First Congregational
Rev. Barbara Turner Delisle
2 Cor. 3:12-4:2
Luke 9:28-36
Reflection, Dispersion or Refraction?
I got to thinking about qualities of light after reading today’s scriptures earlier this week. First, the Hebrew reading references Moses coming down the mountain and people not being able to look at him because his face is shining so brightly after having visited with God. Next, we have Paul speaking to the Corinthians about images reflected in a mirror. And, lastly, we have the Transfiguration of Jesus. In the transfiguration story, Jesus, much like Moses, goes to a mountaintop, speaks with God and, in Luke’s words, “his appearance is changed and his clothes became dazzling white.”
This story is found in all three of the synoptic gospels with varying degrees of “shininess” represented! In Matthew, Jesus’ face “shone like the sun and his garments became white as light.” Mark, in typical dramatic fashion says, “He was transfigured before them and his garments became glistening, intensely white, as no fuller on earth could bleach them.”
Reading these stories of Moses and Jesus made me wonder, what happened to make their appearance change so when coming in direct contact with the Divine? Is this a reflection, or refraction, or a dispersion of God’s image? Can it happen to any one of us or only to divine beings like Moses and Jesus? My scientific curiosity led me to research these different properties of light to see if it would explain what happened.
Reflection commonly refers to how a ray of light bounces off another surface. It explains how a mirror can reflect back to us the image of our face. Refraction refers to how a ray of light can be split up or bent according to the length of the rays that make up the light.
For instance, white light is made up of the colors of the rainbow…red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. Rainbows appear in these colors because each ray of color is a different length and bends to a different degree as it passes through a medium such as droplets of water in the air.
Dispersion refers to the spreading out of the rays of light. Here’s how the Brittanica Encyclopedia expresses the phenomenon of the rainbow: “two refractions and one reflection, combined with the chromatic dispersion of water, produce the primary arcs of colour seen in a rainbow.”
That didn’t seem to answer all my questions so I decided to look up brilliance. What caused the light to shine so brilliantly from Moses face and from Jesus. Consulting the Encyclopedia Brittanica again about what causes brilliance, they say, “in biology, the general appearance of an organism is determined by the quality and quantity of light that is reflected or emitted from its surfaces….quality and quantity.
They make a distinction between color and coloration saying that the coloration [or brilliance] depends upon several factors: the colour and distribution of the organism’s biochromes (pigments), particularly the relative location of differently coloured areas; the shape, posture, position, and movement of the organism; and the quality and quantity of light striking the organism. The perceived coloration depends also on the visual capabilities of the viewer.”
So, it seems we must consider both the visual capabilities of the viewer as well as the quality and quantity of light being reflected from the one being viewed. Think about a window covered with dirt and grim, like many a windshield gets when driving on sanded roads these winter days. The particles of dirt get in the way of our being able to see clearly, another way of saying the quality of the images are distorted and the amount or quantity of the light also is limited. So we constantly hit the window washer when on the road to clear our visual field and avoid accidents.
In addition to the quality and quantity of light getting in through the dirty windshield, our ability to navigate safely is related to the visual capability of our eyes to pick up light and images and to focus well. We all know a younger eye often is more flexible and adjusts easier to changes in light than an eye that’s been around for a while!!!
So, lets apply this to the idea of visiting with God. Let’s say that visiting with God through such spiritual practices as praying, reading scriptures, singing, participating in church…anything that sparks your spirit…is a way of cleaning the windows of our spirit. If someone visits with God regularly, they are doing some heavy duty spirit cleaning. Those that visit with God frequently in essence are keeping the windows of their spirit squeaky clean,… and the quality and quantity of light emitted through them is of A+++ quality. And, their visual capability likewise will be in good shape from being exercised frequently.
Conversely, someone who visits God infrequently, or never, in essence never washes the windows of their spirit and therefore will emit very dull or possibly even no light at all…and their visual apparatus will be flabby and ineffective unable to pick up light in others.
I think this is what Paul was getting at, although the science of light had not been developed back in his day. Paul is teaching the people of
Paul says, “only in Christ is it (the veil) set aside.” He teaches that only through Christ do we receive full forgiveness, and full acceptance. He is saying, only through Christ is salvation possible.
Now, if we were sitting in the chapel discussing this passage I would want to hear your thoughts about this. Does it make sense in today’s world that all of humankind must confess to believe in Christ in order to be received into God’s loving arms at the end of this life? This is a very divisive concept and has been the source of many a war. Do you think that is what Jesus had in mind when he was teaching? Does it make sense in all that you know about Jesus that he would want everyone, every person to bow down to him?
The latest research about the historical Jesus indicate that Jesus was not interested in being the leader of one group over another. He would not have wanted people to divide up into sects for and against. I think we can see that he preached love. Love God, love your neighbor, love your enemy, love yourself. He taught how to be a loving person… be kind to one another, help those who have less than you, listen and talk with each other, work out your differences peacefully with the highest regard for each others life and needs. He also taught by example; he ate and talked with sinners, tax collectors, prostitutes, all sorts of outcasts of society.
Paul says, “And all of us with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.” He is saying that we each have the same potential for glory but we may each be developing at a different rate and to a different degree…some not quite as able as others to take in all those spectrums of light, some not developed quite enough to see the light that is emitted or to be fully reflective of God’s light.
He is saying it is a process. We are all in some degree of en-light-enment. We are each reflective of God or Christ to some degree. The more lovingly we live our life the more brightly we are able to reflect God’s essence among us. And, the more lovingly we live our life the more easily we are able to see the love in others. Conversely, the less loving we are the less able we are to emit or to perceive love in others.
That is one of the human needs that church addresses. By worshipping together week after week, year after year, as we get to know one another we are commissioned by God to help each other see the light in each other and in the world. The scriptures help us but only in so far as we interact with them, only in so much as we lift the veil from our minds. When we open our selves to the Lord or to the Spirit on a regular basis, when we open ourselves to be led by the Spirit in our interpretation we enter into a process of discerning God’s will for us.
Spiritual practices such as meditation, walking a labyrinth, writing, reading scripture, or poetry, all invite us into that listening space. They invite us into the space of discovering or discerning what God is doing in our life in the moment. In the practice one listens for what ideas might perk up in the mind. Lent, being a time for reflection is a perfect time to utilize this method of deepening our relationship with God. It is a time of repentance and a time of emptying the self so that God’s light might shine more brightly through you. This year I invite each of you to enter God’s mystery through a spiritual practice.
If you would like to journey in this way together I will be here as guide and teacher on Wed afternoons and Thursday evenings. We will read a Psalm together…one from the exhibit…and then choose a spiritual practice to explore the message the Psalm has for your life.
This is just one of the ways you might choose to develop your relationship with God, with this Lenten season. There will be time to share any insights gained or questions raised. At the end of the period we will re-read the chosen Psalm listening for how the meaning may or may not have changed for you and close with a prayer.
We can call it spiritual window washing…using spiritual practices to capture our attention and lean us toward God so that we might shine a little more brightly and develop our spiritual eyes a little more sharply to see the Divine in all we meet. May it be so!
Amen and Amen.
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