The Blindness of a Godward Vision

Six days later Jesus took Peter and the two brothers, James and John, and led them up a high mountain to be alone. As the men watched, Jesus’ appearance was transformed so that his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as light.

Matthew 17:1-2 (NLT)

I am struck by the description of the glorified Christ: his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as light. It’s such a similar description to the way YHWH (the Hebrew name of God used in the Old Testament) is described throughout the rest of scripture that it’s impossible to miss the connection. But I think my awe is really about something else; I think I am amazed that this is how Jesus is described because it’s so different from how I always picture Him.

Like most lifelong churchgoers, I grew up in a church where we had several pictures of Jesus hung in various places. I mostly remember the one where Jesus is perfectly posed for the portrait of His face; He gazes heavenward bathed in the soft orange-yellow glow of a nice God’s pleasure. He’s a kind looking, Arian, long-haired hippie type… infinitely approachable and the kind of guy you’d expect to find sitting at a campfire in Yosemite (do they still allow those?) playing happy tunes on his beat up nylon string guitar. To be honest, I kinda liked that Jesus.

But I also remember, around the same time I spent long minutes looking at the picture of the hippie Jesus and wondering how they got a color camera in the 1st century, afternoons laying on the playfield at school experimenting with staring at the sun. Like all boys at that age, I had heard my mom quite clearly when she said I’d go blind for looking at the sun, but I had wanted very badly to have glasses (which is another story for another blog) and I was curious. The interesting thing I learned while staring at the sun is that for sometime after the long look, it is virtually impossible to see anything else. I would walk around and all my friends looked like the same green-faced alien. After staring at the sun, everything else seemed different… and less extravagant.

As I read this passage from the gospel of Matthew, I am forced to reconcile my two childhood experiences. Staring at the picture in my church, I learned of one Jesus; staring at the summer sun, high above the earth, I learned of another Jesus. And as kind as I still believe Jesus is, I believe the image that burned into my retinas and threatened to leave me blind is a much closer resemblance to the One who “did not consider equality with God as something to be grasped.” This belief leaves me fearful and hopeful. Fearful because Jesus is not as safe as I once believed Him to be (remember C.S. Lewis’ immortal description: “He is not a tame lion”); hopeful because He is not powerless. Though He can identify with my weakness, He does not share it. He is almighty God. He is strong. He is able to protect the weak and care for widows and orphans. He is above and beyond my understanding. He is holy and luminous and altogether other. He is God.

And when I look at Him now, I find that everything else in the world seems less extravagant. The shiny brilliance of my materialism fades to a dull gray and the other things I’ve loved become unfulfilling. And when I see Him, when I really seem Him, I am satisfied so deeply by His brilliance that I am content to never see another being again as long as I live.

Turn your eyes upon Jesus.
Look full in His wonderful face,
and the things of earth will grow strangely dim

in the light of His glory and grace

Heroes

I must admit that I love Hollywood’s recent fascination with super heroes. As a twentysomething male I find my pulse quickened even at the mention of this summer’s imminent release of Spiderman 3. I keep buying magazines like Premier, Entertainment Weekly, and Rolling Stone just because they have an article about Peter Parker, Mary Jane and the introduction of Spidey’s arch-nemesis Venom.

That said, I was also somewhat disappointed with last summer’s big blockbuster, Superman. I watched it, enjoyed the special effects, comprehended the storyline, and especially admired Kevin Spacey’s take on Lex Luther; but somewhere deep inside me there was a disconnect with “the superhero of superheroes.” It did not take me long to figure out what bothered me.

Superman is too perfect.

Though I can admire Superman for his unmatched strength, indestructibility, incredible speed, ability to fly and his impeccable moral character, I cannot relate to him. This was exaggerated even more with last summer’s movie, where his face had an airbrushed perfection, his acting had little emotional depth, and his supersuit never bunched in the wrong places. Though I could understand his conflict as an observer, I couldn’t feel what he felt, because I’m nothing like Superman. Peter Parker, on the other hand is someone I can relate to. He’s a normal kid, with lots of emotional and social problems who one day finds himself equipped with great power, which also brings great responsibility. He wrestles with balancing the different commitments in his life, having to sacrifice what he wants for what he feels he ought to do, and sometimes failing to get it right. He is far from perfect, and I find myself moved by his story, because it’s my story as well.

That’s why I’m so thankful that God wrote the Bible the way He did. It certainly seems within God’s power to find the best humans on earth and make them His chosen people; He could find the strong men with impeccable moral character and great interpersonal skills. Instead, God starts the story of his covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, three generations of a dysfunctional family.

In last weeks reading, we discovered that though Abraham trusted God enough to offer his son, Isaac, as a sacrifice, he had major problems trusting God with his wife as they traveled through foreign nations. And as he tells the leaders of not one, but two nations, that Sarah is his sister (which though not entirely untrue, was still quite misleading), we want to jump out of our seats and scream at the screen, “Don’t lie to this guy! God is on your side and He’ll protect you! Trust God!”

And then we learned that Isaac picked up most of his father’s bad habits. When he tells the king that Rebekah is his sister, with déjà vu we begin to wonder if God just has a soft spot for liars.

If that were not enough, Jacob and Esau come along and then the story gets really interesting. Where Abraham and Isaac were flawed individuals who had a few problems with telling the truth when they got scared, Jacob is a downright sleazeball, tricking his two-fries-short-of-a-happy-meal brother into selling him his birthright for a cup of soup.

Jacob’s story is full of trickery and the misery it causes those around him, until he has an all-night wrestling match with the angel of the Lord and receives a limp and a new name: Israel, which means “He wrestles with God and with man and has overcome.”

That name, Israel, then becomes the name of his descendents, down to this very day when we read often in the newspaper how Israel is still wrestling with God and with man.

Here I am, today, reading these stories and I find myself understanding these characters. As Jacob wrestles with God, I experience my own wrestling match as I try to understand who God is and what His grace means in my life. As Isaac fears losing his wife to a powerful king, I fear losing the things I value most to this dangerous world. As Abraham goes from great moments of faithfulness and trust, to depressing days of mistrust and fear, I see my own fickle nature as I swing back and forth from faithfulness to self-reliance.

Just as Spiderman is my story, so are the stories of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And as I read them, I learn more about myself, and I learn more about the God who created me, knows my frailty, and loves me and blesses me anyway.

“No wonder my heart is glad, and I rejoice.
My body rests in safety.
For you will not leave my soul among the dead
or allow your holy one to rot in the grave.
You will show me the way of life,
granting me the joy of your presence
and the pleasures of living with you forever.”
Psalm 16:9-11