Truth in Transfiguration

 

Preaching on the Transfiguration offered an opportunity to reflect upon all light, all love, triumphing over darkness: 

Blessed be God who animates our lives and charges the world with a grandeur of glory divine. AMEN

One of my favorite theological books is entitled Just Because It Didn’t Happen Does not Mean It Is Not True!

I think of this book and its title message at times like today when something so mysterious, miraculous and quite frankly unbelievable, like the Transfiguration is presented. 

I try to shift my attention, and perhaps yours, away from inquiries of whether “it” really happened and how could it have? toward fracking for some kind of truth.

It is all very similar to pondering the Resurrection! and may even be a foreshadowing of that ultimate transfiguration.

I feel assisted by the coupling with the story of Moses which rarely gets the same kind of deep consideration and yet somehow it seems to me that it should give us some clues into the ultimate magnificence of God’s power and glory made manifest.

So what truths might emerge for us this day?

Transfiguration is more dramatic than transformation. Most of us are familiar with various kinds of transformations: of ourselves physically and spiritually, of rooms and physical spaces, of the environment, of babies growing up. We might even be aware of the transformations which occur in participation in the sacraments especially of baptism and eucharist. The transforming power of grace! From my perspective I witness faces change, soften, tears well up as some presence of the Divine travels into the soul and as gratitude changes/transforms attitudes and hearts.

In fact, the very definition of sacrament implies the transformation of the ordinary to the extraordinary, the invisible to the visible.

Transfiguration, as the compound suggests, completely and utterly changes features, the visible. It is transformation to the nth degree!

When Jesus glowed with the glory of God, there were no eyes or nose or mouth, no skin no hair no expression, when Jesus glowed with the glory of God, there was only radiance, only light and by extension on invisible love and mercy.

The ancient Eastern mystical text The Fifty Spiritual Homilies says this about transfiguration

When the soul is counted worthy to enjoy communion with the Spirit of the light of God, and when God shines upon the soul with the beauty of his ineffable glory, preparing her as a throne and dwelling for himself, she becomes all light, all face, all eye. Then there is no part of her that is not full of the spiritual eyes of light. There is no part of her that is in darkness, but she is transfigured wholly and in every part with light and spirit.

Just as the sun is the same throughout, having neither back nor anything irregular, but is wholly glorified with light and is all light, being transformed in every part; or as fire, with its burning sheath of flame, is constant throughout, having neither beginning nor an end, being neither larger nor smaller in any part, so also when the soul is perfectly illumined with the ineffable beauty and glory of the light of Christ’s countenance, and granted perfect communion with the Holy Spirit and counted worthy to become the dwelling place and throne of God, then soul becomes all eye, all light, all face, all glory, all spirit.

(The Fifty Spiritual Homilies are Eastern Christian mystical texts, traditionally attributed to Macarius, an influential fourth century Egyptian ascetic, but probably the work of a monk from northern Mesopotamia. The texts closely associate union with Christ with the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit, and have influenced Eastern monastic piety, as well as pietism and the modern charismatic movement.)

Moses’ transfiguration and even more so Jesus’ may, however luminously and numinously, signal the truth of the infinite and unfathomable end result or end time of God’s redeeming love. This light and luminous love of God is as the sun is the same throughout, constant, eternal and irradiating all creation. When we catch a glimpse we not only have a greater understanding but are en-couraged to persevere. We are witness to the dwelling place of God, not in man made physical tabernacles but in glowing radiant souls.

Many talk about this kind of bright light experience near death, and suggest that it is a foretaste of glory divine. Others go one step further and believe that in the ultimate end times when there will be no weeping and every tear will be wiped dry…all will be one. This is the beloved community, no separations no divisions, only radiant love.

So here is what I wonder:

whether instead of parsing the actuality of the transfiguration we let it stimulate our imaginations

whether the transfiguration is a glimpse of eternal life in God’s love and also a metaphor for the moments we might experience when, however fleeting, all is love, all is one, all is calm and all is bright.

whether this story is about the radiance itself which is God coming toward us, into us, calling us.

These wonderings are most fruitfully gathered up in contemplation not analysis.

There is no doubt that the disciples were astounded on that mountaintop. and there is understanding for the human tendency to box and bottle and store up mountaintop experiences.

but broadening the lens off that spot we might remember that Jesus has brought his disciples there to disclose the ultimate reality toward which he is journeying. he is coming down to Jerusalem and tortuous death! There is intended comfort here…

In this context however difficult the transfiguration of Jesus may just be the foreshadowing of the resurrection. death is not the end; physical features and life on earth is not the end

all will be gathered up in glory 

we might enjoy even in our darkest times glimpses and shafts of this holy light

For me it is all about radiance

It is all about the luminous glory which shines on and through all our physical features

It is all about the world being charged with the grandeur of God

This immanent grandeur which assures and illumines is the truth of the transfiguration

And so I leave you with a poem by Malcolm Guite entitled Transfiguration in the hopes that you leave with an image of this magnificent transcendent radiance which Jesus offered and offers to disciples to be the blessed assurance and the foretaste of glory divine:

For that one moment, ‘in and out of time’,

On that one mountain where all moments meet,

The daily veil that covers the sublime

In darkling glass fell dazzled at his feet.

There were no angels full of eyes and wings

Just living glory full of truth and grace.

The Love that dances at the heart of things

Shone out upon us from a human face

And to that light the light in us leaped up,

We felt it quicken somewhere deep within,

A sudden blaze of long-extinguished hope

Trembled and tingled through the tender skin.

Nor can this blackened sky, this darkened scar

Eclipse that glimpse of how things really are.

Just living glory full of truth and grace…

The light of christ will transfigure all darkness.