Nov. 1, 2005

Being Stripped of Dragonish Ways

Mark 5:1-20

In the book Voyage of the Dawn Trader, Eustace makes his first trip to Narnia. He is a very selfish person. In one scene, he decides not to work and to take a nap. He sleeps in a dragon cave and finds that when he wakes up he has been turned into a dragon. It is during this time that Eustace realizes his own selfishness and relies on Aslan to transform him back. Here is the account of that transformation.

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 pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off… Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off… and there I was as smooth and soft as a peeled switch and smaller than I had been.

In Mark 5, we meet a man who is demon possessed. Nothing he could do would get rid of the demons. Instead he had to rely on Jesus to cast the demons out of him. It was then that he became a new person. Afterward, the man was “clothed and in his right mind.”

Whether we are selfish like Eustace or have made major mistakes in our lives, Jesus is the one who can transform us and make us into a whole person again. The process my hurt some, but in the end the pleasure will be watching God peel off the ugly part of us and replace it with something nice. I hope we will all allow God to transform us.