Shining through

 

The Feast of the Transfiguration holds a special place in my heart. 

I was ordained to the priesthood on this feast, and I have several pieces of art - icons, paintings, carvings - that I received as gifts or bought in commemoration of the day. 

I love the different ways in which this story is represented in art and I think in many ways a story like this one, a story that is filled with symbols and symbolic action, may be best apprehended through art.

Since we’re not doing a slide show here, I will only note that in most artistic representations of the Transfiguration, even though the main feature is of a shining Jesus who may or may not be levitating or be wearing flowing robes that make him look as if he were in a Vogue photo shoot, what I really find fascinating is the depictions of the disciples.

They are almost always at or near the bottom of the scene, having fallen on their faces, or their backs or even their heads, at the sight of the divine light of God shining through the person of Jesus. 

In a painting by Salvadore Dali (see above), the disciples are simply squiggles and lines at the bottom of the canvas. Perhaps even a riff on his signature. I especially like that one.

The Transfiguration is an Epiphany, a theophany as it is called in the Greek church, a manifestation of God in our world, and the appropriate response of one who recognizes that he or she is in the presence of God is to fall on the face, to look away from the dazzle that could blind a person, to shield oneself from the fearful awesomeness of the Divine and Holy One. So that’s why the disciples are usually lying on the ground or covering their faces or upside down on their heads.

The Transfiguration is therefore also a symbolic event. In Luke’s telling of it, we hear echoes of the story of Moses and his shining face, which he must keep veiled when he is among the people because it is too much for them.  There’s the mountain, and the cloud, and the voice in the cloud, and the shiningness. 

In both stories, God is speaking to God’s people through an approved spokesperson. But while we are instructed by God’s voice to listen to Jesus, it is through the visual of the moment of shining glory that we see he is more than simply a spokesperson. The transfiguration of Jesus is a way of showing us that God Almighty shines through Jesus, that Jesus is the manifestation, the showing, of God on earth. Jesus is of God - Jesus is God with us - and this is why we follow him instead of following someone else, worthy though they may be, like Gandhi or Plato or Gwynneth Paltrow. 

And so, all that is nice, and instructive, but what are we to do with this storyin terms of its connection with our own lives, given that we’re not going to be seeing what the disciples saw that day? What’s the takeaway for us? How do we live after hearing this story?

I think what has stuck with me about the Transfiguration all these years is the idea that even if we don’t get to have a beatific vision of Jesus, we still might have an unexpected experience where the veil is lifted just a little and the glory of God shines through in the world, just in a flash, just for a moment, before the veil is lowered again and life goes back to looking like it usually does.

We might find that, in the midst of every day life God shines through, Jesus shines through, giving us a glimpse of beauty, of truth, of justice which is not only a joyful reminder but also encouragement to keep going when things are rough or when we are despondent or just don’t know what to do.

So it seems to me that if we are disciples, followers of this God with us, Jesus, and we know that sometimes even on this earth the veil is lifted just a little bit, unexpectedly, sometimes, then instead of hiding our eyes in fear, or otherwise shielding ourselves, we might try training our eyes to look for those times when God’s glory shines through. We might, perhaps through prayer and obedience in our discipline of following Jesus, walk around this world with wondering eyes primed and ready to see glimpses of God’s glory manifested in the midst of our broken world, glory that transforms something ordinary into something that reflects the holy. Glory that shows that God is still speaking, that the light still shines through the darkness, that just for a moment an epiphany - something breathtakingly beautiful - could appear in front of us and that moment of unspeakable beauty could change absolutely everything.

And I wouldn’t want to miss that. Would you? 

But the truth is that most of us are not looking for God's glory in the world very often. We are beset by the noise and relentlessness of life in these times. We are tired. We steel ourselves against the manifestations of polarization that is ever present in our society, polarization that has seeped into our families and our schools and our work places and our neighborhoods and even our church. If we are primed for anything, it is to see dissension or offense or misconduct or people just not doing what we want them to do. It is to see lack and feel helpless, to see strife and feel scared, to see pain and just want to look away, to see something new and challenging and just wish to roll back the clock to a time when we felt safe and loved and maybe unchallenged. We see the manifestations of polarization and feel that the choice is either to put up our dukes or avert our eyes.

But our shining transfigured Jesus beckons us to look for the light, to look for the beauty, to look for the glory twinkling out there from time to time and place to place. To look for the manifestations of love and justice and mercy, especially mercy; to look among the broken pieces and see that God is there too, doing what God does best, bringing new life into this world while we are still in it. So let us be primed to look for these things as we make our way through our days and know that God is there just hoping and wanting us to see the light.