A woman walks into an optician's office to return a pair of spectacles that she purchased for her husband a week before. The assistant asks, “What seems to be the problem, Madam?” The woman replies, “I’m returning these spectacles I bought for my husband. He’s still not seeing things my way.”
Imagine if we all saw things the same way? Or if we all saw the same things?
What did you see this week?
Ontario election: many saw the results as an affirmation of stability, of overall appreciation for the incumbent’s leadership during very challenging times. Others saw it as a quiet nod to accepting the status quo. Still others saw it as the continued acceptance of the wealthy serving the interests of the wealthy, at the expense of health care and education and the most vulnerable among us.
What did you see on Friday? MAGA supporters and nationalistic thinkers saw it as a demonstration of their leaders’ strength, ‘calling it like it is,’ and fitting the ‘America first’ mantra. World leaders saw it as an opportunity to throw their support behind a beleaguered and war-torn country. Some saw it as a textbook example of gaslighting where the abuser blames the victim for the abuse. Still others saw it as a terrifying example of how the ‘good guys’ (US) are now unequivocally the ‘bad guys’ on the world stage.
I don’t know how you view these challenging times. Is it something simply to endure? Is it an opportunity to call out wrongdoing and re-commit to our values? Is it a warning sign of what happens when you side with the few rich and powerful and pander to nationalistic ideology? And what do we do with our personal challenges? Maybe you’re coping with suffocating grief, stress, or depression? Maybe you’re struggling to put food on the table and a roof over your family’s heads? Or perhaps you’re facing difficult life decisions or strained relationships.
How we view our struggles shapes our response to them.
The story of the Transfiguration is all about vision.
In the eastern Christian tradition, writers like John Damascene say this,
“Christ is transfigured, not by putting on some quality He did not possess previously, nor by changing into something He never was before, but by revealing to His disciples what He truly was, in opening their eyes and in giving sight to those who were blind. For while remaining identical to what He had been before, He appeared to the disciples in His splendour; He is indeed the true light, the radiance of glory.” (76)
In other words, today’s story is about God opening the disciples’ eyes to catch a glimpse of who Jesus actually is. Their biases, their life experiences, beliefs, and ignorance, limited their perceptions of their leader. But in this powerful moment of revelation, everything becomes clear, if but for a moment. Their walk with Jesus was full of incredible moments: healings, miracles, profound teachings, radical acts of compassion. But it was also full of hardship, scarcity, becoming incredibly vulnerable by coming alongside those their society despised.
That’s why it’s important to remember the setting of the Transfiguration. It is sandwiched between two instances where Jesus warns his disciples about the suffering he would experience at Jerusalem. The gospel writer makes it clear that they are on their way to Passion Week, but they are not to undertake this dangerous and frightful journey without first a vision of hope.
The Transfigured Christ is one bearing the signs of Resurrection – he shines with light and life. And he is given a word of confirmation that would also ring in the disciples’ ears: He is God’s Son. That same word was given at the beginning of their ministry journey together, at Jesus’ own baptism. The Divine Voice repeats this affirmation so that the we may all know that the one who is to suffer and die, whose call the disciples (and all of us) have followed, is no less than the glorious, beloved Son of God.
How can we approach Lent this year? Repentance, sobriety, contemplation, renewal? A reflection of the wilderness our world seems to be descending into (or a new ‘dark age’ as I heard it called this week?) Will these challenges cause us to turn away – to long for a return to the past (our ‘Egypt’s if you would). Or is it a chance to take an honest look at the pain and suffering in our world and in our lives and dig in deeper to way of Christ? Christ bore the weight of the world upon his shoulders – can we not trust him to carry our burdens now? Can a vision of Christ – of One who both suffers pain and death yet rises in light and life – shape how we see what’s happening in our world?
Our journey, like that of Christ’s to the cross, is not all shadows and gloom, or betrayal and heartbreak. The Vision is among Christ’s foretelling of his suffering, a reminder to all of us that with Jesus, suffering and glory, darkness and light, death and life belong together.
We understand this reality well when we’ve honoured the loved ones we’ve lost. We came together in pain, grieving together, but we also celebrated the resurrection life evident in the lives of the saints that have gone to be with the Lord. We live into this reality when we worship together on Sunday’s, sometimes discouraged by lower attendance than the ‘good ol’ days’, and yet together we lift our voices to sing and pray and worship our Risen King. We meet at other times for fellowship or study, often with hearts heavy with the concerns of our personal lives yet buoyed by the encouragement received by being part of this community of faith. When we are here, in this place, we are especially assured: We are not alone.
Christ promises his followers that he will not leave them as orphans, he will never leave us or abandon us. Christ has been with us when the first seeds of faith were planted on this site over 100 years ago, Christ will be faithful to the people in this community 100 years from now. The past is a place where we may glean lessons of God’s faithfulness…but it is also a place where are we are not to remain. For it is easy to look at the past and wonder what happened: to our lives, our hopes and dreams, our families, our parish.
I’ve shared an illustration of this from one of my favourite Star Trek tv series, “Deep Space 9”. In its inaugural episode, the hero, Benjamin Sisko, encounters an alien race that exists outside of space and time. As part of a visionary experience, Sisko attempts to explain to them what linear existence means: how a thing happens in a moment, and then is gone. The aliens, termed ‘the prophets’, do not understand, or at least do not agree. They take Sisko through various scenes of his life as they speak to him, frequently returning to the site when his beloved wife was killed in a war.
He laments and wails and begs them to stop taking him to that place of his grief and greatest pain. Their response: “We do not bring you here, you bring us here. You exist here. It is not linear.” “It is not linear,” Sisko weepily agrees. “I exist here.” He never left the site of his greatest pain, he carried it with him, and it bound him to the past and kept him from living into an exciting future. It’s easy to get stuck in places of pain and confusion. It’s also easy to want to remain in places of hope and joy. But the journey of faith, because it is a journey, requires us to always be on the move.
As we look ahead to what will certainly be another year filled with changes and challenges, let us receive the touch of the Transfigured Christ, and let us hear his word for us, a word to move us and inspire us and strengthen us for all that lay ahead:
“Get up and do not be afraid.”
Amen.
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