Changed into His Likeness

“O God, who before the passion of your only begotten Son revealed his glory on the holy mountain: grant to us that we, beholding by faith the light of his countenance, may be strengthened to bear our cross, and be changed into his likeness from glory to glory….” Does the prayer book ask the impossible of us? How can we be “changed into his likeness?” What is the Book of Common Prayer really talking about here?

Certainly, we cannot be changed into Jesus’ physical likeness. For starters, does anyone know what Jesus looked like? Artists have been trying to capture his “likeness” since probably the day after the first Easter. We have wonderful art to show for it – frescoes, sculpture, icons, paintings from every century and culture – but most artistic renderings are at best symbolic suggestions of who Jesus was. Even if Mathew Brady had been alive during Jesus’ time and had photographed Jesus, most of us could not be changed into his physical likeness: try as we might we will never become short, black-haired, dark-skinned Jewish males. Then can we hope to what Jesus did? Probably none of us will be executed on a cross by Roman authorities. And unless you all are hiding something from me, probably none of you will be receiving the death penalty any time soon. And aren’t all of us absolutely sure that we cannot be changed into Jesus’ divine likeness? The gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke all tell us that three of the disciples got a glimpse of Jesus’ true glorified nature – and they were terrified! “I will never be like Jesus, no one will ever be terrified of me that way,” we would all say.

So how can we be “changed into his likeness?” What would that look like? If Jesus is our model, what can we learn from looking at the way he lived out his human life? To begin with, the first thing that we notice about Jesus, especially if we read closely the gospel of Luke, is that Jesus had a deep and abiding relationship with God. Perhaps Jesus’ deep relationship with God began at his conception. He received again God’s affirmation of his unbreakable bond with God when he was baptized. Thereafter Jesus’ connection with God permeated all of his adult life. Jesus’ close connection with God is especially reflected in the depth of his prayer and in how often he took time away from his ministry for prayer. If you read the gospel of Luke carefully, you will notice all the times Luke mentions that Jesus withdrew for prayer. It’s not a coincidence that the disciples received such an overwhelming experience of Jesus’ divine nature as today’s reading suggests while they and Jesus were at prayer.

That’s what happens in prayer! That’s what happens when we open ourselves up to God and let God work within us! Our transformation into Jesus’ likeness, call it conversion if you will, is the result of a deep and ongoing relationship with God. For some of us, conversion begins with one shattering experience of God’s reality, presence, and demands on us, an experience that profoundly alters our lives. For others of us, conversion may begin with a gentle nudge, a feeling that we need to find our way back to church, to faith, to spiritual growth. And for yet others of us, conversion begins with a “dark night of the soul,” when we may feel that all is lost, and that God has completely abandoned us.

And are we then immediately “changed into his likeness?” Usually not. Transformation is God’s work in us, and it is usually “the slow work of God.” God works in us day by day, week by week, year by year, molding, shaping, and forming us – like a great artist – into God’s desired creation, a human being as fully alive as Jesus was. And God does God’s work in us as we spend time in prayer with God, as we let God know us, heal us, and change us. Moreover, transformation is rarely a solo experience. We may pray as individuals, and God may grace our prayer with God’s presence. But continued growth in the Christian life must be done in community. Our growth as disciples takes place in a shared community of commitment to the Christian Way. Notice that Jesus took three people up the mountain with him. Most important, our transformation is never our own doing, and it seldom happens overnight. But the good news is that when we keep “listening to Jesus,” in prayer, when we all take time to be in solitude with God, God will transform us.

What happened after the transcendent “mountain-top” experience? They came down the mountain! What is more important, Jesus returned to ministry. For Jesus, ministry follows mystery. After prayer time, Jesus always came back to heal, feed, and teach. The gospel account does not say whether the disciples had any clue as to what they had experienced with Jesus on the mountain. But we can infer that they had not yet been changed enough into Jesus’ likeness to replicate the work of his ministry. Even so, for Jesus, the transcendent sense of connection with God deepened his call. He continued to care for those in need, and he set his face for Jerusalem and what would await him there.

And so it is for us also. After we have had a deep experience of God’s reality, of God’s love, and of God’s desire to transform us, there may possibly be something outwardly visible in our appearance. Moses’ face was radiant after his encounter with God, so radiant that people were afraid to come near him. More often the change is in the way we live our lives. “After Zen, the laundry.” Or as Jesuit spiritual teacher Anthony de Mello tells us,

“When the Zen master attained enlightenment
he wrote the following lines to celebrate it:
Oh wondrous marvel:
I chop wood!
I draw water from the well!”1

Though the world – and we ourselves – may look and feel different, perhaps even fresh and new after an encounter with God, we and others may also see God’s transformative power at work within us in the quality of our relationships with loved ones friends, in our concern for the needs of others, or in our zeal for pursuing justice and peace. Indeed, it is the essence of Christian life that we must come down from the mountain strengthened to serve others. Scottish Bible commentator William Barclay reminds us that we need solitude but not solitariness. Just like Jesus, we need solitude to stay connected with God. But “if we, in our search for solitude, shut ourselves off from one another, if we shut our ears to the appeal of brothers and sisters for help, if we shut our hearts to the cries and tears of things, then that is not religion. The solitude is … meant to make us better able to meet and cope with the demands of everyday life.”2

Will we be “changed into his likeness?” As followers of Jesus, we trust that when we live a life a prayer, when we join with others in Christian community, and when we live into our respective ministries to others, God will continue the transformation God began in us. Is such a life easy? If it were, these pews would be filled to overflowing. No, it takes courage, grit, and determination to admit that we need God’s transformative power and to let God into our self-centered lives.

John Smylie tells the story of a teen whose parents had divorced.3 Like many children of divorced parents he had shuffled back and forth between their respective houses, angry at both of them and secretly wishing they would get back together. When his mother remarried, he was even angrier, and especially at his stepfather. Two years after his mother remarried, when he was fifteen, some friends invited him to come to a Happening, a special weekend for teens that helps them go deeper in their relationship with God. When he came home from the weekend, he was tired, but excited, and he bubbled over telling his mother and stepfather about all the wonderful experiences he had had. Then he said to his stepfather, “There’s something I’ve got to tell you, but I’m not ready to tell you right at this moment.” His stepfather replied, “Whenever you are ready I’m here to listen to you.” Three days later, when the stepfather was beginning to wonder when he might hear the rest of the story, the boy declared he was ready to speak. They went where they could be alone. The boy held his head down and struggled to speak. Finally, close to tears, he said, “You know, when you married my mom, that was really hard for me. I want my mom to be happy but it was really hard to have you come into my life and my family. What I realized over the weekend was that God has brought you to my life.” Himself unable to speak, the stepfather received the boy’s gracious words and embraced him.

This is the good news: when we look at Jesus, when we listen to him, God’s grace transforms us. God’s grace enables us to live a cross-shaped life, connected both to God and to our brothers and sisters. By God’s grace we will be truly transformed into Christ’s likeness.

1. The Song of the Bird (New York: Doubleday, 1982), 16.

2. William Barclay, The Gospel of Mark: Daily Study Bible Series (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1956), 220, quoted in David E. Leininger, Tales for the Pulpit (Lima, OH: CSS, 2009), 80.

3. “Transforming Light,” Lectionary Stories for Preaching and Teaching Cycle C (Lima, OH:CSS, 2012),