The Rev. Dr. John Tamilio III, Pastor

© 2024, Dr. Tamilio

A huge tornado struck Joplin, Missouri on May 22, 2011.  If you go to YouTube and do a search, you will find video footage that is utterly astonishing.  Your jaw will hit the floor as you watch the horrific devastation caused by the F5 tornado that “ripped through [that] small town, resulting in the destruction of 900 homes, and [the deaths of] over 160 people.”[1]  Who knows how many people were injured (estimates put the number over one thousand), not to mention how many in the extended community had their lives upended.  Literally upended.

The story about this terrible storm and its consequences came across my social media news feed recently.  Your social media feed is based on algorithms: you are presented with stories that align with other things you recently searched for, or you are given stories that the “internet gods” think you will enjoy.

It wasn’t the story of the storm itself that gripped me.  It was something that occurred when it happened.  It has to do with the butterfly people.

Yes, you heard that right.  The butterfly people.

First of all, these stories flashed across my social media screen last Sunday night — the evening of Palm Sunday.  Palm Sunday is the start of Holy Week.  Every Holy Week I am quite sensitive to the events of the week, the biblical texts that relay these stories, and the way that we interpret them in our contemporary context.  It is a story that has been told and retold for 2000 years.  How do we find new meaning in it?  Maybe the butterfly people can offer us a clue.

Butterflies have long been a symbol of the Resurrection.  Think of the process: the caterpillar’s life essentially ends.  He becomes enwrapped in a chrysalis.  The caterpillar looks like a mummy.  The chrysalis looks like a tomb.  But the chrysalis does not have the final word any more than the grave does.  A beautiful butterfly emerges and literally ascends as it soars into its new life.  But what has this to do with a tornado and butterfly people?  I’ve kept you waiting long enough.

Writing about the event ten years later, Lotte Drewitt offers the following summary:

“Set up in order to help school children deal with their trauma, the Joplin Child Trauma Treatment Center became a critical source of mental health care for the community [after the tornado], where at least half of all children in the Joplin school system received aid.  Therapists there heard stories firsthand from children and young adults who claimed to have seen white lights or “visions of butterflies or butterfly people that helped to…keep them safe,” according to its clinical director, Dawnielle Robinson.  These stories came from schoolchildren of all ages, rich and poor, regardless of their religious beliefs.[2]

One story that struck me in particular was the report that came from an elementary school.  A group of children who were outside the school when the tornado struck told stories about the butterfly people covering them with their wings to protect them from the funnel and the destruction it wrought.  Different children in different schools told similar stories.  It is hard to imagine this being a story that was made up as reports of the butterfly people circulated in the city after this incident.  In fact, the butterfly has become the mascot of Joplin.  There are depictions of butterflies all over the city.  Look it up.  It is as beautiful as it is amazing as it is inspiring.

Some feel as if these butterfly people were really angels.  I think they were.  Maybe even something more.

Imagine for a moment.  Children.  Outside during recess.  The storm hits.  The sky grows dark.  The funnel sweeps in.  There’s nowhere to go.  Their teachers tell them what to do.  They tell them to lie flat in a ditch near the school.  That’s standard procedure.  The sound is deafening.  It fills the hearts of students and teachers alike.  They pray for survival.  Just then, they are blanketed by what seems like a colorful, organic sheet.  Not a hair on their heads move.  All is still.

Angels?  Maybe Jesus himself.

Isn’t that what we all want?  I’m not talking about being stuck in a tornado necessarily.  I am, however, talking about trying to weather the storms of life.  When those storms rear their heads, we are filled with fear, anxiety, and a flood of other emotions.  We want to run for safety.  When we can’t, we panic.  The butterfly people may come if we’re lucky, but the person most associated with a butterfly — better yet, the pivotal event in his life that is most associated with a butterfly — will certainly be there.

Christian theology often focuses on the fact that Jesus rising from the dead is represented by the butterfly.  As we said earlier, the process is caterpillar to chrysalis to butterfly — life to death (and burial) to resurrection.

The presence of Christ is represented by the butterfly, as the residents of Joplin, Missouri know all too well.  The Jesus, who is with us, is the Risen One.  He is the One filled with the power to heal, to transform, to offer us new life.  We will rise from the dead, because Jesus, the pioneer and perfector of our faith, did so first.  Maybe one of the minor Hebrew prophets offers us the best assurance of all.  The words from Malachi 4:2 are quite appropriate for this day, although they are not usually read on Easter.  “But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing his wings.  And you will go out and frolic like well-fed calves.”

Jesus rose with healing in his wings.  Angels did not protect the people of Joplin.  Jesus did.  His sacred presence was among them in resurrection power.  Why was he there and not elsewhere?  Who knows!  We do not know the ways of God.  As the prophet Isaiah wrote, “’ For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways,’ says the Lord” (55:8).

That is the power of the resurrection, my friends.  It offers us new life.  That new life is here as well as there, for the resurrection of Jesus Christ not only offers us new life when we die, but it offers us new life now in the form of protection, purpose, love, and presence.  There is healing in his wings, and it wraps around us like a warm blanket or the arms of a loving grandmother.  It speaks a word of assurance.

That is the power of the resurrection.  Know that.  Trust that.  When you are in moments of despair, when death seems to be dealt to you from every corner, trust in that promise.  There is life.  But more importantly, there is a new life with healing in its wings.  Let that healing wrap around you to give you peace and life abundant.  It is all possible because of the resurrection.  Jesus defeated the powers of sin and death to offer us a gift like none other.  If that is not enough for all of us to shout “Alleluia!” then I don’t know what is.

Amen.

[1] Taken online from Astonishing Legends, October 23, 2021.

[2] Lotte Drewitt, “Who are the Butterfly People of Joplin?” from Journal of the Unexplained (online), September 24, 2021.