EASTER – (Changed – A New Life)

EASTER – (Changed – A New Life)
Text: 1Co 15:51-54  51 Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed-- 52 in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.  53 For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality.  54 When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: "Death has been swallowed up in victory." INTRODUCTION: My dear friends in Christ, This is a beautiful butterfly, isn't it? By and large, people don't like bugs very much, but almost everybody makes an exception for butterflies because they are so beautiful. As you all know, a butterfly hasn't always been beautiful. For the first part of its life it was a caterpillar,  a creepy, crawly worm on the ground. We have this mental image of a caterpillar creeping slowly across the ground looking gross. When one looks at a lowly caterpillar crawling around, it's hard to believe that a beautiful butterfly could be inside of it. But it is! Time goes by, and the caterpillar goes into a cocoon, and when the caterpillar emerges, it has become a beautiful butterfly. In a spectacular fashion, the ugly, little, wooly worm got transformed into a beautiful butterfly. This transformation from caterpillar to butterfly is something we call a metamorphosis.
I. Jesus experienced changes which are like that of the butterfly and more.  There is an added step.  You might say a prequel.
	A.  You could compare his life in heaven before that first Christmas to that of a butterfly.  Then there was a reverse metamorphosis where he became a caterpillar – a man.  We call this the Incarnation.
		1.  As this caterpillar – a man -- Jesus still retained all of the characteristics of His Godhood but He restrained his use of them.
				a. The deity of our Lord was hidden while He was a caterpillar. b. But on several occasions the Lord testified to his Godhood. "I and the Father are one," he said (John 10:30). "All things that the Father has are mine," he added (John 16:15).
		2.   And we joyfully confess that Jesus is God because it means that we have a perfect Savior. He certainly was a caterpillar like us but more.
				a. If Jesus had been anything less than God, then he would not have been good enough, nor could he have done enough for our salvation to come true. b. Mere humans, dying for their sins, do nothing to merit God's forgiveness. c. But Jesus is God and because of it He is our perfect Savior. By His one, solitary life and death, all the sins of the world are paid for.
	B.   You can liken Jesus’ life as a man to being a caterpillar, crawling in the muck of our earth, living like we do in a sin-filled world, but He never sinned.
		1.  And on several occasions Jesus predicted a caterpillar – cocoon – butterfly like metamorphosis.  He was teaching his disciples [and…] said to them, "The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men. They will kill him, and after three days he will rise."
				a. The truth is that Jesus died on that cross. He was as dead as the two thieves who died with Him. They buried Him in a borrowed tomb and sealed Him away, forever. Or so they thought.  b. That tomb was a bit like a cocoon with one difference – a butterfly in a cocoon is never dead.  He only appears so.  Jesus was truly dead.  And while He was in that tomb Sin and Death were clapping their hands in glee.
			2. But God had the final word and that word changes everything. That word is Resurrection. By his death and Resurrection, death and hell are overcome for all who believe in him; eternal life is ours.
II.   Resurrection as the final word gives us Hope for today and hope for eternity.  The metamorphosis that happened to Jesus is happening to us also. It's true!
	A. It is beginning to happen to us today.  In 2 Corinthians we read, "All who reflect the glory of the Lord are being changed into his likeness from one degree to another ..." (2 Corinthians 3:18).
			1. And new life from old is happening today for believers through faith.  Like the caterpillars who follow nature's course and become dead to their old form in their cocoon, we must awaken to the fact that our old life is not worth hanging on to. Paul writes, "No longer present your members to sin as instruments of wickedness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and present your members to God as instruments of righteousness."
				a. The actual process inside the cocoon unseen, it’s a bit of a mystery to most.  But a caterpillar doesn't just grow into a butterfly. A caterpillar must undergo molting in which the insect's shape is entirely rearranged. A cocoon is where a caterpillar undergoes total rebuilding, where it dies to one way of locomotion and life and is born to a new way of living. Only by going into that cocoon can the caterpillar go from dormancy to potency, from ugliness to beauty. This is the reason why the butterfly is an authentic symbol of resurrection! Not because it's cute, but because it dies to be born to new life. b. Just as the butterfly replaces the caterpillar, so too there is a new life of faith that replaces the old life in us. c. What does that new life of faith look like? There is an inherent danger in asking that question. It implies that one can observe the life of faith, as if it were an object to handle, put under the microscope, or display in a case. The life of faith is to be lived, not observed. God may indeed view it from the heavens, but as humans we can only perceive it by actually living it. Entomologists and curious children observe butterflies. But, the butterfly itself is totally involved in the art of flying and finding nectar daily to sustain its new life beyond the cocoon.
