We got the best Christmas present. My sweet neighbor brought over five cocooned butterflies (I guess, “butterfly to be”). She and her husband have long taken pains to help caterpillars take that vital journey between crawling creature and flying beauty.
We didn’t have to do anything with them, but just watch. 
Nothing important transpired for the first 3 weeks, but finally, suddenly, you could see the cocoons changing. That was the clue that transformation was happening inside. Sure enough, a day later or so, the butterflies emerged.
I was thinking about them today as I was reading my Bible. I think many people know or have heard the familiar verse that Paul uses to describe the change that happens to a person who becomes a Christian. “If anyone is in Christ [accepts Jesus sacrifice claiming Him as Lord and Savior], that person is a new creature [or new creation].” That was in his second letter to the Christians in the city of Corinth, in chapter 5 verse 17. It goes on to say in celebration “the old life is gone; a new life begins.”
Today, though, I found this same idea in a place I had never noticed before, in Paul’s earlier letter to a group of churches in the region of Galatia (modern day Western Turkey). At the end of that letter, Paul stresses that all that matters is “whether we have been transformed into a new creation.” (Gal 6:15) That letter is really a long defense of Paul’s position that one does not have to follow religious rituals or customs to be a Christian. Note, Paul isn’t saying that devotions or rituals have no value; rather, they cannot save or, if one fails to do, that failure at some religious ritual cannot block salvation.
What can save us? Three verses before, he explains it: “the cross of Christ alone can save us.” Then in the next verse, 14, he writes one of my favorite verses (and one of the most powerful): “As for me, may I never boast about anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because of that cross, my interest in this world has been crucified, and the world’s interest in me has also died.”
Today is the start of Lent for 2017. For Christians, this puts us on a more focused time heading towards Easter. The celebration of Easter is centered ONLY around this historical event, the cruxifixction and then resurrection of Jesus. Those of us who accept Him, we go through the same transformation as the caterpillar…into a majestic butterfly.
My sweet neighbor had actually lost her husband of 50+ years this past year, in the fall. I actually got to minister to him and help her in his last days in his house, when he had a nasty fall that led to hospice. She was obviously sad to lose him, but she has lived confidently still since. See, he was a believer, a disciple of Jesus. He had become a new creature. I think as my friend brought me this gift, she was celebrating her butterfly husband, now free of his earthly pains and now flying free in heaven.
You can too be a new creature, a new creation. You just have to be willing to search for Truth, and then to accept Him. The evidence is right there. Maybe this lenten season, you’ll see a butterfly. Remember this when you do. Its never too late for you to decide to act, to respond to the call to let the old life fall away, letting a new one begin through the saving power of Jesus.