Hermily for 8.6.26
The Transfig-her-ation, if you will
Thinking back over the important moments in my life, I can see what changed for me in those moments. My first retreat opened me up to a call to ministry. Getting married made me a bride, a wife. Every change in job or move to a new place brought changes; every new friend made or old friend lost has effected change for me. Very good moments, very painful moments, every mountaintop moment has brought changes.
But I have never, even amidst all those changes, stopped being me.
Rather, with each of these moments, I’ve become somehow, more myself.
Today we celebrate the feast of the transfiguration, and we might think it was on this mountaintop that Jesus changed into something or someone new. After all, in this moment his closest friends are seeing something unbelievable; they are seeing their friend transfigured.
But transfiguration isn’t about changing as much as it is about revealing. Transfiguration reminds us that what God, who never changes, longs to do is to reveal Their true self to Their beloved, to you and me, to let us see Them in new ways, even truer ways than we have before.
In our first reading, the prophet Daniel is given insight to the nature of the future Messiah. This is news to Daniel probably, but not new to God. This moment in Daniel’s vision is God’s revealing of Themself to him so that he could, and we could, in turn, see who God truly is in new, richer, deeper ways.
Peter, in our second reading, shows us the power of that new insight. In that moment he and his friends had seen Jesus transfigured Jesus had not become a new person, but seeing him that way changed their lives.
The Transfiguration does not ask us to accept a new version of Jesus. No, it’s more that we’re being invited, like Peter James and John to see Jesus more fully. To know Jesus more fully because when we see Jesus, when we know Jesus, we are seeing and knowing God. That invitation stands not only today but always. God is constantly inviting us closer—not forcing but inviting— according to our ability and readiness to see, as with Daniel, Peter, James and John.
In CS Lewis’ book Prince Caspian, we are given an illustration of what this readiness looks like.
In one scene Lucy Pevensie encounters Aslan, the great lion, a year after she last saw him.
She gazes up into his large, wise face and says, ‘Aslan,... you’re bigger.’
‘That is because you are older, little one,’ answered he.
‘Not because you are?’ she asked. And Aslan replied:
‘I am not. But every year you grow, you will find me bigger.’”
Aslan has not changed, Lucy has become more able to see him fully. The Messiah that Daniel sees is not a new Messiah, but Daniel is ready to see him. Jesus on that mountaintop has not changed, but has shown his full, true self to the three friends among his group who are ready to see it.
So today, as we prepare to receive Jesus, fully and truly present at our table, let’s take a moment to accept God’s invitation to come closer, to see more clearly, to know God more fully and to understand Jesus’ true self in new and deeper and richer ways. And maybe, when we do, we will be better, deeper, richer versions of ourselves.
