Exodus 34:29-35 Ps. 99
2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2 Luke 9:28-36
Lectionary Link
Did your elementary school science teacher ever say, "Okay, class today we are going to study the life cycle of a cocoon? Of a pupa? Of a larva? Of a caterpillar?" No, it is always the life cycle of a butterfly. Why is that? Probably, it is because the butterfly represents the most adult phase of the cycle even though we know that a butterfly is also just a phase to lay eggs and die.
The story about baby Jesus would not have been written if Jesus had not had the butterfly phase that we call the resurrection experience of him by his disciples and followers.
We know that like the preface for Requiem Mass says, "life is changed, not ended," because perpetual cycle and metamorphosis is descriptive of our lives. What does metamorphosis imply? Life continuity with significant changes because of time. Baby Jesus is Jesus, just like Transfiguration Jesus, but there is significant difference and change because of time.
In our life of faith, we may say that "Life is changed, not ended," but we know that we grieve the losses of phases of our lives and the people who have been in them. We can be honest about saying we prefer life to death, even if we have come to believe that death is but a change and not an end.
The reason that I speak about the language of metamorphosis, is because the Greek word for transfiguration is the word in English, metamorphosis. This word sums up two notions; a highlighted event in the phases of the life of Christ, but also the entire mystical process of the life of Christ for Jesus of Nazareth and for us who have experienced the post-resurrection phase of the life of Christ.
Looking at the metamorphosis of Jesus Christ, at his transfigurations, one can note certain butterfly events in his cycle: His birth, his baptism with the dove and voice from heaven, his transfiguration on the mountain with clouds and lights and the voice from heaven, his resurrection appearances to his disciples, his glorification in the heavenly realm known by his many reappearances to people in many ways through the work of the Holy Spirit. I would like to call these not "reappearances" but re-apparencies, that is in reference to the many ways which Christ has become apparent to us that are not the same as the visual appearances experienced by the disciple
The highlight moments of Jesus are compared with the highlight moments from the great stories in the Hebrew Scriptures; the shiny faced Moses on Mt. Sinai when he received the law from God, the fire from heaven for Elijah on Mt. Carmel, and the still small voice to Elijah in the mountain cave.
The mount of transfiguration was a butterfly moment for Jesus, but it was more important for the disciples who witnessed it. It became a teaching moment for Peter, James, and John who were Jews. In this visionary event they witnessed two of the greatest figures of their own tradition, Moses and Elijah, with Jesus. What does this mean? This means that Jesus was in succession with the great prophets but he had a surpassing difference. Did the heavenly voice say about Moses or Elijah, "This is my chosen Son, listen to him?" Among Moses, Elijah, and Jesus, the heavenly voice only said to Jesus, "This is my chosen Son, listen to him."
The purpose of the transfiguration account is to establish Jesus as the successor of the traditions of the law and the prophets, as signified by the presence of Moses and Elijah. Jesus had a butterfly moment, but not for himself, but for those who were seeing the nature of Jesus revealed to them. It was a foretaste of how they would see him again in his post-resurrection life.
Yes, Jesus was transfigured on the mountain. But Jesus and the disciples did not live in a continuous visionary high. What did they do? They descended the mountain to find people in the real world who were tormented by inward forces of darkness that had to be expelled by the holy sanity of Jesus the people whisperer.
Let us remember that transfiguration is both the events of our highest vision but it is also expressive of the entire spiritual process of transformation. A butterfly includes in it the egg, the larva, the caterpillar, the cocoon, and the potential regeneration in the next generation in being able to lay birthing eggs of the future.
This process of transfiguration is what we are in. We rely upon the visionary moments of our greatest insights to carry us from one mountaintop, and then down in the valley, to make our way toward the next mountain top of spiritual insight.
Transfiguration is both the entire process, but also the individual moments of highest insights where our spiritual maturity is given advancement. And in those high moments, we are to remember, because we need them to get us through the continual cycle of spiritual growth.
The Gospel for us is that we have transfigured events with Christ, as markers of the entire process of spiritual transfiguration which we are called to go through because we have been baptized into an identity with Christ.
We end the season of Epiphany with a spiritual high, and we need to remember that, because next week, we will be with Jesus, tempted in the wilderness of the apparent absence of God's help.
Let us recommit ourselves to this wonderful journey of transfiguration that we are on. And thank God for the spiritual highs, because we need them when the journey seems dark.
And to prepare ourselves for our Lenten journey, and our Lenten fast from the ecstatic Alleluias, let us say loudly three times. Alleluia. Amen.
