The Promise of Becoming

The Last Sunday After the Epiphany; Luke 9:28-36; St. Paul’s, 3/3/2019

Jim Melnyk: “The Promise of Becoming”

As it always does, the season of Epiphany began on January 6 with the ancient story of a bright star which guided learned gentiles to the home of Jesus – God’s first hint that Jesus was someone that would transcend the foundations of his faith and open a doorway to God for all people.  And as it always does, the season of Epiphany ends with an account of the Transfiguration – God’s underscoring – God’s bold-faced type – that the mission of Jesus is nothing less than a reconfiguration of the cosmos – the very light of God made manifest – and a story which seems to makes little sense for a society that has grown up in the age of almost constant light, and the age of science and the Scientific Method.

Let’s face it, the idea of a person’s likeness being somehow mystically transfigured doesn’t fit within the confines of modern day physics and its explanations of light and matter. 

A “voice from heaven,” a vision of ancient prophets, or a pre-figuring of resurrection glory, cannot be replicated via the scientific method of theory and reproducible experiment. 

Fully human/fully divine seems for many a paradox more fitting of fable and myth or storybook and movie.  And yet the story of the Transfiguration of Jesus insinuates itself into the life of the church twice every year – in the middle of the season after Pentecost every August 6, and again, always like an exclamation point in late winter, bringing the Season of Epiphany to a close. 

Is the Transfiguration the church at its anachronistic worst, or is it the face of God peaking at us through the Window that is Christ – trying once again to catch our attention and perhaps transform us into something a bit beyond what we can ever imagine for our own lives? In the end, the Transfiguration defies human logic. We don’t wrestle with proving whether or not it happened this way; rather we hear the story, and then figure out what it means for our lives.” We try to figure out what it means to become Transfiguration People.

Because, you see, once we begin to try to reproduce or prove what happened on that mountain top the whole point of the story is lost.  If, for example, the whole point of the story was to prove the divinity of Jesus, then Peter, James, and John would have come down that mountain on fire for the gospel and without any doubts about Jesus.

Yet five minutes later they still don’t understand; and weeks later Peter will deny Jesus three times.  James will flee and John will look upon the crucifixion with paralyzing fear.  No, I don’t think this story is about proof – or is provable.  It is, however, a story about the ability of Jesus to show us a glimpse of God, in and through himself. It’s a story about the ability of Jesus to proclaim the hidden-ness of God within the human heart, and the power of God to then transform us into the likeness of Christ.

But The Transfiguration has to be understood – and experienced – within the whole context of Jesus’ life and ministry to make sense. We don’t just stumble out of our own dark night into the dazzling glory of Transfiguration Light.  The world doesn’t just go to sleep one night blind as a bat and wake up the next morning with the image and likeness of God blazing with heavenly splendor upon its brow.  The Jesus we meet in the gospels – especially the Jesus we meet in Luke’s gospel – reminds us that we somehow need to become authentically human – we somehow need to become fully the creatures we are born to be – before we can ever begin contemplating being transformed into the likeness of Christ.  Being fully who we are created to be – this is what it means to be disciples of Jesus and followers of Christ.

Writing in his book, becoming human: core teachings of Jesus, Brian Taylor explains, “No matter who he [is] dealing with, Jesus [is] concerned with one thing, and one thing only:

a transformation of the heart to God, so that the believer might be more loving and more free. Social status, religious trappings, even expected behavior were all secondary to this one vision.  What [matters] most to Jesus,” writes Taylor, “[is] an authentically human life, grounded fully in the Spirit” (Cowley Publications, p 167).

When Peter, James, and John hear the voice of God from the cloud, God doesn’t say, “This is my Son, my Chosen, worship him!”  Rather, the voice from heaven says, “Listen to him!”  Listen to him!  Listen to what he has been teaching you:  Love one another as I have loved you.  Wash one another’s feet.  Forgive one another as God has forgiven you.  Love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you.  Take up your cross.  Peace be with you.  Be not afraid.  Feed my sheep.  Follow me!  Listening to Jesus – following Jesus – invites our human authenticity to stand true, and the image of God within us to shine forth.

The Transfiguration is God’s window into the promise of becoming first fully and authentically the people we are created to be – and then finding, knowing, and freeing the image of God within each of us – transforming us into beings beyond our wildest, most romantic imaginings.

What I hope to find when I look within myself is the part of me that reflects the image and likeness of God.  To be authentically human is to bear that image – and it’s when I come face-to-face with the image of God within me – or within my neighbor – that the rest of who I am begins to make sense, and the broken or tarnished parts of that image are given the opportunity for transformation.  St. Paul understood this when he wrote to the believers in Corinth, “All of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:18).

As Brian Taylor concludes, “Jesus [is] concerned with one thing...the transformation of the heart to God, so that the believer might be more loving and more free.” As we gaze upon the transfigured Christ - as we come to this Holy Table and receive the body and blood of the transfigured Christ – and as we seek the image of God within ourselves and within our neighbors – we find ourselves transformed more and more into the likeness of Christ – we find ourselves growing in our ability to know Christ in our lives – we find the ability to follow Christ and to make Christ known to the world.

Jesus comes down off that mountain top, not as an object of ancient worship, but as a servant – as One who gives up his life for the life of the world.  The voice from heaven says, “Listen to him.”  And the One we now call Lord makes it all pretty clear.  Love one another as I have loved you.  Wash one another’s feet.  Forgive one another as God has forgiven you.  Love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you. Take up your cross.  Peace be with you.  Be not afraid.  Feed my sheep.  Follow me!