Shadow and Substance

The story of the Transfiguration is filled with imagery and symbols — but it is also a story in its own right, a story filled with shadow and substance …

Shadow and Substance

Psalm 50:1-6; Mark 9:2-9

This week as I studied and reflected on this story of the transfiguration of Jesus, the words of a hymn kept running through my mind: “Shadow and substance, wonder and mystery…” So this morning, I invite you to join me in weaving together this text and this hymn

– which we will sing later as our prayer hymn. It is #398, and we will begin by singing the first verse.

Shadow and substance, wonder and mystery, spellbinding spinner of atoms and earth;

Soul of the cosmos, person and energy, source of our being: we sing of your worth.

I have been trying to imagine the scene on that mountain, when Peter, James, and John suddenly and briefly saw Jesus in a different and brilliant form. Mark’s gospel, as usual, describes the event with brevity and urgency, and this version of the transfiguration story can bring several temptations to the attentive reader.

These temptations come in the form of narrative elements that simply cry out to be interpreted. There is the mountain, which reminds us of Moses going up the mountain to receive the Ten Commandments. There is the dazzling change in his appearance and his clothing, which reminds us again of Moses (who was radiant when he came down from his encounter with God), and then the appearance of Moses himself, accompanied by Elijah. Elijah, as you will recall, was prophet who was taken up into heaven in a fiery chariot – another connection with this story of dazzling light. Then come the cloud and the voice of God, which harken back to the baptism of Jesus, where that same voice was heard, with nearly the same message: “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!” [Mark 9:7] And finally, there is another instance of the “Messianic Secret,” as Jesus tells the disciples to keep silent about what they had seen.

I suppose that the good thing about all of these connections with other parts of scripture is that preachers have a lot to work with in writing sermons. But although this is a story rich in many layers of meaning, it is also a story in its own right. And it seems to me that if we listen to this story, just as story, and not as an allegory or a lesson in Old Testament characters, it is a mystical story.

Admittedly, “mystical” is an elusive term, one that we usually use because we have no other name for what has happened to us or around us. At its purest, though, a mystical experience is one that “has a spiritual meaning, a meaning that is neither apparent to the senses nor obvious to the intelligence.” [Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary] Or in other words, a mystical experience is one in which we have “a direct subjective communion with God or ultimate reality.” It is a time when we confront the mystery of God.

And that bring us back to Dan Damon’s hymn, a hymn that invites us into that mystery that we can never fully articulate, but only approximate with our words. Often those words are paradoxical: shadow and substance, wonder and mystery, person and energy. Sometimes the words are verbs that capture at once both the largeness and smallness of God: spellbinding spinner of atoms and earth. Sometimes the words are unexpected noun phrases: soul of the cosmos, source of our being. Taken together they make an unsatisfactory paragraph, but a very satisfying song.

Conscious of our encounter with God, we now sing of ourselves, in the second verse of the hymn:

We are your image, formed in community; sisters and brothers of Adam and Eve.

You gave us color, custom and history; teach us to honor what others receive.

Faith is about theology, yes, and it is also about anthropology; our spiritual journeys are shaped by what we think and know about God, and by what we think and know about ourselves. And what we know is that we are formed in the image of God, yet equally formed by the community in which we live and grow. I am deeply moved by the way that the hymn writer describes that community: that we are sisters and brothers and Adam and Eve. I have always thought of myself as a descendant of that first couple – metaphorically at least. But that way of thinking separates us from the intimacy of creation, and these words move us back into that intimacy. We are close to, not far from, the one who creates us. And the moment of creation is always now.

The profession that we are creatures of God is also the profession that we are all creatures of God. The great variety of human appearance, habits, and experiences are demonstrations of God’s creative power and abundance, not of some hierarchy of value or worth. To live in the image of God and in peaceful community, we commit ourselves to honoring and celebrating this diversity, not just tolerating it – even if that effort is sometimes time-consuming and uncomfortable.

That brings us to the third and last verse:

Naming the nameless, Spirit of unity, scanning the heavens for signs of your care;

God of the ages, give us humility; guide us to mystical union in prayer.

This is our encounter with the One who comes to us in startling and dazzling ways. We acknowledge that there is no name that is the whole name of God, and at the same time we continue to look for signs of God’s care, for a glimpse of God’s face, for a hint of God’s deep desires for us and for our world.

And as we look for those things, we see in ourselves the need for humility. Humility, as you well know, is not about pretending to be less than you are. It is, in fact, about not pretending at all, but accepting both one’s gifts and one’s foibles; it is about being “honest to God” – literally, being honest to God about what you can and cannot do, about what you truly feel and think, about what you deeply hope and dream. Being humble is about being down to earth, down to the earth, down in the earth.

I am not sure what combination of spiritual discipline and divine grace results in the experience of “mystical union in prayer.” I would like to think that the discipline of prayer plays an important part – the commitment to pray even when it is inconvenient, even when it seems futile, even when you are not in the mood. I would like to think that people who pray most consistently and fervently will find themselves deeply connected with God. And sometimes that is true.

And sometimes it is not. Sometimes the intimate connection with God is a pure gift – unexpected, overwhelming, sweet. Sometimes we, like Peter, James, and John are just going about our regular daily business, and God interrupts with a dazzling display of light or color or warmth or just … well, something that cannot be described very accurately in words.

We would do well in those moments, I think, if we could refrain from jumping into action like Peter did. God does not necessarily need us to do anything or tell anyone. God simply invites us to be present in that moment, to bask in the shadow and substance, the wonder and mystery, of a brief, deep, dazzling glimpse of the divine.

Amen.