The beauty of the butterfly

Butterflies are not mentioned in the Bible, although moths in Scripture represent the frailty of humans and of human existence (Job 4:19; 13:28; Isaiah 50:9; 51:8) and the temporary quality of earthly possessions (Matthew 6:19-20; Luke 12:33; James 5:2). Butterflies and moths undergo a similar transformation from larva to adult by way of a dormant stage (the pupa or chrysalis), but perhaps the beauty of a butterfly compared to a caterpillar led Christian artists to see it as a symbol of the resurrection. The butterfly is sometimes seen in paintings of the Virgin and the Christ Child, and is usually in the Child’s hand. It points to the resurrection of Christ, and in a more general sense, the resurrection of all men.

Butterflies appear in the illustrations of the Arch Book that I used to tell the Easter story to our preschool children. For their arts and crafts activity, we used a coloring page of a butterfly provided by LeadaChild, one of our sponsoring organizations. We also had our youth color the butterfly as part of our Easter Sunday Bible study. The most pertinent passage of Scripture is 1 Corinthians 15:35-53.

“But someone will ask, How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come? You foolish person! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body. For not all flesh is the same, but there is one kind for humans, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish. There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is of one kind, and the glory of the earthly is of another.

There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory. So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. Thus it is written, The first man Adam became a living being; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual. The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven. I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality.”

As the crawling caterpillar “dies” and emerges alive as a flying butterfly, the body of the resurrection is not the same weak, aging body that was laid in the grave, and yet there are not two different bodies. Rather, the body of the resurrection, is the outgrowth of the new life that began in baptism and was nourished by the hearing of the Word and the receiving of Christ’s body and blood in the Lord’s Supper.

Our relationship with LeadaChild dates back to 2006, when the Kansas-based mission agency was known as Children’s Christian Concern Society. Luz Maria and I were privileged to meet the founders, Edie and Jim Jorns. I had heard about their pioneering work many years before when I lived in Kansas.

Celebrating Cinco de Mayo (not that one)

Luz Maria celebrated her birthday, May 5, with another trip to Caracas. With her sister deaconesses, Elsy Machado and Ginnatriz Mendoza, she helped Pastor Sergio Maita with one last seminar for deaconesses in training from May 4 to 6. Sergio is the pastor of “Pan de Vida” (Bread of Life) Lutheran Church in Santo Domingo, the Dominican Republic, and an instructor at Concordia El Reformador Seminary. He also is a native of Venezuela and in 2008 was ordained with me and Eduardo Flores, the current president of our national church and pastor of “La Santa Trinidad” (Holy Trinity) Lutheran Church in Caracas. The theme of the seminar was “Suffering, the Cross and Mercy: Theological Fundamentals of the Diaconate”. Sergio taught the same short course for deaconess students in his hometown of Maturin in eastern Venezuela from April 28 to 30.

The 39 Venezuelan women will graduate from the seminary’s deaconess program next month along with 24 from Guatemala, 23 from Mexico, 12 from the Dominican Republic and seven from Panama.

A Prayer for Pascua (Easter)

Lord God, heavenly Father, we thank and praise You that You have raised Your son from the dead and seated Him at Your right hand, from which He will come to judge the living and the dead. Fill us with the Holy Spirit to carry our His commission to make disciples of all nations as You have made us His disciples. In His name we pray, amen.

(Lutheran Book of Prayer, Concordia Publishing House, 1970.)