Our Text today is Matthew 3:13-17
Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John. But John tried to deter him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?”
Jesus replied, “Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.” Then John consented.
As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”
If y0u are ever driving down the road and see a car with a symbol of a dove on it, you can assume that you are seeing a car driven by someone who believes in Jesus.
Where did the Dove symbol have its origin? According to Matthew 3:16, during the Baptism of Jesus the Holy Spirit descended like a dove and came to rest on Jesus. For this reason the dove became a symbol of the Holy Spirit and even of Christianity itself.
I respect that others see the dove in this way, but I have a different suggestion. Suppose instead of a dove, the symbol for Christianity was a butterfly. Why a butterfly, you might ask.
I had this thought the other day when I was again listening to the beautiful story of the caterpillar that changed into a butterfly. In the story, his friends find the old shell of the caterpillar and grieve. The butterfly soaring above wants to tell them he has become something even better. They cannot hear his words, but keep on grieving the loss of their friend.
The point of that story is that we don’t die, we just change to something better. Of course the butterfly dies again and that is where our change is much better. But still it has some obvious implications for a Christian.
These are words worth thinking about.
Lonnie Davis