Today is the last Sunday after the Epiphany, and the last festal Sunday before Lent, the church often refers to this Sunday as The Feast of the Transfiguration. The focus is on the transfiguration of the Christ from Jesus the human as an act of the loving God. The Old Testament story (Exodus 34:29-35) tells how Moses was transformed whenever in the presence of God by the shining of the skin of his face. The shining of Moses’ face so frightened people that he would wear a veil in their presence, which he removed in the presence of God. The Psalm (99) is a hymn of praise that presents God’s victory as one of justice, equity and righteousness. The Gospel (Luke 9:28-43) is the story of Jesus’ transfiguration on the mountain top. Jesus has taken Peter and John and James with him to pray. There they all witness a dialogue among Moses, Elijah and Jesus, and Jesus’ appearance is transfigured “the appearance of his face changed and his clothes became dazzling white,” which the disciples appropriately understand as the manifestation of glory. The New Testament reading is from 2 Corinthians (3:12-4:2) in which Paul’s midrash on transfiguration hits the nail right on the head when he says “a veil lies over their minds,” but in the presence of God the veil is removed, there is freedom, and that all of us perceive glory as though reflected in a mirror, transforming us by degree from one glory to another.
Paul means that all of these stories of transfiguration point directly to the active embrace of love. It is love, that is God, that transfigures all of us, if only we can accept it by turning to it. It reminds me of the old concept of a knight in shining armor. Whatever that might mean to readers of classical fiction, it has meant for me over the course of my life the joy in the faces of the men I have loved. I have seen every man I ever have come to love as my knight in shining armor, whose very presence transfigures me with his love. When I recount the men in my life and their love and what it has meant to me it always manifests for me in the presence of joy and literally in smiles that transfigure not only me but the world we occupy. It is this love, shared, that opens the door to the dimension of the kingdom of heaven, which is a place we all can occupy if only we will.
As we approach Carnaval (Shrove Tuesday) and Ash Wednesday and Lent, we are living in a very complicated reality. After more than two years of pandemic many people around the world are beginning to embrace hope of a return to a life that includes socializing, not just Zooms but actual hugs and of course the warm smiles of love. And yet on the very verge of victory over disease we find ourselves living in a world where inconceivable war nonetheless is taking place. How do we embrace love as a paradigm when we face constant fear?
Well, how do we dare do anything else? We must all embrace love, we must love with every ounce of our being, we must tear away the veil that hides us from the pathway to God’s kingdom. We must love our way to justice and equity and righteousness, because this is the glory that transforms by degree “from one glory to another” from one moment of love to another.
Last Sunday after Epiphany Year C RCL 2022 (Exodus 34:29-35; Psalm 99; 2 Cor 3:12-4:2; Luke 9:28-36, [37-43a])
©2022 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.
Dimensions of Reality: glbt Christian spirituality 