Second Sunday in Lent (Year C, RCL)

Jesus’ transfiguration is a mystery that defies a straightforward explanation. I find that instead of clarifying anything about his unique nature, it only adds more confusion.

I grew up in Southern Baptist congregations. By the time I left high school I knew the four steps to salvation and the meaning of Jesus’ sacrificial death as a substitutionary atonement for my sins. I could articulate this understanding of salvation in clear and simple terms. Within the metanarrative of evangelical Christianity it made perfect sense and was logically coherent.

Then my fundamentalism began to unravel. 

When did we stop taking church architecture seriously? Christians used to devote themselves to building projects that lasted over a hundred years. Not anymore.

Anyone who is familiar with Star Trek knows about the Borg, a seemingly soulless race of cyborgs. The Borg’s main task is to assimilate other species and bring them into the Collective. Science fiction geeks everywhere know the Borg’s catchphrase: “Resistance is futile.”

Resistance is futile. Jesus is sitting around talking to a crowd when some Pharisees come by. Looking agitated, they make their way to Jesus.

For this Transfiguration Sunday, the preacher faces at least two temptations.

The first is to move too quickly to the pastoral and personal dimensions of these texts, to consider how we, too, are transfigured by God’s love, glory and grace. And the epistle lesson does bring this theme up. But Exodus and Luke invite us to explore the nature of God’s glory itself, and it’s rewarding to focus first on these rich texts.

The pastor was prepared for questions about the Transfiguration. Instead, one first grader asked, "what does 'obviously' mean?"

Learning to see in new ways is one of the most difficult tasks of the transformed life. Old habits of selective vision, old choices about what to leave out and what to focus on tend to dominate us, even as we search for new ways of living that are in closer communion with the life of the Spirit. Transfiguration--that mysterious transformation of vision that is narrated in today's readings--is a radical, if brief, way of illumination.

The Transfiguration provides a window through which the Christian narrative may be viewed.

Light is light. And only light can bring our fragmented darkness into proper perspective and allow us to see things whole.