You know something that happens every year in our house? One day a parcel arrives—and it’s full of caterpillars.
Caterpillars, they are these creatures, bound to the earth, who crawl along the ground.
Aren’t we just like that? Trapped in our sins—helpless to escape our earth-bound sins, like caterpillars, so limited by our sins, and so in need of transformation?
And that’s exactly what happens to these caterpillars. But the means of it happening is that they essentially die. They—I’m told by scientists—basically digest themselves and they become this dead formless mass. And they end up in these coffins we call cocoons which hang from the ceiling. (We have them in little pots, and we see them hanging down from the lids of these pots in our living room.)
But it’s a little illustration of what we all need to go through…
We need to die to ourselves. We need to be stripped of all our old ways. We need to be in a coffin, as it were. We need to be hung out to dry—in terms for our lives.
But then we need to emerge from the cocoon.
I’m told that a butterfly and a caterpillar are—in scientific terms—two completely different species, officially speaking.
Suddenly, what emerges is a creature who’s no longer earthbound, no longer lost in the dirt and the sin of this world. It flies—not just a new, improved caterpillar—but a brand-new creation.
That’s what a Christian is. Christians are a new creation—no longer slaves to sin, freed from sin, with a new purpose and a new King. The old must be gone, and the new must come.
And it can only come about through the cross of Christ. Only by the blood. We must be nailed to the cross with him. By our union with him, we are.
You know, the little net structure which houses our butterflies before we release them, that we have at home is covered in blood. Because when the butterflies emerge from the cocoon, they emit this red, oozing liquid—which is no doubt designed to look like blood. Because no transformation in our lives is possible without the Lord Jesus Christ paying the greatest price: the price of his own blood.
So, come and be transformed. Come and be renewed. The Holy Spirit brings about this change as he unites you to the Lord Jesus Christ, that you come through Jesus to the Father and live for him.
