Revealing or Reflecting
Preaching on the Transfiguration. Applying it to the transforming work of God in our lives. As I follow the thoughts and ideas I find I am needing to change a perspective on the spiritual life that I have preached on before.
I used to really like the idea of our lives being a reflection of the Glory and Grace of God. It has been in invitation to free ourselves from the trap of needing to create and work for our own righteousness and spiritual life. We need to try to get out of the way of what God wants to show to others. Reflecting is a good thing, but I am wondering if that is enough.
At the Transfiguration (Mark 9:2-9 this year) we don’t see Jesus reflecting the glorious light of God as if God turned a huge spotlight on Jesus and said, “Look at him.” I read the text saying that Jesus was transfigured from the inside out. He didn’t just reflect God’s glory, he revealed it. It may not seem like much of a difference, but I am beginning to see it as an importance shift in perspective.
When we are reflecting something, we don’t really participate. We are showing something that is not us or a part of us. A mirror reflects light and images but is unchanged as a mirror. That silvery surface can reflect images of beauty and wonder then in the next moment show images of ugliness and destruction.
Yet, when Jesus reveals the Glory of God he is fully participating in that action. He is transfigured by that presence and we see in the Gospel a noticeable change in him for the rest of the story. Jesus is the Living Light of God in that event. Jesus, according to John, is the Living Word of God while on earth. The early church wrestled with that idea and ended up with the mysterious formula of Jesus being fully human and fully divine to capture this idea that when we see Jesus we don’t see a human being giving us reflections and pictures of God, but we see the real presence of the Divine in the completely human life of Jesus.
I believe our transformation by grace can learn from that event in the Gospel. God doesn’t come to simply use our lives as a surface to reflect something that is not us to the world. God wants us to fully participate in the Creating/Living Presence of Love. And we should want that, too. We ache inside to be a part of God in the world. We yearn to become Revealers of God.
And 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 NRSV
While Paul begins here with the idea of reflection and mirror, he doesn’t end there. He talks about this process of transformation where we no longer just show but become.