	B.  New life from old happened through the historical events of Jesus 2,000 years ago. Jesus is called the firstfruits of a resurrection yet to come. That means we look to a new life from old that will happen in the resurrection unto life everlasting yet to come.  So we have hope for eternity.
			1. That hope is pictured in this clip [In the movie The Ultimate Gift, the main character, Jason Stevens befriends a little girl, Emily, and her mother. Emily has an incurable disease and is dying. Jason has come to the hospital to check on his pint-sized friend, Emily. When he arrives at her hospital room he finds it empty and an orderly is changing the sheets. In a panic, Jason asks about Emily. The orderly tells him, "She's with God." This takes him by surprise, but soon he (and the viewers) discovers that what the orderly meant was that she is praying in the hospital chapel. Upon arriving at the chapel, Emily looks at him a little disdainfully because he has been absent for a while. Emily sarcastically notes, "So, here's my best friend." He tries to explain, but she cuts him off. Now that he has been to her hospital room he knows about her and her condition. She has cancer. She says, "No more mystery." Jason tries to comfort her by saying that he is sorry, but Emily snaps, "Shut up. Don't be pathetic!" Emily looks over at a statue of Jesus with his arms raised, beckoning. She says, "I wonder if He takes advance orders." Confused, Jason asks, "For what?" Emily says, "For my place, you know, there." Jason says, "What do you think it will be like?" and Emily confidently replies, "Butterflies. Lots of butterflies. Do you know God painted the colors of the butterflies with His fingers." Jason is startled, "I didn't know you thought about stuff like that." Emily, a little sad now, says, "I think about dying. I think there's something basically unfair about a person dying. I even hate the idea!" Then Emily turns and sobs on Jason's shoulder. Jason, who has been a spoiled rich kid all his life, confesses, "You know, I don't know much about God or Jesus, but (and he glances toward the statue of Christ), but I can promise that those arms are meant for you."]   Like Emily, we all hate the very idea of death but the Good News of Easter is that Resurrection is God's final word. The arms of Jesus, first from the cross and then from the empty tomb, reach out to each of us to bring us hope of new beginnings, hope in the face of the darkness of death. The arms of Jesus reach out to us and fill us with hope. Hope For Today and Hope For The Future. 2. I would like to tell you one more butterfly story. There was a caterpillar crawling across a Persian rug. And the caterpillar crawled for what he thought was seventy-five years. On that rug he could see only one color at a time. He saw first the blues, and then the oranges, the yellows, the reds, the purples, the deep violets, the greens. He saw one color at a time and said: “O, what a beautiful world I am on. Look at all that color!” He lived for what he thought was a very long time, but it was just a blink in God’s time. And finally, he crawled off the Persian carpet and he became a cocoon. He became a cocoon and hibernated. Although he didn’t realize it, the cocoon was part of the miracle. He came out of the cocoon as a butterfly. He fluttered up higher and higher and higher and he looked down at the Persian rug for the first time and saw it in its total magnificent splendor. What a sight he saw. For the first time in his existence, he saw the meaning of his whole life; he saw the past and the present like he had never seen it before. … And Jesus said, “Those who have ears to hear, listen to the meaning of this parable.” Easter is inviting us to believe in the Powers of God to create magnificent new life, to believe the miracle that God transforms caterpillars into butterflies, to believe the miracle that God transforms earthy bodies into heavenly bodies.
CONCLUSION:   The purpose of Easter is to convince us that creepy, crawly caterpillars become transformed into butterflies. The purpose of Easter is to convince us that not only are there miracles in nature but that there are miracles in history, in your history and mine. The purpose of Easter is God telling the Truth that God can create life out of apparent death.  The purpose of Easter is the victory celebration that tells of the Power of God that took the dead body of Jesus of Nazareth and metamorphosed him, into a glorious resurrection body. The purpose of Easter is to convince us that there will be a time in our lives when we too shall be transformed into something utterly magnificent and beautiful. The purpose of Easter is to give us hope for today and hope for eternity.