Second Sunday of Lent: Mystical Experience and the Transfiguration

How do we fit reality into the small, cramped compartments of our brains? The Resurrection of Jesus from the dead blows those narrow confines apart. Is our reality predictable and subject, ultimately, to our experimentation and understanding? On the other hand, does it open up into a bigger world that we, in principle, cannot understand in our own terms. How you come down on the question of the Resurrection, our bodily survival of death, ultimately determines whether you are open to the gospel or are content to live in that small, cramped, materialist world. The Gospel today and the Transfiguration is about God peeking through the veil of the material world. Revelation literally means to unveil.
 
Mystical Experience: Abram and the sacrifice of the Covenant
The first reading is about the covenant that Abram makes with God. It is full of mystical experience:

1. Abram cuts the sacrificial animals in two. The Hebrew word בְּרִית  is transliterated as ‘berit’ which means ‘to cut.’ In English we once aganin translate the Hebrew word as ‘covenant.’ The word is more than a contract, but connotes a ‘promise’ or a ‘pledge’ between the lord and a servant.
2. Birds of prey swoop down threatening the covenant between the Lord and his servant Abram.
3. Abram goes into a trance and experiences darkness, an altered state of mind.
4. The sun sets and a smoking fire pot and a torch passes between the severed pieces of the sacrifice.
5. The Lord makes a promise to his servant.

Two worlds meet, this one and another. It is something like when you close your eyes to pray. The one you are addressing is not something or someone in this world. Darkness, concentration and our reaching out towards the other is Abram’s experience of the covenant. The response comes with birds of prey circling and darkness descending and the appearance of a light, a fire pot and a torch.
 
Mystical Experience: The Transfiguration
Light breaking through the veil of materiality. In the Letter to Timothy, St. Paul refers to the God who dwells in unapproachable light:

‘He who is blessed and the only Sovereign One, the King of kings and Lord of lords. “ He  alone  is  immortal and dwells  in unapproachable  light.  No one  has ever seen  Him,  nor  can anyone  see Him.  To Him be honor and  eternal  dominion!  Amen.” 
1 Tim. 6:16.

 This Gospel reading is about mystical experience.

1. It occurs on a mountain, a place where God is encountered as in the giving of the law, the sacrifice of Isaac or the building of the Temple on Mt. Zion
2. There is a dazzling light;
3. The appearance of two significant figures, Moses and Elijah, both dead conversing with Jesus;
4. The reference to the Exodus and his glory;
5. Where Abram fell into a trance, Peter, James and John were asleep, an altered state;
6. Where Moses’ face glowed after he conversed with God, (Ex. 34:29-35) Jesus’ face glowed when he prayed;
7. The experience closes when darkness overcomes them and they experience fear.
8. Finally, a voice comes from the cloud, “This is my chosen Son, listen to him.”

 
A mystical experience is an altered state wherein another world peeks through into our own world.  St. Bernadette Soubirous, St. Juan Diego and St. Joan of Arc are examples of subjective mystical experience. All three disciples shared this experience which is, by its nature, somewhat different than other subjective mystical experiences. After it is done, the disciples go back down the mountain into the world we all share. How you think about the Transfiguration is rooted in how you think about the Resurrection.
 
Something else: The Resurrection
The Resurrection is not an altered state or a mystical experience. St. Paul wrote probably the first account of the Resurrection experience in 1 Corinthians 15:1-6. There is no mountain, trance, other worldly voice, darkness or dazzling light, just Jesus, but different, altered. The viewer was not different, Jesus was different.

“Now I am reminding you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you indeed received and in which you also stand.   Through it you are also being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you, unless you believed in vain . For I handed on to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures; that he was buried; that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures; that he appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve .  After that, he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at once, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. After that he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.   Last of all, as to one born abnormally, he appeared to me.  For I am the least of the apostles, not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. ^” 1 Cor. 15:1-6

 The Gospels are first century biographies. [i] They have the same length and a similar style to other biographies of the same period. St. Paul’s letter does not serve the same purpose; instead it serves to remind the Corinthians of what they had been taught before the Gospels were put into writing. Although some modern atheists had suggested that the Resurrection was psychological well-wishing or were merely hallucinations of overwrought first century peasants, St. Paul said Jesus appeared to 500 at one time. That is hard to accept as a mass hallucination.
 
What is the Christian proclamation?
Simply put, the Christian proclamation is that the world is a mysterious place that points to a deeper reality in the same space as ours, if space is the right term. Enlightenment figures such as Immanuel Kant and David Hume attempted to reduce religion merely to morality and then replace God with relativism. The persistent experience of the mystical, even by moderns, challenges the one-dimensional Enlightenment world view. Christianity proclaims that we are Creations of love and the Son of that love came to claim us. We rejected God, but he did not reject us. A covenant is not a business transaction; it is the assertion of the fidelity of the Lord to the servant. Jesus did not call us servants, however, he called us friends. Jn. 15:15. St. Paul said that we were adopted children of God. Eph. 3:20. The Exodus referred to by Moses and Elijah is Christ’s Resurrection, Ascension and coming again in glory. We look at reality through the lens of the Resurrection. That lens brings into focus our brothers and sisters made in the image and the likeness of God who dwells in unapproachable light. Maranatha!