The Second Sunday of Lent has a powerful message. There are two ways to recognize our own beauty. One is to put on makeup. The other is to clean the mirror.
The same is true of religious faith. There are two ways to understand the story of salvation. One is the makeup version – to believe that something “outside” of the world created it, got it started, and then intervened when we mucked it all up. And something needs to be applied to make it…better.
Cleaning the Mirror
The other is a clean-the-mirror alternative. It involves believing there is no “outside.” There only is what is. It consists of recognizing that being “saved” is less about some “other” swooping in to save the day and more about remembering the miracle of who and what we are.
Father Richard Rohr explains this worldview much better: “Instead of saying that God came into the world through Jesus, maybe it would be better to say that Jesus came out of an already Christ-soaked world.”
That Christ-soaked world is this one, the one with the thrill of first love and the pain of significant loss, with the laughter of children and cries of those who suffer, with the debilitating confusion of those who are searching and the joy of genuine connection between humans.
The second Sunday of Lent invites us to recognize that this Christ-soaked world is the same one that holds you, me, everyone, and everything else in its deepest heart. Perhaps what Jesus saw in the mirror is the very same image waiting for us.
Say What?
In Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, Thomas Merton describes his own look in the mirror:
In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all these people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a unique world. . . .
This sense of liberation from an illusory difference was such a relief and such a joy to me that I almost laughed out loud. . . . I have the immense pleasure of being man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidies of the human condition could overwhelm me, now that I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.
Then it was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths of their hearts where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of their reality, the person that each one is in God s eyes. If only they could all see themselves as they really are. If only we could see each other that way all the time. There would be no more war, no more hatred, no more cruelty, no more greed… But this cannot be seen, only believed and ‘understood’ by a peculiar gift.
I think what Merton experienced at the corner of Fourth and Walnut in my hometown is much like what Peter, James, and John experienced on the mountain in this week’s Gospel reading when Jesus is “transfigured” before their very eyes.
The Truth About Salvation
Although all three versions of the story on the Second Sunday of Lent feature a booming James Earl Jones voice from the heavens identifying Jesus as “my beloved son,” I don’t believe there were any magical audio effects or mind-blowing holograms of Moses and Elijah.
I think all three gospel writers sought to convey a critical truth through stories with special effects. The message, for me, is that salvation doesn’t come from the outside . . . it’s been here all along. We already have everything we need. By simply cleaning the mirror, we are redeemed. Remembering who and what we are saves us from ourselves. If we do this, nothing – not even death – warrants fear.
There are two ways to recognize our own beauty. If makeup works for you, then have at it! I’m more of a clean-the-mirror gal myself.
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