Sermon: In the Chrysalis: Transformation in the Dark

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In the Chrysalis

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Today marks the 5th Sunday in Lent. I don’t know about you, but for me, this has felt like a long, daunting season, and I feel so ready for the celebration of Easter and all the promise of new life it brings. I long to say Alleluia again, but it’s not Easter yet.

Yesterday, as I was inside for hours finishing this sermon, I had to look out the big second-story windows of my office at the beautiful blue sky, longing to be out there. People were cutting their grass, planting flowers. We sent our son out with the pressure washer to clean the pollen off everything. Our neighborhood was bustling with activity, and you could just feel the anticipation in the air. It’s not yet spring in all its glory, but we know it’s around the corner.

We know warmer weather is yet to come. The flowers are just starting to emerge from the ground, and the leaves are returning to the trees that have been bare all winter. One of my favorite sights of spring is the butterflies, but I haven’t seen any just yet. Peak butterfly season in Georgia is late spring.

The Monarchs don’t migrate north for egg-laying until late April and May. The adult generation has actually been in hibernation all winter. They emerge this time of year to find a mate and fly north to lay their eggs on milkweed plants. Those eggs will hatch and spend about two weeks of their lives as caterpillars. I think one reason I love butterflies is not just because of their beauty, but because of what they have to go through to become what they are—the way they remind me of the hard reality of suffering that comes before new life.

There is such mystery in the metamorphosis they go through, this total transformation that happens in the darkness of their chrysalis before they emerge with wings. Maya Angelou says it well: “We delight in the beauty of the butterfly but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.”

For transformation to happen, there first needs to be the struggle. If the butterfly doesn’t have to struggle to emerge from the confines of the chrysalis, it doesn’t build wings strong enough to carry its weight. We know there is no resurrection without death first. But those days walking toward the cross can be hard, and we often want to skip over them for what comes next. I know I often would like Easter without having to go through Lent.

Lent isn’t a path straight to resurrection but a winding road that takes us through the passion of Jesus first. Next week is the turning point of Lent - both the last Sunday of the season and the beginning of Holy Week. Palm Sunday is that strange time when we both celebrate the triumphal entry of Christ into Jerusalem and walk through his suffering and death.

Today’s gospel provides us an opportunity to sit in this reality of the cross - its beauty and its horror. This is a stunning story of Mary’s devotion to Christ, but death also lurks over this story, too.

In John 12, the story takes place just six days before the Passover, marking the beginning of Jesus’ final week before the crucifixion. Jesus is in Bethany, at the home of Lazarus, whom he had recently raised from the dead—a miracle that caused many to believe in him and stirred opposition from religious leaders.

During a dinner given in Jesus’ honor, Mary, Lazarus’s sister, performs an extravagant act of devotion: she anoints Jesus' feet with costly perfume and wipes them with her hair. This intimate and sacrificial gesture is an expression of love, reverence, and a prophetic act pointing toward Jesus’ impending death and burial.

Judas Iscariot criticizes the act, claiming the perfume should have been sold to benefit the poor. But the Gospel narrator reveals Judas's true motives—he’s not concerned about the poor but is a thief, exploiting his role as treasurer among the disciples.

The beauty of Mary’s act is in its utter extravagance. It wasn’t just the cost of the perfume, which was extremely costly. Pure nard was from a plant that grew in the Himalayas in Northern India. The other gospel accounts of this story tell us this was a pound of nard in an alabaster jar, which would have been worth a year’s wages. The only way to open it was to smash the whole thing. This was an all-or-nothing gift and she gave it all to Jesus.

But more than that, Mary risked shame and ridicule for this act of love. Everything about it was scandalous. Washing someone’s feet was the dirty work of servants. A woman did not touch a man unless they were married. And to wash his feet with her hair? Unbinding a woman’s hair in public was seen as immodest; it could even be seen as a sign of promiscuity or prostitution. What could inspire her to this lavish act of love that was so costly?

Remember, Mary is someone who is no stranger to suffering, who knows the cost of grief. She recently lost her brother Lazarus, who had remained dead for four days before Jesus raised him. She would have recently prepared his body for burial and anointed him with oil.

There were no embalming practices at that time, and the warm climate meant a body began to decay quickly. Once someone died, they were washed and anointed with oil. They were wrapped in cloth, and spices were placed in the folds of the garment. The body would be placed in the tomb within hours, not days. All of this was to cover the stench of death. We see this clearly when Jesus asked them to roll the stone away from Lazarus’ tomb, and Martha protests, saying there will be a bad smell by this time.

