On Growing-Up
The Mystery of the Transfiguration
How do we know that someone is an adult? What are the markers of the transition from childhood to adulthood? How do we define maturity? There are the physical markers of puberty and the chronological markers of significant birthdays, say turning 18 or 21. There are the cultural makers of confirmations, bar and bat mitzvahs, and graduations. There are the social markers of employment, productivity, and consumption. We tend to remember when we earned our driver’s license, or the first election in which we voted. A first kiss may not be memorable, but it can be hard to forget; if you know what I mean. Such things happen, and we become different people, with different capabilities and responsibilities and even identities.
While growth in maturity is surely a process rather than a single event – and an iterative process at that, one that we spiral through again and again at greater levels of depth – there are certain thresholds that we cross, certain ordeals that we undergo, that give shape and meaning to the experience of growing-up. Such milestones allow us to navigate life and fathom its mysteries.
This is true for us physically and socially. It is true for us spiritually as well. In Christian tradition, the life of Jesus is not merely of historical interest. It is our pattern of growth into spiritual maturity. This pattern is mythically elaborated in the celebration of the Christian year, through which we participate ritually in the mysteries of Christ: his birth and baptism, temptation and transfiguration; his passion, death and resurrection; his ascension into heaven and descent in Pentecostal fire. In the words of St. Gregory of Sinai, “Everyone baptized into Christ should pass progressively through the stages of Christ’s life.”
The mysteries of Christ are not just about things that happened to Jesus. They are meant to illuminate the meaning and purpose of our own lives, providing so many thresholds through which we must pass as we grow into the fullness of Christ ourselves. These thresholds are traversed in our daily lives, not simply in the liturgy. The 16th century mystic, Jacob Boehme, advises us that “If you would appropriate him, then you must follow his whole pattern.” The liturgy is meant to help interpret our experience, to participate consciously in the unfolding of the mysteries of Christ in our own lives; including the mystery of the Transfiguration.[1]
Saint Peter, who witnessed the Transfiguration of Christ on the mountain, wrote that “You will do well to be attentive to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.”[2] “Morning star” is an image of Christ. Peter is telling us that the mystery of the Transfiguration is something to experience in our own hearts. We can experience the divinization of our own humanity, realize our identity as expressions of the divine light and love, just as Jesus revealed his divinity on the mountain top.
I wonder if you’ve ever glimpsed the brilliant light of the morning star in your heart. Have you had the improbable experience of being filled with light even in the darkest hours of your life? I suspect we’ve all hovered around the edges of an inner depth, a mysterious radiance at the center of our being that cannot be diminished by the circumstances of our lives. There is more to you and me than we realize most of the time. What would it be like to live from this center, to realize its brilliance, with greater consistency and courage? What if we claimed it as our true self?
This is the question that faced Peter, James and John. It is one thing to see the Transfiguration of Jesus, to build a shrine to celebrate and worship the divine light in him. That is what we do each Sunday. We attend worship to see the Light of Christ – in manageable doses – but the invitation is to see it in ourselves: to really listen to Christ, to allow him to touch us and overcome our fear, and follow him out into daily life transfigured in his image. We want to worship Christ, but do we want to become Christ?
When Jesus was transfigured, the heavenly voice pointed back to his baptism, reminding him and us that we are God’s beloved children. This is the first threshold we must cross: remembering our baptism, remembering that God loves us before we were ever able to make any claim on that love. We are loved because God loves God in us. Baptism is the birth of our awareness of God’s love. I am God’s beloved child. Wow!
To know this deep in our bones is life changing, liberating, and profoundly healing. We are not defined by our worth or our wounds but by our being loved by God. Coming to this awareness is a major advance in the spiritual life. But it is a law of spiritual growth that with every advance there is a corresponding ordeal. The fundamental problem, the root of sin, is the illusion of our separation from God. We forget God. We forget that we are loved by God. We have to remember this again and again and again. The mystery of the Temptation – the temptation to forget – corresponds to the mystery of Baptism and New Birth. We have to wake-up.
When we forget God, we think we are lovable – or not – based on our own merits. Everything quickly becomes about me, whether I believe I am wonderful or I believe I am horrible. Preoccupation with self-importance or self-pity or both quickly comes to the fore when we forget God. To move through the mystery of the Temptation we have to become willing to be purified of ego-centeredness, of anything that crowds out remembrance of God. The more we are able to become God-centered, and less ego-centered, the more the light of God can shine through us. We approach the threshold of the mystery of the Transfiguration. To quote St. Gregory of Sinai again, “Every person who has been renewed by the Spirit and has preserved inthe gift will be transformed and embodied in Christ, experiencing inevitably the supernatural state of deification.” It isn’t enough to wake-up. We have to grow-up.
This is the work of Lent – which isn’t just a liturgical season – but an ongoing discipline of remembering God in the face of our temptation to forget. Prayer, fasting, self-examination, penitence, almsgiving, service to others – these, and all the other spiritual practices of letting go – prepare us for the mystery of the Transfiguration. If our purification is complete – appropriate to our capacities at this stage of life – then our whole being will be opened up to the wonder and power of self-giving love pouring through us in an ever-renewing stream of mercy. The divine light at the center of our being shines unencumbered. Then, we can follow Jesus back down the mountain, and join in his work of sharing God’s love with a broken world. We can show-up for others.
Wake-up. Grow-up. Show-up.
[1] Matthew 17:1-9.
[2] 2 Peter 1:19.