New Birth

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is the most water-drenched of all C. S. Lewis’ Narnia stories. 
It tells about an obnoxious young boy named Eustace who took refuge from a rain-storm in a cave that turned out to be a dragon’s lair.  In the dim light of the cave he discovered hoards of gold and silver and jewelry. He filled his pockets and slipped a magnificent bracelet on his arm – and then fell asleep.

When he awoke, his arm throbbed because it had grown larger overnight and was covered with reptilian scales. Having fallen asleep “with greedy dragonish thoughts in his heart, he had become a dragon himself.”


(Greed will do that to you, I’ve learned, and as Eustace discovered, it is not that simple to shed our scales and become human again.)

Eustace lived in his wretched state for days, aching for relief. Eventually a huge lion named Aslan found him and led him to a well of water – a large well, more like “a very big, round bath with marble steps going down into it.”

As Eustace approached the pool for relief, the lion told him he had to undress first. So Eustace scraped off some of his dragon scales, only to discover more scales below. The more he scraped, the more he discovered layers of dragon skin below. Over and over he scraped at his hide to no avail. (I know that experience, too – the more you try to improve yourself, the more deeply ingrained your old ways seem to be.)

Eventually the lion told him, “you will have to let me undress you.” Eustace cringed at the sight and touch of Aslan's claws which cut deep and peeled him like a willow branch. Aslan threw Eustace into the water which stung fiercely for a moment – until the refreshing coolness of the water soothed him because he had “turned into a boy again.” He swam and splashed in the relief and joy of the healing waters.

That is the revolution expressed in the Christian ritual of baptism. It is a symbolic bath – a radical cleansing of our deepest self, washing away the moral grime of sin and greed and pride. It is a purging of the distorted identity that we adopt and hold on to as we organize our lives without God.

Baptism expresses a desire to let Jesus do a clean-up job on us. And when Jesus cleanses us he doesn’t just shiny up the broken, twisted distortions of our character, he does a deep radical make-over. He transforms our beastliness and humanizes us more deeply than we ever imagined possible – or necessary. He recreates us, renews us.

You might say we become born again. The plunge into water takes only moments; the transformation reveals its secrets over months and years.  No wonder Jesus said,
"unless you are born of water and the Spirit, you cannot enter the Kingdom of God."

Photo Sources:
Voyage of the Dawn Treader
Eustace as Dragon
Baptism