Daily Devotion | September 8, 2020

Mystery in the Canopy
Song of the Cicada

by Rollie J.

These hot August days have brought a radical new sound to my backyard sanctuary. In addition to the normal soothing sounds of songbirds, mourning doves, crickets, frogs, and wind in the trees we now have a new visitor. High in the canopy of oaks and ash trees in my back yard of late, I’m hearing a high-pitched buzzing or whirring noise. Sometimes it begins like a small engine beginning to rev up. Other times it whines like a tiny but intensely loud chain saw. Somedays I wonder if someone placed a loud buzzing power line in my trees. Often, I imagine an invisible alien from the movie “Predator” hiding in my oaks because I can’t see any source of the noise. At times there will four or six buzzing at one time.

In reality, I do know the namesake and source. Let me introduce our local cicada. It is quite remarkable that such an intense, loud, and piercing sound can come from such a tiny creature, yet this inch-long bug packs one heck of a noise maker. He will be heard! And yes, it’s only the males who make this obnoxiously loud racquet attempting to allure a lovely female. (Sounds like another species I know!) Take a listen to a short video from my back yard:

Song of the Cicada

Wanting to know more about all my very temporary new neighbors, I did some deep digging and investigating. Turns out these cicadas are quite fascinating. Here locally in Minnesota and North Dakota we have annual cicadas. They show up each year emerging from larva below ground, crawling up a nearby tree in the form of a nymph and then morphing into the racket buzzing bug that not so subtly makes itself known. In many parts of the south and east there are periodical cicadas that only emerge each 13 or 17 years. And when they emerge, they do so as a whole population all at once. Millions strong! No one really knows what triggers this odd, prime-number mass emergence. It’s pure mystery.

Here is a very short video of cicada molting, or shall we say- being born again. As it takes on new life, and a new form.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imago#/media/File:Cicada_molting_animated-2.gif

This final form (photo on the left) in the metamorphosis of the cicada in formal biological terminology is called an “imago” or Latin for “image.” Ironically, you and I are also “imagos,” for you and I are created “imago dei” or created in the “image of God.”

Much like the ugly duckling caterpillar that transforms via metamorphosis into a beautiful butterfly, here too we find the humble cicada crawling out of the earth, being transformed bodily, and then leaving behind the hideous exoskeleton or carapace of its previous self. Where it had previously crawled, it now has beautiful wings to fly.

Jesus boldly declares: For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. Mark 8:35

And so here we are confronted with one of these difficult teachings of Jesus. (And there are many!) If you want to grow, if you want to get better, if you want to live for a purpose greater than yourself, if you want to move past where you are at, if you want to become someone that fulfills God’s mission you’ll have to let go of your former self. So many of us refuse to change, refuse to grow, refuse to let God work on us and in us to bring about needed growth and newness.

These fascinating cicadas, in order to fulfill their ultimate purpose, must leave their former self, that not-so- beautiful shell of a nymph. The transformation is done to them, not by them. They don’t transform by trying harder or focusing more or working more intensely at becoming a true cicada. They simply enter silence and stillness, and surrender to the mysterious, and magnificent, and Godly transformation called metamorphosis. The work of transformation is done to them, not by them. We as men and women who follow Jesus, must do the same. If we want to grow and become more Christ-like we must let go of the “old” self.

And here is where I confess, and my limited theological understanding breaks down, gets confused, and gets foggy. For I know that I personally, have surrendered my life to God thousands of times, yet my life is still filled with all sorts of sin; jealousy, envy, covetousness, selfishness, lust, judgment, anger, and unforgiveness just to name a few. So why can’t I simply leave that old life, that old shell, that old carapace behind and live into my new self as promised in these scriptures?

In reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth. Ephesians 4:22-24

Maybe this dying to the old self, is unlike the cicadas in that it’s not a one-shot deal. Maybe it’s an on-going, everyday surrender. Maybe it’s an everyday letting go. Maybe it’s not a one-time transformation, but an on-going process that I can choose to cooperate with or completely ignore. Maybe it’s daily putting on the newness of Christ like choosing what I will wear for the day.

May you pay attention to the many miraculous mysteries of God’s creation that lie all about us like these tiny and loud Cicadas. May you realize that you too are a miraculous mystery, created as Imago Dei. May you cooperate with God in your on-going transformation to become more like Jesus. May you realize that His newness, is far better than your old shell.

-- Rollie J.

I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.  And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature.  For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.  For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.  Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.  So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me.  For in my inner being I delight in God’s law  but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me.  What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord! Romans 7:15-25

I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me. Galatians 2:20

Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit. John 3:3-8

Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. John 12:24

Enjoy this fascinating 5-minute video on the life cycle of periodical cicadas with Sir David Attenborough:

Amazing Cicada Life Cycle | Sir David Attenborough's Life In the Undergrowth | BBC

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