minute or two I just stepped out of it. I could see it lying there beside me, looking rather nasty. It was a most lovely feeling. So I started to go down into the well for my bath.
But just as I was going to put my feet into the water I looked down and saw that they were all hard and rough and wrinkled and scaly just as they had been before. Oh, that’s all right, said I, it only means I had another smaller suit on underneath the first one, and I’ll have to get out of it too. So I scratched and tore again and this under skin peeled off beautifully and out I stepped and left it lying beside the other one and went down to the well for my bath.
Well, exactly the same thing happened again. And I thought to myself, oh dear, how ever many skins have I got to take off? For I was longing to bathe my leg. So I scratched away for the third time and got off a third skin, just like the two others, and stepped out of it. But as soon as I looked at myself in the water I knew it had been no good. . . .
“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 jut the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off. You know — if you’ve ever picked the scab of 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 – just as I thought I’d done it myself the other three times, only they hadn’t hurt – and there it was lying on the grass, only ever so much thicker, and darker, and more knobbly-looking than the others had been. And there was I 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. . . .”
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C.S. Lewis is a genius when it comes to metaphors; what an amazing analogy for the process of sanctification. Becoming the people God designed us to be is a feat that we cannot accomplish on our own. Countless times, I've decided I need to change something about myself. With hard work and self-discipline, I may be able to see an improvement...but it never lasts; there's always another dragon skin hiding underneath (Romans 7:21-24). But when I (with willingness and submission) allow God to work in me, real change--beginning at the heart level and working outwards--takes place. We have to "put off" "put to death" and "rid ourselves" of wrong thinking and behavior (Colossians 3, Ephesians 4), but God is the only one who can make us righteous (Philippians 2: 12-13).
