Metamorphosis … the God Who Transforms

“How long will you flit here and there, indecisive? How long before you make up your fickle mind? GOD will create a new thing in this land; a transformed woman will embrace the transforming GOD!”

Jeremiah 31:22 (MSG)

Good morning ladies. Come with me today into the Butterfly Gardens in Victoria, British Columbia. Open your eyes wide. Take in the colors. Tune in your ears; see if you can pick up the almost imperceptible munching, the emerging, the fluttering. Yes, there are more than 3000 free-flying butterflies in the controlled environment of the conservatory. As well, the gardens truly represent a panorama of metamorphosis in action. 

So what is metamorphosis? It is the process by which animals or insects develop from birth or hatching to their adult stage, marked by a complete, profound change in cell morphology. Growth spurts do not count; an actual change in form or structure is the criterion. The butterfly life cycle provides us with the perfect picture. Each of the four stages—egg, larva, pupa, adult—obviously and remarkably differs from the others. 

The mom butterfly deposits her eggs on the food source and abandons them to fend for themselves. If it’s a monarch butterfly, it is the leaf of the milkweed plant. The egg becomes the larva. We know it as a caterpillar, a very hungry caterpillar in fact. She stuffs herself—two times her weight in leaves every day—grows plump, and sheds her skin four or five times to keep up with her rapid growth. Then she stops eating, hangs upside down and spins herself a silky casing, entering the pupal stage.  

In the dark recesses of the pupa, a complete transformation takes place. It is a mystery to the scientists; no one knows the exact process. Basically the cell structure has been totally altered. The ugly, fuzzy caterpillar emerges as a delicate butterfly. 

In Jeremiah’s day the woman, Israel, was flitting here and there, indecisive, fickle, in need of a total transformation. And the God who transforms had a plan for a real metamorphoo, as the Greek translates transformation.  

We too have the same tendencies. We are not above flitting here and there, following the ways of the world, fickle, in need of a divine metamorphosis. Fortunately for us God stepped in, in the nick of time. 

Nancy P