The Slow Work of God

“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 collect ask us to do something impossible? How can we be “changed into his likeness?” As we come to the end of Epiphany tide and look towards the beginning of Lent, what is the Book of Common Prayer really talking about here?

Certainly, we cannot be changed into Jesus’ physical likeness. To begin with, does anyone know what Jesus looked like? Artists have probably been trying to capture his “likeness” since 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 be changed into Jesus’ “likeness” by doing what he did? I don’t think any of us will be executed on a cross by Roman authorities. And unless you all are hiding something from me, none of you will be receiving the death penalty any time soon. And aren’t all of us absolutely sure that there’s no way we can 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 glorified as Jesus was, and no one will ever be terrified of me in 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, perhaps we can answer that question by looking at how he lived out his human life. To begin with, the first thing that we notice about Jesus, especially if we read the gospel of Luke closely, is that Jesus knew that he had a deep and abiding relationship with God. Perhaps Jesus knew his deep relationship with God from the moment of his conception. He surely received another affirmation of his unbreakable bond with God when he was baptized. From then on, Jesus’ connection with God clearly permeated his entire 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 to go off and pray. 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 praying.

That’s what happens in prayer! That’s what happens when we open ourselves up to God and let God work within us! The beginning of our transformation into Jesus’ likeness, call it conversion if you will, always comes from a deep and ongoing relationship with God. For some of us, conversion begins with one shattering moment when we sense God’s reality, presence, and demands on us – and after that our lives are never the same. For others of us, conversion begins with a gentle nudge, a feeling that we need to come 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 feel that all is lost, and that God has completely abandoned us.

After such an experience, are we then immediately “changed into his likeness?” Usually not. Transformation comes through God’s grace at 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 filled with the Holy Spirit, as Jesus was. And God works in us as we spend time in prayer with God, as we let God know us, heal us, and change us. Yet transformation is rarely a solo experience. We may pray as individuals, and God may grace our prayer with God’s presence. But if we want to continue to grow as Jesus’ followers, we must do it in community. 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 and worship, when we take time to be present to God, God will transform us.

What happened after the transcendent “mountain-top” experience? They all came down the mountain! The gospel account does not say whether the disciples understood what they had experienced with Jesus on the mountain. Jesus didn’t stop to explain it to them. Rather, Jesus returned to ministry. For Jesus, ministry followed mystery. After prayer time, Jesus always came back to heal, feed, and teach, and the transcendent sense of connection with God deepened his call. He continued to care for those in need, even as he set his face for Jerusalem and what awaited him there.

And so it is for us, as we move from the glories of Epiphany tide to the hard work of Lent. After we have had a deep experience of God’s reality, of God’s deep love of us, and of God’s desire to transform us, we might possibly look different. 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


The truth is that we and others are more likely to see God’s transforming power at work within us not in how we look, but in the quality of our relationships with loved ones and friends, in our ability to respond to the needs of others, and in our zeal for pursuing justice and peace. Indeed, we are called as Christians to come down from the mountain strengthened to serve others. Scottish Bible commentator William Barclay reminds us that we need solitude but not complete withdrawal. Just like Jesus, we need solitude to stay connected with God. But, Barclay says, “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 of 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.” Stunned and unable himself 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 neighbors. My brothers and sisters, as we look towards Ash Wednesday, Lent, and Good Friday, we can trust that by God’s grace we will share Christ’s life and be truly transformed into his likeness.

1. The Song of the Bird (New York: Doubleday, 1982), 16.
2. William Barclay, The Gospel of Mark (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), 45-47