Chrysalis

This week the church celebrates the Ascension of Christ; and this coming Sunday we will celebrate the last Sunday of the season of Easter.  While everyone’s societal calendar will tell you that Easter was April 20^th this year, EASTER is not a single date, but rather a liturgical SEASON. 

This EASTER, the congregation I serve has been trying to be mindful living an Easter life means being raised from an old life.  For Lent, we kept an eye on “leaving behind” certain parts of our lives, so that come an Easter resurrection we could emerge into a new, renewed life—hoping it wouldn’t be just for a day! 

I think the end of Easter is a better example than the beginning.  Jesus’ ascension reminds us that the disciples, followers, and believes are left awaiting a fuller transformation.  And come Pentecost (that we’ll celebrate on June 8^th), the disciples, followers, and believers finally seem to become the embodiment of the Church.  While in the immediate aftermath of Jesus’ death and resurrection there are stories of fright, fear, discombobulation, and uncertainty; by the end of the Easter season there seems to be renewed excitement, new revelations, hope, and a new way of being emerges. 

Common Crow Pupa

These last few days, as Spring has more fully sprung, as the familiar creatures and bugs have emerged from winter, I’ve been thinking about the transformation and transfiguration afoot in the world and I’ve been thinking about chrysalides—the plural of “chrysalis.”  A chrysalis is the pupa form of a butterfly, and one of the images of Easter transformation. 

In the insect world, a chrysalis is the “in-between” stage of transformation and transfiguration during a caterpillar’s metamorphosis into a butterfly.  The caterpillar spins a cocoon, sheds its outer skin to help form a protecting cover, and transfigures itself—before emerging as something almost entirely new.  It’s amazing!  Some have likened this to Jesus in his death and resurrection—entering the tomb as a wrapped body and re-emerging as the “risen one.” 

As I encounter the stories of the disciples and the early church post Jesus’ resurrection, this is also something that seems to happen to the disciples and believers.  When Jesus departs for the last time from an earthly life, the responsibilities for his earthly ministry seem to shift from him to the disciples and the group of early believers.  And I’m wondering if we really “get” that? 

Following Jesus’ resurrection, Luke and Acts report that the disciples, followers, and believers were continually in the Temple and constantly devoting themselves to prayer—waiting in Jerusalem until they are clothed with power from on high.  Hmmm.  They enter that protected space, waiting to be transformed (or is it transfigured?).  When they emerge—we find them speaking, teaching, traveling, tending, and all around them are the acts and works of Jesus! 

There’s so much written and in conversation in church circles these days about changes happening in the church.  It’s the end of the great Christendom age—many think; we are dealing with changes and challenges unimagined; we are facing struggles amidst the reality of the decline in the numbers of people participating actively in churches.  Yet, there is an unprecedented hunger for the works and ways of Jesus. 

Perhaps this is our chrysalis-time as the church—in which we are being transfigured and transformed by individually and corporately.  What has been is not going to be in the same way.  What will be is not exactly who we are, now.  So…, as Easter comes to a close, will our life as the Church look different and be different as the scripture stories suggest it must be? 

For so many people, Easter morning is often portrayed as our “emergence”—“Up from the grave he arose with a mighty triumph o’er his foes…” declares the popular refrain.  But for the disciples and early believers, those early days of Easter are borne out sometimes behind closed doors, sometimes not being able to “see” Jesus at all, sometimes terrified about what this means or if they’ll be killed next, John even tells a story where the disciples all go home to Galilee; Mark ends without the women saying anything to anyone. 

No.  Easter requires us to stop and think, to reflect and take stock.  Almost as if we pull the covers over us tight on a cold winter’s night to hide in the darkness.  Or, like a caterpillar in a chrysalis-state. 

No.  This is the time of personal and corporate transfiguration and transformation.  We will soon be invited to take wing and fly.  It’s suddenly going to be EASTER everywhere! 

Cue the Avery & Marsh music, here. 

 “Every morning is Easter morning from now on!  Every day’s resurrection day, the past is over and gone!  Goodbye guilt, goodbye fear, good riddance! Hello Lord, hello, sun!  I am one of the Easter people!  My new life has begun!