transfiguration 2012

I don’t have much new to say on the transfiguration year after year. Then I realized that I am new here, so whatever I say about the transfiguration can sound relatively fresh in this new setting for me. the transfiguration, metamorphosis actually, is part two of Mark’s gospel, as both parts start with the heavens being opened.

2 Cor 4:3-6 has not been part of my repertoire.I’ve told you that I led the book discussion on Life in God by the new Christian Theological Seminary president, Matthew Boulton. He makes a case that Calvin’s opus is more along the lines of spiritual handbook than systematic theological tome. Calvin has a similar diagnosis to Paul for our spiritual condition: blindness to spiritual realities. Both use the figure of light to be enlightened. Paul indeed uses the figure to underscore the movement from creation to new creation. When we enter the faith, it is as if God says “let there be light.” For Calvin it is as if we have spiritual cataracts and understanding the faith enough to read Scripture and participate in the sacraments all lead to clearer view of ourselves and God, and the sheer generosity of God.

I dearly love the figure of transfiguration. What we see is through a veil. We do not see ourselves or situations as clearly as we think we do or as we would like.This section of Mark will emphasize sight v. blindness. Transfiguration looks at the same thing but its appearance is transformed into a glorious one. I was chatting with a friend at supper a few weeks ago, and she was going back to her youth when she had three male friends, but they were interested in being more than friends. They were out as a crew, but she danced with one of them, and she saw him in a new light after that, and they started going out. Mother Teresa said that when she worked with the desperate poor of India, she imagined that she was honoring the body of Christ.

I would like to suggest that all of the readings after Christmas add to our early portrait of Jesus. This last picture is not only a heavenly one, but it is bathed in Easter light. They shed light on Christ as the self-revelation of the divine.Perhaps we can look at each other as bathed in Easter light. the gospel itself is the light for transfiguration. Christ is the new Adam, so rightly the new image of god for us. Christians When you have been in the same church for a while, some Sundays are more challenging than others. I don;t havould take this to mean that Christ is the very image of divinity and what humanity itself may aspire.

Everyone dumps on impetuous Peter for trying to build some sort of shelter on the mountaintop. who doesn’t want mountaintop experiences to last. Who hasn’t thought that they would like a moment of bliss to last forever? Rather, the point seems to me to be that the transfiguration is carried down the mountain into the valley where lie is lived, including the difficult troubles we all face.
Luther said”when God wants to speak and deal with us, he does not avail himself of an angel but of parent, a pastor, or a neighbor....so I fail to recognize God conversing with me through that person.”The great agent of transfiguration is love. Looking through the eyes of love does transform both the viewer and the one being seen. As we move through the life of faith, may our eyes be continually transformed into the eyes of Christ, that we may see the Christ in others, to see each other Christ sees us.