Dear friends,
While there are many passages of scripture that I truly love, my favorite is the gospel reading for the Last Sunday Before Lent, which describes the Transfiguration. As Gregory of Nazianzus wrote, the moment "initiates us into the mystery of the future." It is one of those moments of Christophany, the appearance of the true Christ, that happens only a few times in scripture. Jesus, who has climbed to the top of the mountain, while Peter, James and John the brother of James, wait below, is joined by Moses and Elijah – it is a moment of spiritual and vertical ascent. Jesus glows pure white, as did the face of Moses when he returned from the mountain where he was changed after his encounter with God, and Moses’ face shone so brightly that he had to cover his face with a veil to walk among the people. Moses and Elijah are top tier influencers, er, prophets, in Judeo-Christian theology, so their appearance and endorsement is significant, if not declarative.
But atop this mountain that Jesus climbs there is no cloud that must be penetrated to see the Divine; if there is a cloud, the light shines through it; even if there is an impenetrable cloud, the meaning is yet clear – the light, the beacon, shines through to us, even to those who dwell in darkness and in the shadow of death. In this moment it is as though the veils are removed, and the star-glow of God with us illuminates the future. This is what we touch and what transfigures us as we are transformed and we grow in faith and liturgy and community. It is what transfigures and transforms history, and defines the future for each of us. I think this is what Richard Crashaw meant when he wrote this stanza from his poem “Adoro Te. The Hymn of Saint Thomas in Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament:”
Come Love! Come Lord! And that long day
For which I languish, come away.
When this dry soul those eyes shall see,
And drink the unseal’d source of thee.
When Glory’s sun faith’s shades shall chase,
And for thy veil give me thy face.
And so there is a message here, not only that the last scripture for Epiphany, the showing of the Christ, is the Transfiguration, but that was also the scripture for the last Sunday before Lent. And what does that mean? It means that even as we enter into Lent, the revelation of the Christ shines for us, and Lent is a time of opening ourselves to, and being available to, and joining with, the coming Light.
Amen
CJ+
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