Some years ago now, I was inspired by a TV series from the late Sister Wendy Beckett as a way to study art and not just to look at it. For example, in Gainsborough’s ‘Chasing the butterfly’, she writes:

Parental love is potentially its purest form and may be the most
painful. Gainsborough, whose marriage was unhappy, adored his
two daughters, whom he called Molly and the Captain. Their
mother's flawed psyche was inherited by both girls, and their
father agonized over them all his life. Neither was to know
happiness, and his many pictures of them show a sad
foreknowledge of this. To leave those we love their independence,
to accept that we cannot make their choices for them, that they
cannot live by our hard-earned experience: this is part of love. We
have to allow those dear to us to chase the butterfly, however
convinced we are that it is uncatchable. We can never give the
butterfly of happiness to another: each must catch it alone. For
some, it will be ever elusive, and love must work within that
painful understanding.

Jesus is not the butterfly of Gainsborough’s imagining - we don’t have to chase him in vain desperation. Once the truth of the resurrection settles in our hearts and minds, we can know permanent transformation, a metamorphosis. Unlike Gainsborough’s wife who continued to suffer from a ‘flawed psyche’, Mary Magdalene realised an unconditional joy beyond happiness had come to her and settled permanently. She had experienced life changing metamorphosis since she had met with Jesus and was healed by him from demon-possession.

Seeing Jesus risen transformed the disciples from being anxious and confused hiding away in a locked room, to certainty clarity and taking the good news to the ends of the known world. Most of them suffered persecution and death which they would not have done if they knew it was all a hoax. Saul was the fiercest persecutor of Christians until he met with Jesus on the road to Damascus. Like Mary Magdalene, the disciples and 500 other witnesses had seen Jesus alive again and ate with him.

At the tomb Jesus turns to Mary and addresses her directly using her first “Mary”. How would you feel if Jesus looked at you and spoke your first name. Instead of chasing the butterfly of happiness why not invite the real joy giver into your life and experience real and permanent metamorphosis?

Reverend Andrew