“Love is Alive” Colchester Federated Church, April 20, 2025, Easter Sunday (John 20:1-18)

The Easter story as told in the Gospel according to John has a way of captivating our imaginations from the opening verse.  “Early in the morning of the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb.”[1]  We can picture Mary Magdalene traveling to the tomb in the darkness of the early morning.  Deep in thought.  Deep in grief.  Heartbroken by the death of her beloved friend Jesus.  Mary arrives at the tomb in darkness and despair and becomes shocked.  The stone that had been placed at the entrance of the tomb has been rolled away. 

The scene changes, and our story becomes action-packed.  Mary Magdalene runs to find Simon Peter and the beloved disciple (John).  Mary tells them, “They have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we don’t know where they’ve put him.”[2]  Peter and John run to the tomb to see what’s happening for themselves.  John arrives first and takes a look inside to see the linen cloths lying there, but he doesn’t go inside.  Peter arrives and enters the tomb, seeing the linen cloths and the cloth that had been placed on Jesus’ head rolled up in a place by itself.  Then John goes inside and “sees and believes.” 

After all these frantic movements, both John and Peter return to their homes leaving Mary at the tomb by herself weeping.  This part of our Gospel story tends to bug me.  John and Peter just head on home, which always seems rather anti-climactic.  Moreover, they just leave Mary Magdalene alone weeping at Jesus’ tomb.  Couldn’t they have invited her over for a cup of tea or something?

Anyway, Mary Magdelene stands outside the tomb.  She bends down to look inside and that’s when she sees two angels seated where the body of Jesus had been.  The angels and Mary speak to one another.  John tells us that Mary turns around and sees Jesus, only she doesn’t realize that this is Jesus right away.  Maybe she’s been crying so hard that her vision is blurred.  Maybe the grief is too much and she can’t fathom the miracle yet.  Maybe Jesus looks different (like the change in his appearance experienced at the Transfiguration) as this is the now the Risen Christ.  Jesus calls her name, and she knows in that moment that everything has changed.  Mary Magdalene becomes the first person to encounter the Risen Christ.  Mary leaves that holy place and announces to the disciples, “I’ve seen the Lord.”[3]  Mary Magdalene becomes the Apostle to the Apostles.

We know the Easter story well.  Though part of what makes it so powerful is that we can witness moments of new life and transformation in our world.  When we consider our Easter story, there is a reason that we have sometimes turned to the natural world.  All around us we can witness birth, death, and rebirth.  We can see this in the changing of the seasons as we look at how the earth transitions from winter to spring to summer to fall.  We can consider how forest fires create nutrient-rich soil which helps produce new life as a forest can be reborn.  New life can emerge from devastation and destruction, just as the empty cross has become symbolic that suffering and death was not how Jesus’ story ended.  As we sang to begin our worship service, “Lives again our glorious King . . . Where, O death, is now thy sting? . . . Once he died our souls to save . . . Where thy victory, O grave?”[4]  The symbolism of the empty tomb and the empty cross both remain powerful reminders that death does not have the last word and that love is alive.

A wonderful symbol of the Easter miracle from creation is, of course, the butterfly.[5]  Butterflies come to be through metamorphosis.  In Greek, this word means “change in shape” or “transformation.”  Butterflies undergo a complete metamorphosis—the larva ends up looking very different from the adult of the butterfly species.  Life begins for the butterfly inside an egg.  Female butterflies lay many eggs so that at least some survive.  Once the egg hatches, life begins in the wide world as a caterpillar.  The caterpillar’s whole job is to eat and eat and eat some more!  The Very Hungry Caterpillar is a famous children’s story for a reason.  Caterpillars grow and shed their skin 4 or 5 times during this stage (sometimes even growing up to 100 times their initial size) to eventually become a pupa or chrysalis.  On the outside, it looks like nothing is happening.  But inside the cocoon there are special cells that were already present inside the larva, and they start growing.  In time, they become the legs, wings, eyes, and other parts of the adult butterfly.  The last stage of life occurs when the butterfly emerges with those colorful wings to alight on the wind.  The butterfly will eventually mate and lay eggs for the process to begin all over again for the next generation.  The life cycle of a butterfly embodies dramatic transformation.

Rev. Quinn Caldwell reflected on butterflies in a UCC Daily Devotional by writing, “Come Easter, much will be made of butterflies.  The inching, munching caterpillar transforming into the bright, soaring butterfly is just too good a resurrection metaphor for some of us to pass on.  Something you may not know: once the caterpillar hangs itself up, a grand drama plays out.  If the caterpillar itself can’t imagine the butterfly it will become, its cells sure can.  As soon as the chrysalis closes, tiny structures called imaginal discs (that’s really what they’re called!) form in its body.  Inside these discs are the genome of the butterfly, largely separate from the genome of the caterpillar.  As such, the caterpillar’s body sees them as invaders.  Its immune system attacks and kills them.  But the genetic image of the butterfly will not be denied.”[6]

The Easter story is so timeless because we can so clearly see the process of birth, death, and rebirth.  We can see Jesus’ life move from the manger to the cross to the empty tomb.  We can remember the beautiful encounter with Mary and Jesus in the garden on Easter morning.  We can even see how Jesus’ transformative process of resurrection is still mirrored by beings in God’s beautiful creation like butterflies.  Maybe this has also happened in our own lives.  Sometimes we may find ourselves weeping outside the tomb like Mary Magdalene, grieving and shattered and heartbroken.  But it ends up that heartbreak is not the end.  Because sometimes through heartbreak, our hearts break open.  Somehow we experience our own forms of metamorphosis. 

Good Friday is not the end for Jesus.  Because the tomb ends up empty.  A new day dawns.  Easter arrives.  Resurrection and new life and hope everlasting will have the last word.  Love is alive.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.

[1] John 20:1, CEB.
[2] John 20:2.
[3] John 20:18.
[4] “Christ the Lord Is Risen Today,” Verse 3, Worship & Rejoice, #288.
[5] “Butterfly Life Cycle,” The Academy of Natural Sciences at Drexel University, https://ansp.org/exhibits/online-exhibits/butterflies/lifecycle/
[6] Quinn G. Caldwell, “Imaginal,” UCC Daily Devotional, March 26, 2025.

Photo by Boris Smokrovic on Unsplash