Before he was a NASA astronaut and commanded the ill-fated Apollo 13 flight, the one that never landed on the moon but miraculously made it back to earth, Jim Lovell had already experienced being “lost in space.” As a Navy pilot out on a routine nighttime flight, his aircraft suddenly lost all of its navigational systems. Miles away from his ship with nothing to guide him back to the aircraft carrier USS Shangri-La, Lovell decided to go completely dark. He turned off all of his cockpit lights and peered out in the utter blackness of the sea.
Soon he spotted a wrinkle of glowing water. The “glow” was created by the churning of the sea in the wake of the huge carrier. Tiny bioluminescent sea creatures jelly fish, crustaceans, shrimp, even worms that had been frothed to the surface of the sea glowed and gleamed a clear path through the dark waters directly towards the ship Shangri-La. Lovell, like Hansel and Gretel following breadcrumbs, simply followed that radiant glow until he found his ship and a safe landing.
If you grew up east of the Rockies, there is a good chance you have some sweet summer memories of catching fireflies. Cupping those little critters in your hand and then cracking your fingers open to catch them going “on” and “off” – how forever wondrous! Fireflies are yet another “bioluminescent” creature, organisms which are able to emit a chemically activated glow in the midst of darkness.
Before electric lights were available, early miners often used “lamps” powered by either fireflies or fish-skins. Both possessed enough bioluminescence to provide a safe, non-combustible light-source for workers where gases and fumes made any hot burning fuel a combustible potential for disaster.
Today is “Transfiguration Sunday” — the day we celebrate that moment when Jesus ascended to a mountaintop and the radiance of his divine nature was first revealed to his three closest disciples, Peter, James, and John. This is an extraordinary, once-in-a-lifetime event. The Greek verb used to describe the radiance Jesus exhibited and the disciples witnessed is “stilbein” to “gleam, glitter, glisten.” In other words, stilbein was an amazing light show, a kind of personal “Northern Lights.”
Luke interprets this divine light as the light of “glory” (Luke 9:32). Matthew (17:5) links this glare to something else — to a divine declaration that “This is my Son, the Beloved.” In other words, for Matthew it is a love light. Mark’s gospel also emphasizes the loving relationship that brings about this miraculous illumination — “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!” (Mark 9:7) Mark and Matthew both focus the beam of Jesus’ divine radiance on love, but the Luke inclusion encourages us to see this radiance as the glory of love.
The personal power of Jesus’ divine light prompts Peter to suggest building the first “bomb shelter.” Overwhelmed by the irradiating power, the blinding greatness of Jesus’ presence, Peter offers to build a shelter. “Let us make three dwellings” — a safe haven with walls that would keep the glare of divine love shut safely outside. In the Feast of Sukkot, also called the feast of tabernacles, the Temple of God lights up. In this transfiguration passage, Jesus’ face is shining and his clothes flashing like lightning. No wonder Peter wants to build some booths.
But a “transfigured” life is a life lived without “Son screen.” Jesus’ disciples must willingly take on the full glare of God’s love, not hide out in the shadowlands of a shallow faith. To trust the “transfiguration” of Jesus on that mountaintop means that we, as disciples, actively accept the full irradiation of God’s redemptive love into our lives. Jesus’ followers are willingly “radioactive” — irradiated by God’s transforming love. How radioactive are you?
The transfiguration moment in each disciple’s life, like nuclear irradiation, causes cellular disruptions. The very essence of our being is more than transformed by the love of Christ that is offered in this Transfiguration “picture show.” The Greek word behind “transfiguration” is “metamorpho,” which means to completely change in form, a transformation in which the inside matches the outside much like the way a caterpillar morphs into a butterfly. It isn’t just transformed but transfigured as its entire form and functions change. It becomes a different and new creature. When you are transfigured by Christ in you, you glow with the glory of the love of Christ, as your outward actions match your inward reality.
The transfiguration moment does not “change” Jesus, but it does change us. Jesus had always known the empowering presence of God’s love, an iridescence that had illumined him since his birth. In the most beloved, and repeated Christmas carol, “Silent Night,” the third verse reminds us of those “radiant beams from thy holy face.” A transfiguring light was present at Jesus’ birth, a light that brought us “redeeming grace.”
In this scientific world of actuarial risks and measurable outcomes, it is increasingly difficult to “believe” in the power of an immeasurable moment of divine light. But that is what this Transfiguration Sunday demands of all those who confess Jesus is Lord and Light of the world. We are called to become radioactive by the power of divine love, a power that made itself fully present to those following the ultimate loving and forgiving gift to the world.
There are lots of self-proclaimed “Christians” in the world today. How many of us would score positive on a “radiation test” for love? To say we are Christians is to say we should give off a definitive signal — a “sign” that we have been “infected” by the irradiated beam of love that Jesus transmitted to all his followers at the moment in his life called the “Transfiguration.” The “Transfiguration” did not transform Jesus in the least. He was already fully ready for his mission. It did, however, give us, his disciples, a significant glimpse into his true divinity. The “Transfiguration” transfigured nothing in Jesus. But it did offer a change to our human hearts and souls.
