The Chrysalis- The teacher and the student
(Have the kids pull up a picture of a chrysalis and a butterfly)
Read Romans 6: 4-8, and 2 Corinthians 5: 17
We were sitting outside under an olive tree. The teacher's attention was drawn downward to a small dark object slowly moving along the ground. "It looks like a worm,” he said, “but different from a worm... a
caterpillar, a fascinating creature... the child of a butterfly... an ugly crawling wormhole creature born of a beautiful winged creature. And it has no idea of it's origin or who its parent is. It goes through life crawling on the ground. The only life it knows is a wormlike life."
He picked up the caterpillar and placed it on the olive tree.
"But one day the caterpillar climbs up a tree, hangs upside down, and begins to form around it's body a hard
protective shell, a chrysalis. In the chrysalis, that which was the caterpillar comes to its end. Only in its dying as a caterpillar can the creature undergo a metamorphosis. And when the metamorphosis is complete, a new being emerges from the shell of the chrysalis. The new creature longer has anything wormlike about
it. It is now winged and beautiful. It will never again crawl through the earth and never again be earthbound. It will live in the image of the one who gave it life... as the winged creature it was always meant to become. "
"It is an amazing phenomenon, "I said.
"Yes, within it a shadow.
"Of...?”
"The caterpillar is given life by the butterfly. We are given life by God. As the caterpillar crawls through life, earthbound and unaware of the purpose for which it was born, so man goes through life earthbound and unaware of the purpose for which he was born. We see with wormlike eyes, think wormlike thoughts, and live wormlike lives. But to some of these earthbound creatures a miracle happens... They allow themselves to die to the old, to the earthbound wormlike life. And yet in their dying to their old self they begin a metamorphosis. The earthbound life dies. But what emerges in its place is a different life, a new creation, beautiful and no longer earthbound but now heavenly and made to dwell in heavenly
realms... and what it was always meant to be... a heavenly being in the image of Him from whom it was given life in the first place. "
"The new birth, the new creation.”
"Yes, the metamorphosis of the children of God, born as earthly creatures, but reborn as the children of heaven... the Gospel of the butterfly"
(From the "Book of Mysteries")