Greg sees everyone with the eyes of Christ. That’s what Greg’s mother told me. That was obvious to me. Greg was probably the happiest member of the church choir that I directed some years ago. I don’t think that Greg could see negative qualities in anyone or anything. Frankly, he put the rest of us to shame. The smallest things would bring him unspeakable joy. An adventurous modulation in an improvisation between verses of a hymn would move him to ecstasy. Although he was well into his twenties, each year around St. Nicholas’s Day, he would march down from the choir loft with the children of the parish to greet St. Nicholas upon his arrival. He was beaming and not the least bit self-conscious. Greg was at home with children and adults alike. It was true. He saw everyone with the eyes of Jesus, including himself.
I would often observe Greg and then look at others in the parish. I wondered how he could feel such indiscriminate love towards people, when others, whom we might label as more fortunate by the standards of our world, could be so bitter and mean. With Greg, you only had to be yourself. There was no reason to pretend because no matter how you acted or who you were, he saw you as Christ would see you. He looked upon you with love. He held no grudges. He wasn’t resentful. How could you be resentful or mean if you always saw others with the eyes of Jesus?
Try it. Can you picture the person you find most despicable? Can you gaze upon the image of the person who has broken your heart or wounded you? Can you hold before your eyes the face of the one towards whom you hold deep resentment? And can you see all those persons with the eyes of Jesus? It’s an interesting and challenging exercise. I tried it earlier this week. In a dreamy state, as I lay in bed in the early morning hours, I allowed the faces of those who have hurt and offended me to roll across my mental screen. I tried to see through them, through the tarnished façade, to the original goodness[1] within. I saw them through their best qualities, even if those qualities were difficult to summon at times. I imagined that, for a moment, my perception changed. If you try it, maybe for a moment your heart will soften.
But with time, that sense of peace probably fades away, too. There are some wounds too deep to be cured by our imaginations. There are some resentments that offer us such a delectable taste of power in clinging to them that it’s painful to let them go. There are plenty of people who make it easy for us to dislike or even hate them. Which is why we need a Savior, someone who can help us to see the world through his eyes.
The story of Jesus’s transfiguration is all about vision, but vision on two levels. It requires that we hold two things in tandem. On the one hand, we need to accept that something miraculous and mysterious, beyond our understanding, happened on that holy mountain. The actual transfiguration of Jesus is more than a mere metaphor. It is something that happened to Jesus, and above all, it affirms who Jesus is, the Son of God, fully human and yet fully divine, the Savior of the world, not simply another guru, teacher, or moral exemplar. Jesus is God’s beloved Son.
But there is a purpose to this theophany on the mountain. It’s more than a theological statement. Jesus was transfigured to teach us something. He was transfigured to change us, too, in some way, not in mere appearance but in form, in body and soul. Soon enough, the mountaintop experience of bliss would fade away, Moses and Elijah would disappear, God’s voice would no longer be heard, and the disciples would be left alone with nothing but Jesus, and no less than a Jesus who will be tortured on a cross leaving them bereft, confused, and fearful.
The bewildering episode on the mountain only makes sense if we recall what’s on the other side of the mountain. Down the mountainside there is a deep valley. It’s the valley of suffering and death that will soon be Jesus’s fate. It’s the valley of the disciples’ fear as they betray their friend as he faces the cross. It’s the valley of some of those disciples’ own deaths long after Jesus died, deaths that were the result of following him. It’s the valley of countless martyrs who submitted to a gory end rather than abandon their faith. It’s the valley of our own lives, the broken marriages, the estrangement from family members, the lost jobs, the cancer, the trauma from something in our past that imprisons us.
The transfiguration is about two things. It’s about who Jesus is and who Jesus is calling us to be. And who Jesus is calling us to be is a people who see everything as he would see it. And to do this, we need a Savior. We need Jesus to touch us, heal us, and help us see as he sees. We need Christ to give us his vision.
On the mountaintop, strangely and before death occurs, the resurrection is breaking through. It is illuminating all that will soon litter the road of suffering. It will mark every old and broken thing as something that will be made new again. It will designate every moment of sin as fodder for forgiveness. It will offer the key to unlock every prison door, whether physical or in our hearts.
To live in the aftermath of the transfiguration, requires the healing touch of the Transfigured One. When our newfound zeal is overflowing our cups, we need Jesus to touch us as he touched those disciples and wake us from our dreamy state. We can’t live in a perpetual state of bliss. To see with the eyes of Jesus means also seeing the treacherous road ahead as one paved with glory. We need God’s voice to interrupt our babbling, as God interrupted Peter’s attempts to domesticate the mountaintop vision. When we presume to know the state of another’s soul or the moral worth of another person, we need the Risen Christ to interrupt us with his words and help us to see everyone with his unclouded eyes.
The theological point of Jesus’s transfiguration is that the entire world, every person and thing, can be seen in the glow of the hope of glory. With the eyes of Jesus, we have X-ray vision to see what’s possible beyond marred and broken surfaces. But it’s only possible with the Savior’s touch. It’s only possible when we allow God’s voice to interrupt our cynicism and selfishness.
In transfigured glory, there is no room for cynics. Seeing with the eyes of Jesus means seeing every drought as potential for rain. Seeing with the eyes of Jesus means seeing every disappointment and failure as a reminder that God needs to startle our selfish boasting with his voice that calls us to our true vocation. Seeing with the eyes of Jesus means seeing every single situation, no matter how dire, as capable of bearing fruit. Seeing with the eyes of Jesus means envisioning the vilest sinner as worthy of God’s forgiveness. Seeing with the eyes of Jesus means seeing our own possessions and money as belonging not to us but to God. Seeing with the eyes of Jesus means seeing even death as a gateway into glory.
And above all, as a modern Church where martyrs are few and far between, seeing with the eyes of Jesus means that we must be capable of seeing through the malaise that often masquerades as Christianity. Seeing with the eyes of Jesus means that things are not really as they seem.
I don’t know about you, but I want Greg’s eyes. But more than that, I want to see everyone and everything with the eyes of Jesus. I want to look my deepest fears in the face and see through them to the peace on the other side. I want to look at swords and see them turned into ploughshares. I want to see the wolf lie down with the lamb. I want to see wounds bound up with the salve of Christ’s healing grace. I want to see these scarcely populated pews filled to the brim. I want to see society’s anxiety turned into joy. I want to see sickness as a way of knowing Christ more deeply. I want to see my own death as the entrance into a life far wonderful beyond my imagining.
To see a world capable of transfiguration, we need a Savior. We need more than a teacher or guru. We need the One who was transfigured so that we might be able to see a world radiating with the glory of God. We need the Transfigured One to touch us on the shoulder and help us see that everything that looks old and worn will one day be made new again.
Sermon by Father Kyle Babin
The Last Sunday after the Epiphany
February 19, 2023
[1] This is how the priest and theologian John Macquarrie rephrases original sin.