At the Transfiguration it was less divine glory itself than the glory of divine love that was beamed out and bored into those who witnessed this mountaintop moment.
The recent, and deadly, measles outbreak this winter has reminded us of how truly, and biologically, fragile we all remain. To willingly ingest an “inoculation” always involves a modicum of risk. We risk the presence of a “germ” within our body, because we are assured that it will protect ourselves, and our children, in the future. In this week’s text we are asked to “inoculate” ourselves with the presence of God’s presence — an irradiating presence that promises to change us, but not necessarily to protect us.
What we are being “irradiated” with is a potentially lethal level of love. The moment of Christ’s transformation is not so much a moment of glorification as it is a moment of pure love shining through for a fleeting moment. That is why Peter, James, and John are so completely flummoxed by the moment. Even as they followed Jesus, followed his stories, followed his signs, there was still the messianic desire for a firebrand – for the One who would smack down all of Israel’s detractors and make those who worshiped Yahweh the “winners” — militarily, politically, powerfully. Who wouldn’t want that?
But the Transfiguration moment, the revelation of God’s presence and power in Jesus, was not about a transformative political or military moment. Instead it was completely about the power of love. The mysterious burst of light that beamed out from the “transfigured” Jesus was not a super-powered laser but a reminding, unremitting light of love — a transfiguring power for every generation of disciples.
Jesus calls us to love. The transfiguration is a twitter of divine love — a moment of few words but a moment that gives the whole shebang of truth. In this transfiguration tweet, Jesus’ divine nature shines through giving us a glimpse the glory of God in the Son (the shekinah). The Transfiguration moment communicates more than anything this one thing: that we are loved as Jesus is loved. That is the gift of Transfiguration. Until Jesus, only a few came face to face with God. In Jesus, we all can come face to face with God. The blazing, blinding gift of radiance at the Transfiguration was the tiny glimpse of the glory of divine love that was being offered to all of creation.
One of the best biblical metaphors linked to the transfiguration is Jacob’s Ladder. In fact, Jesus has been compared to the “ladder” itself, the means by which we ascend to God. In the dream of Jacob’s ladder, the steps of the “ladder” rise up into The Cloud and The Light. Each rung brings us closer to the heavens, yet the ladder is grounded on earth.
What a great metaphor for the incarnation. The Hebrews saw Jacob’s ladder as the promise of a return to the garden and a walk-with-me, talk-with-me relationship with God. Our relationship with Jesus lifts us higher and higher into the revelatory Light of God. Love steps us up to the next level...out of ordinary life and experience and into some new ways of seeing God, each other, self, and the world. The power of this step-up love comes from beyond ourselves. In fact, Rita Coolidge’s 70s hit “Your love has lifted me higher” can be heard as an anthem about love levels in the life of a Jesus follower.
One of the most notorious theological “lovers” was Augustine who in his confessions brought love into the realm of ecstatic, celebratory beauty. Listen as Augustine speaks of the relationship between humans and God as that of “lovers:” “you were radiant and resplendent, and I drew in my breath and now pant after you - you touched me, and I am set on fire to attain the peace that is yours.” Augustine had an awareness of how the beauty of God shines through us as a transfiguring vision.
So what do we do with this gift from Jesus of radiant love?
Humans love to measure. We measure everything. But the things we love the most we relegate and delegate into units. In fact, as the saying goes, “we treasure what we measure.” We even like spicy stuff so much we measure the horrible hotness of stuff we eat. We break these into “Scoville Units.” Heat is big in the “big eats” business. Yet regardless of how heated, every hot pepper has been channeled into a “Scoville Unit” which is a unit of hotness measure so that everyone knows just what they are chomping into.
Maybe we ought to go beyond measuring the hotness of peppers and measure the hotness of our love? We live in a world suffering from hypo-amarosa — low love levels. Maybe we need to begin each day by checking our love levels, by measuring the level of love in “irradiated” Christians. Paul himself says “without love we are nothing.” Once irradiated by love, we are able to glimpse the glory of the divine. And life is never the same after that. That glimpse of glory makes us incandescent. That glimpse of glory lights up something inside of us, making us seek the Light more and more. To “walk” with God is to be clothed in God’s light. Are you letting the light shine?
Ask yourself this morning: What is my “Scoville” score of hotness? What is my love level today? Love is a daily transfiguration, a life-changing face-to-face with God’s beloved Son. How fully have you been irradiated by Jesus in your day-to-day existence? How brightly does your passion for Christ burn in your everyday life? How strong is that radiant light of love that emanates from you to the world and to all of your relationships? How much of Christ can we see in you?
What’s your love level, church?