Abstract
In 1913 Eleanor H. Porter wrote a book about a young girl called Pollyanna. Pollyanna went to live with her sour-tempered aunt after her father’s death, and things were not good. However, Pollyanna’s sunny nature and good humour proved to have an astonishing effect on all around her, and the story is a wonderful tale of how cheerfulness and light can conquer adversity and darkness.
Pollyanna’s philosophy of life centres on what she calls, “The Glad Game”, an optimistic attitude she learned from her father. The game consists of finding something to be glad about in every situation. It originated in an incident one Christmas when Pollyanna, who was hoping for a doll, found only a pair of crutches in a lucky-dip ‘missionary barrel’. Making the game up on the spot, Pollyanna’s father taught her to look on the bright side of things – in this case, to be glad about the crutches because, “we didn’t need to use them!” With this philosophy, and her sunny personality and sincere, sympathetic soul, Pollyanna brings so much gladness to her aunt’s dispirited New England town that she transforms it, or possibly even transfigures it into a pleasant place to live. The book shines with the girl’s gladness as one miserable soul after another is transformed. No one is immune for long. Soon the whole town begins to shine with kindliness, hopefulness and love.
As a challenge to Christians, and all people whether they have faith or not, it is a simple but profound one. From your face, the way you look, as well as your mouth, the things you say, and your mind, the way you think, would people see enough of the loving-kindness to show straightaway that you were a person of faith, a person of warmth, a person transfigured by love? I don’t mean that inane, rictus grinning that one sees in a certain kind of Christian, the relentless cheeriness that makes you want to do a little bit of gentle violence. I mean the kind of genuine, shining goodness that glows from someone that is a sign of their warmest soul, their caring heart, their generous mind shining out of them even when they are not aware of it.
In Exodus and Luke we have instances of stories about people who shone because of their faithfulness and their intimacy with God. It was so intense that it shone out of them. With Moses, it was when he had been in the presence of God on Mount Sinai. We are told that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God. It is a transfiguration of the commonplace by the presence of God’s light.
With Jesus, in the story of transfiguration, it is another revelation, another shining moment of understanding and perception. Standing between the great lawgiver and the great representative of the prophets – Jesus is revealed as the living fulfilment of them both. Overshadowing all is the presence of the Father, Whose voice is heard once more, telling all who would listen that He was well pleased with His beloved Son. The moment when God makes it clear after all the uncertainty about Who Jesus was is now made clear, even for the most fleeting of moments. And in that time, Jesus shone.
Good people, kind people, generous people, gracious people shine from within, and it attracts rather than repels. When we are glad, when we have found reasons, even in the face of terrible difficulty or adversity – to be glad – then our face, our whole bodies, change. We become positive, we become clear-sighted, and we become more focused. We become more hopeful. We shine.
For those who follow the Christian year we have come to the end of the season called Epiphany, that starts with the Wise Men seeing the young Jesus and ends with Jesus and His disciples on a mountaintop in an episode that is called the Transfiguration. This is one of those symbol-heavy stories that have to do with the presence of God, and the effect that presence has on those nearby. It is a story about splendour and glory and mystery.
What is the point of the Transfiguration? Filled with so many other-worldly dimensions – shining faces, glistening white robes, Moses and Elijah, a voice from a cloud – the intimation of God – it taxes the imagination to the limit. What literally happened, the mechanics of transfiguration, are not spelled out. Transfiguration is not something to be explained away; it is something to be thought about; it is something to which we apply our imagination, and to see what it might be that the gospel writer Luke was trying to say through this story about Jesus.
Perhaps it is this. On the road from Bethlehem to Calvary, on the road from incarnation to revelation to crucifixion, we need to be reminded that the journey to the cross is not all shadows and gloom. In the glorious and clouded brightness, familiar but frightening, Jesus stands transfigured; stunning in majesty, mysterious in revelation. Shining. The paradoxes underline the truths – suffering and glory, darkness and light, cloud and sunshine, death and life – in the economy of God there is this balance that impacts not only Jesus, but also those who observe and follow Jesus. The story of transfiguration is God’s ultimate pledge and commitment to the resurrection, God’s promise that however dark the road, we walk through the clouds, to light and life.
Moments of transfiguration come to us in our everyday lives more than we realise. Times when we may not be able to find the words but are aware that something tremendously important and decisive is happening. Moments of transfiguration may not happen for long, but they happen again and again through our lives, reminding us that the world is full of resilient meaning. Filled, invaded and visited with a purpose and a brightness that does not come from us but comes from God. We see the reflection, and we, if we are open and faithful, are transformed too.
The point of transfiguration is not only to reveal Who and what Jesus is, but also to reveal who and what we might be too – in response to Him. When the light changes, when the words are heard, when the eyes are opened, we see not only the revealed Christ with all His potential; we see also, in His reflected light, our own lives, our own potential, and our own possibilities.
It is not only a vision of Christ transfigured that we need. It is also the vision of the Church transfigured, and the people of the Church transfigured. Seen in the light of Christ, we will see what we should be and will be. Our real selves, our better selves, affirmed and affirming, beautiful, shining, helpful and hopeful. The transfiguration of the people of Christ would revolutionise not only the Church, but the whole world. Such transfiguration would be contagious. Radiating its warm light and helping others to be transformed too.
Perhaps Pollyanna was right, playing the ‘Glad game’ of faith allows the transfiguration light of Jesus Christ shine through us and from us, even through the cracks of our broken existence, into the often joyless world, shining the transforming and healing light of Jesus into all the places of hurt and hopelessness and showing that the light will come, and that it will make a difference for good.