Lectionary Link
Have you ever done an honest axiology review of your life? You might say, "Well, I don't know. Depends upon what axiology means." Axiology is a study of values. Have you done a Values Review of your life? In a general sense we know that our values are expressed in how we use the time, talent and treasure of our lives. But how can one do a more thorough and explicit value review? An honest value review. We can sometimes be like those who answer the poll questions with the politically correct answers which betray what we really feel or believe.
How can one do an honest axiology review? It does no good to say our values are what we wish them to be if our current life is not expressive of those desired ideal values. To do an honest value review, I suggest people do in private their own top 10 lists. What are the best 10 things that have happened to you? What are your top ten favorite things to do? Who are the 10 most influential persons in your life? Who are the 10 people you have loved the most in your life? What are the 10 top ideas which have influenced you or changed your life.
By doing these top 10 lists we can attain an honest distribution of our real values because our values are truly reflected in how the desires and loves of our lives are projected upon the people, things, ideas and activities of our lives. And if we can do a personal axiological review, what about doing one on our parish community? What are the true values of St. John the Divine as a community?
The entire New Testament was written because continuous groups of people came to value the life, ministry and the continuing witness of Jesus Christ. The early Christian embedded the ways in which they valued Jesus in the stories which they shared about him. And in sharing their stories they had their own top 10 lists of valued people. Who did the contemporaries of Jesus value? They valued the living; they valued John the Baptist. But they also valued people in their tradition, the great figures who had given them their community identity. Who were these great people? Noah, Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Samuel, Deborah, David, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Elijah, Elisha, Ezekiel, Nehemiah and Ezra. And when times are really bad what does one wish for? One has a nostalgia for people who are like the great people of the past to return and bring back the order of life that was represented by these great people. And what happens when one meets the new person of value, the new love of one's life. The new love is so special and beyond comparison and one waxes poetic to speak about a special person, but one also has to use comparison to speak about the surpassing greatness of the one who is the new love of one's life.
The early Christians were in love with Jesus Christ. They could be said to be "madly" in love with Jesus. And they inherited comparative ways to speak about how much they valued Jesus. The used the poetic comparative forms to speak about Jesus. They compared him with other great people. They used geographical metaphors, metaphors from physics and metaphors from weather and climate.
A common metaphor for a superlative experience is to say, "it was a mountain top experience." This is a common expression whether one is speaking about a religious experience or whether a hippie is praising a pharmacological event. Mountain top experiences have biblical bases. Moses and Elijah were mountain men; they were regarded to be people who went to the highest human experiential places where the natural met the spiritual and the two became so mingled that experience became fuzzy and cloudy and yet within the mingling of natural and spiritual there occurred the experience of light. For the spiritual experiences of highest value the Gospel writers used the familiar poetic metaphors of the geography of mountain top, the physics of light, and the weather and climatic effects of clouds to extol the value of the experience.
Christians came to know the value of Jesus; he was valued more than the law of Moses; he was valued more than the prophetic witness of Elijah. The followers of Jesus fell in love with him and this love determined his value to their lives. This love of Jesus shared within their community created an effervescence which resulted in the creation and maintenance of communities of "lovers of Jesus Christ." The New Testament is the literature which derived from the communities of people who came to love Jesus Christ.
The Gospel story of the Transfiguration is a story of the superlative axiology or value of Jesus Christ to the people who were completely taken by Him. And why is the word Transfiguration important? Transfiguration is a translation of the Greek word from which derives the English word metamorphosis.
What does love do to a person? Love transforms the person. It can make one "bat silly" and irrational. Love of the Risen Christ is the power which drives Christian metamorphosis, Christian transfiguration and spiritual transformation.
What is the one of the results of conducting an honest value survey? Self-disillusionment. Now that I am honest about the things which I value, how do I change some of the habitual value behaviors which I seem to be so programmed to follow?
In the experience of self disillusionment about some of our inferior values which control our lives, we come to know that we always need the intervention of the power of the One with the Highest Values. And this is when we experience the need to be in Love of Jesus Christ because that love attraction is the experience of the Higher Power which is going to drive our metamorphosis into the Christly values which we do not yet fully express in our lives.
The story of the Transfiguration of Jesus is the story of the love which the early Christians had for Jesus; they believed that their love for Jesus could drive the continuous transformation, transfiguration, metamorphosis of their lives toward the higher values which could help in the continuous process of surpassing of themselves in future states.
Today, we are welcomed to the transfiguration of our lives through our love of Jesus Christ. May this love always beckon us to higher values as we seek to surpass ourselves in future states. Amen.
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