By random selection I got Chapter 7. I bet every blogger wishes he or she had gotten chapter 7. Chapter 7 is going to be the most talked about part of the book. On the Narnia Adventure Weekend (Dec 11) Chapter 7 is going to be the most focused upon. Chapter 7 is the part of the movie we are all hoping they will do well and it is also the part they are the least likely to properly capture on film.
Everyone will be talking about Eustace's being un-dragoned. The layers of his dragon-ness being pealed away. The way only Aslan can truly free him. The closing paragraphs about Eustace's journey, that he didn't change all at once, will be discussed often.
I don't want to write about this, I want to find some other more obscure or interesting part that won't be so heavily travelled.
But Chapter 7 is the most like the Gospel story. It is a story that never wears out. It is the story that gets told again and again, and yet we keep forgetting it. I think I'm bored of it, but it must be told again. There are still people who don't know! I still don't know.
So once again:
Eustace was a dragon, but he wasn't ALL dragon. He longed to change and indeed he tried but he couldn't do it by himself. We cannot heal ourselves.
Only Aslan (Christ) could peal off his deepest layers of sin.
This pealing was, at the same time, the most painful and the most freeing experience of Eustace's life. If you want change, be ready for it to hurt.
He was washed in water and given new clothes by Aslan.
And for the rest of his life he kept on being un-dragoned. He had good days and bad days, but the bad days can be overlooked, for on this day his healing had begun!
Therefore whoever is in Christ is a new creation. The old has gone. The new has come. -- 2 Corinthians 5:17
One more telling of the old, old tale.