Mary had just walked through death and grief. She knew what it was to experience that kind of pain. Yet she also knew the reality of new life. She received her brother back, a pure gift from God. The gratitude she felt was overpowering. She didn’t care in that moment about the cost to her. She was willing to give up everything out of her devotion to Jesus.

Her complete and utter love for Jesus is starkly contrasted in this story with Judas’ criticism of her act. While Mary’s concern was for Jesus, we know that Judas’ focus was on the money. This contrast reveals what they each treasured the most. Judas is not willing to pay the cost, to give up his love of money or his idea of what the Kingdom of God should look like. But Mary was willing to smash her lesser loves at the feet of Jesus, to endure whatever cost was in store for her.

I love the way the lectionary lays this story alongside Paul’s words today in Philippians 3. He lays out his pedigree - all the things that made him special in the eyes of the world in his previous life as Saul. He was high in society, educated, a Roman citizen, a Pharisee, keeper of the law. But then Paul tells us:

“Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith.”

In this translation, Paul says he regards everything compared to knowing Christ as rubbish, trash. This is the only time this word in the Greek appears in the New Testament but non-biblical sources of this time use this word to refer to human and animal waste. Paul is literally saying he considers everything else as excrement in comparison to knowing Christ. Eugene Peterson in the Message translates it as dung.

Paul and Mary, unlike Judas, looked at the reality of knowing Jesus and counted all other things loss. But notice that Paul doesn’t speak about giving up these things as if they are easy. “I have suffered the loss of all things,” he says. Saul didn’t turn into Paul without great loss. His life following Christ is full of affliction. As will be Mary’s. She gained her brother back for now, but his was only a resuscitation, not a resurrection. He will die again one day.

As we read this story and think about Mary’s beautiful devotion, we must not forget the words of Jesus. He says Mary is preparing him for burial. Death still hangs over this household. She will lose her Rabbi and Lord soon. Yes, he will be resurrected, but first he must be betrayed by one he loves, abandoned by the others, beaten, mocked, and crucified.

Yes, Easter is up ahead. But first there is the passion. And our devotion to Christ, like Mary’s, will often require smashing not only our lesser loves at Christ’s feet, but dying to ourselves and like Paul, sharing in Jesus’ sufferings and becoming like him in his death.

Priest and writer Cynthia Bourgeault says, “the real domain of the Paschal Mystery is not dying but dying-to-self.  It serves as the archetype for all our personal experiences of dying and rising to new life along the pathway of kenotic transformation.”

She speaks of kenotic transformation. Kenosis is a Greek term meaning to empty. Theologically, this often is used to speak about the self-emptying of Jesus, who as we see in Philippians 2:6-7, existed in the form of God but emptied himself, being made in the likeness of man. But kenosis isn’t just about a one-time moment, that God emptied himself of his divinity to become man.

Theologian Hans Urs Von Balthasar reminds us that Jesus emptied himself all throughout his life in obedience to the Father, even to unto death, saying “precisely in-and only in the kenosis of Christ, the inner mystery of God’s love comes to light.” He says that for God’s love to be revealed to us, the Son had to completely empty himself on the cross for everyone and this he did because of God’s love for humanity. He loved us so much he was willing to suffer and pay the highest cost.

We are asked to walk with him to the cross, not to look away from it, often to take up our own crosses and follow him. If we want to be resurrection people, we must also be people who are willing to identify with the cross.

Hardship can make people fall apart or become something new.

Like the butterfly in its chrysalis, we, too, are invited into a hidden transformation—into the mystery of dying to self so that we might emerge into the fullness of life God has promised. But let’s be honest: the chrysalis is not a comfortable place. Inside, the caterpillar literally dissolves into a soupy mess before reforming into something new. There’s no going back. There’s only surrender. Letting go. Trusting that the darkness is not the end, but the womb of something more.

Mary knew something of this surrender. So did Paul. And Jesus, most of all, shows us the way. He emptied himself completely, trusting in the love of God to bring life even from the grave.

We are resurrection people, yes—but not resurrection apart from the cross. Like Mary, we are called to offer what is most precious. Like Paul, we are called to let go of what once defined us. Like Jesus, we are called to trust the love that holds us even in death.

So, as we walk through these final days of Lent, let us not rush ahead to Easter. Let us be willing to stay in the chrysalis a little longer. Let us choose the way of kenosis—of emptying, surrendering, and allowing God to work in the darkness.

Because only then will we rise. Only then can we emerge with wings outstretched, into the beauty of new life.

Amen.