Metamorphosis

The Gospel story we just heard is Matthew’s account of Jesus’ transfiguration on the mountain. There is a feast day in the church calendar dedicated to celebration of Jesus’ transfiguration. It’s August 6^th. Which usually falls on a weekday, of course. Even if it’s a Sunday, it’s still August 6^th we’re talking about… so a lot of people miss that commemoration of the Transfiguration.

But Jesus’ transfiguration is a very important and compelling story. It is a story you should know. So the lectionary presents it to us every year on this Last Sunday in Epiphany season. Jesus’ transfiguration is the ultimate Epiphany story. Remember that in Epiphany we pray that we may receive the knowledge of God’s glory in the face of Jesus. Epiphany is all about revealing the divine nature of the man Jesus. The church has been saying phrases like these for thousands of years now. We say them every Sunday as we say the Nicene Creed. "We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God… God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God… of one being with the Father." We say the words so often, it’s easy to take them for granted and to just slip past the doctrine behind them. Epiphany season challenges us to stop and think. What does it really mean that a human being was God?

I wonder sometimes how much the disciples really understood, especially before Jesus’ death. They knew Jesus as a very insightful teacher. Through his teaching, his prayers and his pastoring, he helped bring other people to a closer relationship with God. He drew them, he pointed them, to God. But did they really sense that he was God? That the human being Jesus, truly shone with God’s own glory?

That is the story of the transfiguration. It was fun for me this week to discover, or re-discover, that the Greek word that is translated "transfigured" is metemorphothe. As a geologist, I specialized in metamorphic rocks. I never thought of them as transfigured rocks. Transfigured. Metamorphosed. Changed. It’s hard to fathom that Jesus was actually changed on that mountaintop. He was always fully human and fully divine, before and after "the" transfiguration. His nature did not change on that day. But either his appearance changed or the disciples’ vision changed so that they could see something they had not seen before. They could see a human face shining with God’s own glory. They saw a human being metamorphosed into glory.

And what did it mean? What does it mean for us today? The transfiguration? The fact that the human being Jesus also bore the full presence of God? That Jesus’ face shone with the glory of God?

To answer that I want to talk a little bit about mirrors. This is not as far off track as it may first seem. Mirrors appear in a lot of legends, fairy tales and stories. Sometimes they show people things they want to see, sometimes not. Sometimes they are truth tellers, sometimes not.

There’s a mirror in the Harry Potter stories that provides a very interesting illustration. It’s in the very first book. As some (many? all?) of you know, Harry has had a difficult childhood. Orphaned as an infant, he has been raised by a rather unsympathetic aunt and uncle. As the story begins, it has just been revealed to Harry, much to his surprise, that he is a wizard and he has gone off to begin his studies at Hogwarts School of Wizardry. A place, we might say, where it seems that all things are possible. In the course of his time there, Harry happens upon an empty, disused classroom in a remote part of the school. It contains only a large mirror. When Harry looks into the mirror, Harry, the orphan, is overwhelmed to discover that he sees himself surrounded by his loving parents and family. Captivated, Harry sneaks out of bed night after night to gaze longingly into the mirror, to see himself in the midst of the family he has never known.

One night Harry is startled to realize that the wise headmaster Aldus Dumbledore is also in the room, watching as Harry stares into the mirror. Dumbledore tells Harry about the mirror. It is called the mirror of Erised. That’s Desire, spelled backwards. Desire. The mirror of Erised, Dumbledore says, "shows us nothing more or less than the deepest, most desperate desire of our hearts. You, who have never known your family, see them standing around you…. The happiest man on earth would be able to use the Mirror of Erised like a normal mirror, that is, he would look into it and see himself exactly as he is."

What would you see if you looked into the Mirror of Erised? A mirror that reflects back to your eyes your deepest desire about yourself… Is it your desire to be trimmer, or younger, or older? To have more family, or less? To spend your time differently? To be more courageous? More honest? More famous? More gentle? More spontaneous? More diligent? What would you see in the Mirror of Erised… A mirror that brings to life the unfulfilled desires of our lives?

Dumbledore says that the happiest person on earth would look in that mirror and see herself just as she is. Such a person would have lived into her true potential and abandoned all unreasonable desires. Psychologists agree with Dumbledore and speak about the fully self-actualized individual as the goal of psychological health. Such a person is self-aware, has a positive self-image, and reasonable or appropriate expectations of life with no unfulfilled desires.  Three more books later Harry certainly isn’t there yet. Neither are most of us.

This inner serenity is a worthy goal, worth pursuing for the wizard Harry or for 21^st century Episcopalians. "God give us serenity to accept what cannot be changed, courage to change what should be changed, and wisdom to distinguish the one from the other."  This is the pathway to the sort of happiness or serenity that Dumbledore describes.

There is nothing anti-Christian about the Harry Potter stories. Yet, although there is a lot of fun and a good bit of wisdom in them, there is nothing particularly Christian in them either. And Rheinhold Neibuhr’s wonderful prayer, that has been so helpful to so many people, is rich in faith and wisdom, immensely suitable for Christians, but not particularly Christian in focus.

Returning, though, to the transfiguration… On the topics of self-image and mirrors and the transfiguration, listen to St. Paul writing in the Second letter to the Christians in Corinth (2 Corinthians 3:18). "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." All of us, seeing the glory of the Lord, are being transformed (it’s that same word metamorphosis) into the same image. It's not about accepting an appropriate or positive self-image; it's about seeking the divine image within ourselves.  Seeking the divine image within ourselves.  We are being transfigured into the glory of God. As Christians, it should be our deepest, most passionate, desire, were we to look into the mirror of Erised, to see ourselves transfigured, to see our own human faces shining like the sun with God’s glory. That is Jesus’ promise. It can be, it should be, our desire.

We will not shine with the full glory of God until we are fully united with God in death. Yet part of our transfiguration is real in the present. We are being transformed. As we meet God in prayer, as we commune with God at the Lord’s table, as we serve the world with the Lord’s hands, in the Lord’s name… we are being metamorphosed. As we, in our lives, draw nearer and nearer to God, God’s image is reflected back, as in a mirror, onto us, and we are transfigured.

Charles Wesley expressed this well in one of the classic hymns of the church:

Love divine, all loves excelling, joy of heaven, to earth come down,
Fix in us thy humble dwelling, all thy faithful mercies crown…

Finish then thy new creation; pure and spotless let us be;
Let us see thy great salvation perfectly restored in thee:
Changed from glory into glory, till in heaven we take our place,
Till we cast our crowns before thee, lost in wonder love and praise.

Changed from glory into glory, our faces shining like the sun with the glory of God. Think about it the next time you look in the mirror.

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