BUTTERFLIES ARE FREE -- AND SO IS GOD'S GRACE




Romans 6:20-23
Ephesians 2:1-10

 Sunday, April 12, is Holy Humor Sunday.  Holy Humor or Bright Sunday is an old tradition that helps us to remember that Christ's life, death and resurrection is too wonderful a gift just to celebrate for one day on Easter.  Our theme for Easter season is is "Butterflies are Free" as we explore just how amazing God's grace is and how it is at work in our lives.
One of my favorite butterflies is the Painted Lady.  It looks similar to the Monarch butterfly, and like the Monarch, it migrates each year.

Why do I like them above all other species of butterflies?   It's because they like me.  If there's a Painted Lady in my vicinity, it will find me.  I've had them land on me, sometimes two or three at a time.  I've even been able to hold them in my hands.  One year, as they were swarming in preparation for their southern migratory flight, they covered the back side of the parsonage I was living in.  I had to be careful not to allow any in with me or Harley would have made short work of them.

Many have admired butterflies, not only for their beauty but for their freedom to come and go as they please without the burden of having to work for a living, paying bills or living responsibly.  Such was Harold Skimpole, a character in Charles Dicken's novel, Bleak House. 

 "Here you see me utterly incapable of helping myself, and entirely in your hands!  I only ask to be free.  The butterflies are free.  Mankind will surely not deny to Harold Skimpole what it concedes to the butterflies."  (Chapter VI, p. 58)

Unfortunately, the freedom that Harold Skimpole desires is the freedom to flit from the home of one wealthty friend to the other, sponging off their hospitality and their kindness.  With his claim that he is too childlike to understand the reality of adult life and the motives of others, he uses his fained innocence to manipulate them to pay for his debts and care for his other responsibilities.  Truly, he is a child, but he is what Ephesians 2:3 calls "a child of wrath," headed for judgement and death.

Living selfishly and unlovingly in the pursuit of our own desires and passion, following the ways of the world and being influenced by the forces of evil (that which works against the law of God's love), leads not to freedom and life, but to enslavement to sin and death.  People have quite literally lost their physical lives to self-indulgence and self-gratification, but worse of it leads to spiritual death, eternal separation from the love of God and the complete and utter destruction of self.

Butterflies are free.  Their beauty and the pleasure that they bring us as the adorn the flowers of our gardens like living jewel costs us nothing.  As all creation witnesses to not only the glory and power of God and well as God's love and care for us, butterflies remind us that this great love that reigns over all of who and what God is free.  God loves us simply because God chooses to.

This unconditional love is expressed in our lives through Grace, the unmerited favor of God.  We don't deserve such love, and there is nothing we can do to earn it, but through the power of the Holy Spirit, God continually floods our lives with it.  Grace is God's love in action in our lives.

Mike Slick defines it as:

  • God's 
  • Riches
  • At
  • Christ's
  • Expense                                               www.carm.org/dictionary-grace



Butterflies are often used to illustrate the new life that is afforded to us by Christ's death and resurrection.

The Painted Lady caterpillar, like all species of butterflies, enters the pupa stage and becomes encased in what seems to be a lifeless chrysalis.  But inside, metamorphosis is taking place.  From what appears to be death, a brand a new life begins in the form of the adult stage of a butterfly, in all it's winged glory.

When we accept Christ as our Lord and Savior, God's grace works in our lives to transform us in to new creatures born again into new life with the promise of the resurrection and never, ever being separated from the love of God which is ours through Christ.

John Wesley said that there is nothing deeper, there is nothing better in heaven and in earth, than God's unconditional, always-there-for-us, never-give-up-on-us love.  The liturgy of our service of the Lord's Supper reminds us that we are created in the image of God to love and be loved.  And the only way we can experience the full extent of that love is through Jesus Christ.

Being alive for God in Christ, called to be servants and for good works, does not mean enslavement.  It means freedom from sin and death.  Butterflies are free, and through the grace of God in Christ, so are we.

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