The imagery we used for the season of Lent, which are the Sundays leading up to Easter, where those surrounding caterpillars and cocoons as a prelude to using butterflies for Easter, which is a traditional symbol for this day of celebration. And that got me thinking about that transition from caterpillar to butterfly. First, it’s pretty amazing, because it’s not like these things really look alike. It’s not just that the caterpillar grows wings, there is a change in shape and size. Imagine if alligators turned into rhinoceroses, or cats turned into birds. We might be a little amazed at that, rather than sort of taking it for granted, like we seem to do with caterpillars turning into butterflies because that’s just what they do; we’re used to it and expect it. But perhaps we should be a little more astonished by the whole thing. But the other thing I was wondering was whether caterpillars know that’s what’s going to happen? Do caterpillars dream of butterflies? Or do they see a butterfly flying around and recognize them for who they used to be? Like, “hey, it’s Amy! I remember her when she was just a caterpillar.” Or do they just go into their chrysalis because that’s what’s encoded in what they do, not having any idea of what’s on the other side? I don’t know that we can ever know the answer to that because last I checked we haven’t been able to interview any caterpillars or butterflies, but there is something spectacular about them anyways, and of course they have obvious comparisons to the Easter story which is why they have become a symbol. New life. New beginnings. Transition and change. And all the other things that come with Jesus’ resurrection and the empty tomb and the reasons we are gathering here this day to shout our alleluias and proclaim that Christ is risen.
Three years ago for Easter Matthew was also the gospel reading for for the day, and I was planning on talking about earthquakes, and the things that happen that shake our lives and change them forever. But then we ended up being online only for Easter, speaking of things that shake up our lives, and because of that we did not get to do the baptism we had planned for that day, which we will finally do today, along with Jesse’s brother who was born in the interim. But what I ended up talking about that Easter was liminal space and times. Liminality is the in-between times in which transition is happening. That it is no longer one thing, but it’s not yet the other thing either. A good example of this is the threshold of a door. When we cross through a door there is a space there where we are no longer in one room but not yet in the other either. We are not yet outdoors, but we’re no longer indoors. We are in that in-between space, and not only was that time with COVID like that, but the gap between Good Friday and Easter is like that. The tomb is a liminal space. And even post Easter can be seen as liminal, because no one yet knew what was going to happen.
