The inner circle of the apostles: Peter, John and James accompany Jesus up a mountain to pray. Then the ‘ordinary’ of their ministry experience was interrupted by the ‘extraordinary’. Jesus’ face was changed and his clothes became dazzling white. The disciples saw him talking to Moses and Elijah and the gospel writer noted the disciples, though heavy with sleep, “saw his glory”. Peter felt the need to do something, offering to make dwellings for each of them, which seemed a silly response (but churches have been built for stranger reasons!). A voice came from the cloud, presumably God, announced, “This is my Son, my chosen; listen to him!” (9:35)
This incident is hard to understand. But over the last two thousand years people have tried. It seems important because it is reported in all three synoptic gospels. Perhaps a historical point is being made. Jesus stood in the OT tradition of Moses with the law and Elijah with the prophets. This adds significance to “Listen to him!” Theologians have tried to make sense of it. Some have argued that it as the meeting place of the human and the divine, or the temporal and the eternal. Perhaps it prefigures the resurrection. In Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Anglican traditions there is a Feast of the Transfiguration. I am not sure any of this helps it is a gospel passage that remains mysterious and it is hard to see any contemporary relevance.
But one point can be made: Transfiguration invites us to see with different eyes.
The Ordinary is Familiar
Let us start with ordinary experience. Ordinary is ordinary. This is where we live almost all the time. It is the routine of everyday life: making meals, cleaning, taking the dog for a walk, perhaps going to work, maybe caring for children or a spouse. It seems like we live on ‘autopilot’. It is easy for the days to run together and to notice at a special anniversary or a birthday that another year has passed. There is nothing wrong with ordinary experience, it is familiar and often reassuring that we belong and are loved.
I believe that Transfiguration asks us to see depth behind the ordinary. At the very least the three disciples, after this incident, saw a greater depth in Jesus. But Jesus is not the only person of depth. We can take a moment to look at those around us: our children, spouse, family, relations, close friends, perhaps others at church and appreciate something of their mystery. Undeniably each is a unique self. It is not a matter of reminding ourselves that someone is unique but actually seeing it.
I had high academic expectations for my four children. I now have mixed feelings about that burden I placed on them. I think my third daughter struggled to some extent. She has stalled in her professional master’s degree, about six weeks short of completing it, but she has done very little in the last 5 or 6 years. I have been anxious that time will run out, then she will have just debt and ‘no qualification’. However, she became a mother and that is all important to her. It is a challenge for me to see that she is happy and living a responsible life any parent should be proud of. My parental worries and ambitions for her stopped me seeing the depth in her.
This is a spiritual challenge for each of us. Think for a moment about a person who is important to you. Do you see more in them than you did, say a year ago? Or five years ago? It is natural to form an image of person, hold it inside you and then stop looking at them. Transfiguration invites us to see depth behind the ordinary.
A man rang a New York bookstore and said: “I have an old Bible, I can’t read the letters. It has old print.” The owner of the store asked, “Who was a publisher? It is on the front page.” He looked and answered, “Guten or something like that.” “You mean Gutenberg, don’t move I’m coming right around.” The man said, “Oh it can’t be worth much it has writing in the margins by some guy called Luther.” If an old book is not just an old book, then each of us is more than what we seem.
Moments of the Extraordinary
There are moments when something very unusual happens. Perhaps mysterious and not easily explained. Graham, a close friend, told me about an experience when his mother died in Sydney and her apparition appeared at the end of his bed in Canberra. It was the very moment she died. He had the sense that she was speaking to him and saying something important.
Perhaps most people have some unexplainable experiences. Ann has had many and I witnessed one when she slipped on portable stairs getting into a plane. It was as if time slowed down for her; I just saw her stumble. But it was a risky situation ands she remained unharmed. There are moments when life stops being ordinary and it becomes extra-ordinary.
Ill. Have you had such an experience? Share with someone sitting next to you.
Maybe you have experienced transcendence? It comes in different ways. Someone has said that no one ever leaves seeing the Grand Canyon disappointed. It is an astonishing spectacle. I can remember a handful of incidents when nature has revealed its glory. Or the extraordinary can be with the intense pleasure of food, fine wine, sexual intimacy, or realising a friend truly understands us.
Or it can be religious. The mystic St Teresa of Avila had an ecstatic experience in which the angel or Christ or God appeared to her,
“I saw in his hands a long golden spear […] This, he plunged into my heart several times into my heart,… and yet such pain was so exceedingly sweet that one cannot possibly desire it to cease. (St Teresa of Avila, 1515-1582).
John Wesley had his heart “strangely warmed”. Many Christians have memorable ‘conversion experiences.
How do we understand such experiences that do not fit in with ordinary experience? They are a reminder that not everything is routine, not everything is predictable, and not everything can be explained. Transfiguration reminds us to see the texture of life. It invites us to go on journey to find meaning.
A Sacramental View of Reality
The poet William Blake captured this: “To see a world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wildflower, hold infinity in the palm of your hand and eternity in an hour.” (Auguries of Innocence)
How do we reclaim the sense of religious significance? This does not come easily. We look at the world though ‘modern eyes’. Compare for a moment how a medieval person might see: life and death, changing seasons, harvests, sources of authority in the world, and would have some confidence about who might know the truth about God. Most of us have shifted to a rationalist ‘cause and effect’. The result is a loss of religious significance in the mundane. Life is effectively ‘paint stripped’ of spiritual colour.
There have been attempts to ‘re-enchant reality’. The New Age Movement is an example with gurus, festivals, ethereal music and crystals. Another trend is neo-paganism portrayed in Neil Gaiman’s novel (2001) American Gods (and the Amazon streaming series). I am sympathetic with such attempts to re-enchant. It is like humanity has woken up and said, “I don’t want to be a lonely orphan in this vast universe.”
Our faith has a response to this. We have always had a sacramental view of reality, instituted by Jesus who transformed ordinary bread and wine into his body and blood in the Holy Communion. This sacramental vision encompasses all of reality. We have created many sacred places including this church. Heaven and earth meet. Intermingle. The profane becomes sacred. You will see life “charged with the presence of God”.
I once smiled at a sign outside a church, “He is risen, he is not here!” Of course Christ is risen but he is present in every church.
Conclusion
A sacramental view of reality is all inclusive, both depth and extraordinary experiences have profound meaning. We can awake, open our eyes, and see God. It is in such moments that the membrane between our world and the divine becomes so thin that we can look through and catch a glimpse of ‘what the angels see’.
This is properly a sacramental view of life in which nothing is ever just bread and wine. Not places, not people, not relationships. Like the disciples we can behold the glory of God!
The Rev Dr Bruce A Stevens (PhD Boston University, 1987) was Wicking Chair of Ageing and Practical Theology at Charles Sturt University, Canberra (2014-19). He is an endorsed clinical and forensic psychologist. He is a supply minister with the UCA presently serving at Gungahlin Uniting Church.