"And His Face Did Shine as the Sun"

After I took this picture last August, I started to delete it because of all the brightness at the top of the wall.  It seemed to be too much, that pitilessly bright light streaming over the ruins of the Iona nunnery, but for whatever reason, I didn't delete it, and now, one year later, it seems appropriate for the Feast of the Transfiguration, celebrated on August 6.

The Transfiguration is one of those experiences that defies easy explanation, and perhaps this glimpse of unbearably bright light is the best one can do.  Of course, if you are a Wesley, there's always poetry, and in John Wesley's Notes on the New Testament, he waxes poetic when looking at Matthew's version of the Transfiguration of Christ --

Matthew 17: 2 And was transfigured before them: and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light.

And was transfigured — Or transformed. The indwelling Deity darted out its rays through the veil of the flesh; and that with such transcendent splendour, that he no longer bore the form of a servant. His face shone with Divine majesty, like the sun in its strength; and all his body was so irradiated by it, that his clothes could not conceal its glory, but became white and glittering as the very light, with which he covered himself as with a garment. 

Though technically these lines are prose, John's inner poet bursts out as he uses words we are more likely to associate with his younger brother -- "transcendent splendour," "white and glittering as the very light, with which he covered himself as with a garment." 

Compare that to these lines from one of Charles Wesley's hymns on the Transfiguration:

Pure as the everlasting Sun,
and pure as purity divine. ~ Charles Wesley

One of my clergy friends posted an icon of the Transfiguration on her Facebook page, and she remarked that she loves that particular icon because for her it symbolizes how awake and enlightened Jesus was and how so many of us (like Peter, James, and John) are still spiritually asleep.  I read her words shortly before having a conversation with a church member who told me that her daughter likes me and thinks I'm "woke." 

Well, I had heard the expression before and knew this was a compliment, but I wanted a clearer idea of just what that meant, so I consulted my friend Google which told me that "woke" is a term referring to a person being awake or "woke up" to what's really going on in the world, especially as it pertains to matters of social justice.  I'd like to think that is at least somewhat true, that I'm aware of the ways this world has a long way to go before "thy kingdom come" is more than simply the prayerful hope of our hearts, but I know I, too, have a long way to go before I'm as enlightened and "woke" as Jesus Christ was. 

But perhaps today, as I look at my friend's icon and peer at the radiance of the sun darting around the ruins of the old nunnery in my photograph, I can see a glimmer of the majesty divine and a glimpse of the world as it one day will be and in the vision of the glorified Christ see myself made "pure as the everlasting Sun" with the light itself as my garment. 

"And His Face Did Shine as the Sun."  So may ours, when the indwelling Spirit darts out divine rays through the veil of our flesh, too.  Thy kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven.  Amen.