C, Transfiguration - 2 Corinthians 3:12,16-18, 4:1-4, 6-7 "Maze of Mirrors"
What do you see when you look in the mirror? Do you see perfection looking back at you? Perhaps you see something you don’t like? Or maybe without your glasses you have trouble even seeing the mirror or anything in it! Is the person you see too tall or too short, too old or not old enough? Maybe you see someone who could be smarter or wiser, or alternatively you see someone who is too smart for their own good! Are you content with what you see? Should your hair be straighter, curlier, darker, lighter, less grey? Or would you just like to have more hair? What about your fitness? Do you see someone who could be stronger, not so bony; or not so broad in the nether regions? Stand in front of the mirror for long enough and study your body, your mind, and your conscience, and more than likely you will see many areas for improvement!
We all have times when we feel, flat, fat, fed up, fragile, flustered, frightful, frustrated, furious, foolish, false, unforgiven, unforgiving, unfaithful, forgetful, and forgotten. This often leads us to think we have been forbidden and forsaken because we see, all too well, the fruits of our fallenness. Mirrors are brutal things, the harder and closer we look into them the more we see what they reflect.
But there are more mirrors in this life than just the glass mirrors in the home or car or shop. Another type of mirror most people fear are the bathroom scales. In fact you might be led to believe that to stand on scales, is to stand on holy ground. For you must take off your shoes, and anything else that weighs you down! Therefore, most don’t stand in this place for fear of condemnation from the scale itself, which might groan because of the weight being placing upon it.
Diaries are also a mirror which might help a person reflect on themselves and their life. But a diary found years later, or in the wrong hands, can be a dangerous instrument.
Then there is the family, with the many mirrors they hold in front of us and we hold in front of them – the genetic mirrors, the disobedient mirrors, the nagging mirrors, and all the other mirrors that show us and them who we are.
Have you ever been tempted to mask these mirrors in you life?
How many of you, as children or parents, have refused to hear the family mirrors and put your fingers in your ears and said, “La, la, la… I can’t hear you”?
Or on starting a diary, who hasn’t given up writing in it after awhile, or on seeing what is written in it become disturbed by your younger thoughts and throw it out?
How many of you have placed the bathroom scales in the cupboard, or under the bed, in a place where this seemingly sacred instrument won’t be found or disturbed?
And when you have a shower, isn’t it nice sometimes for the bathroom mirror to steam up just a little, so when you step out of the shower your reflection doesn’t frighten you quite as badly as if it was easily seen?
These mirrors of image, weight, individuality and family, are mirrors of the flesh. Most of the time they tell us what’s wrong with us! These mirrors examine the person by sight and cast their judgement. We look at our own flesh and person and see what’s wrong with us; we look at others around us and see what’s wrong with them too. Perhaps we see the same things in others that we see in ourselves! Sometimes seeing these things in ourselves hurts, and having them shown to us hurts even more!
On the other hand, sometimes what we perceive in others is only our perception. In the projection of our own short-fallings onto others, we miss the mark and misinterpret the person or family member next to us. We all have the capacity and the ability to do this. Often we get hurt, or we hurt one another.
There is no doubt that we humans are complex creatures. We have mirrors that reflect, but we also have mirrors that deflect too. And most of the time the mirrors in our lives do both at the same time. Like a magic maze of mirrors, the same mirror that tells us to go the right way is also the same mirror that deceives us and veils the truth that lies behind the mirror. As we stand in this house of mirrors the chance of being lost forever in this maze is real. “Which way is out; which way do I go?”
The word of God is a mirror given to every Christian at baptism. And with this mirror comes the Holy Spirit, our counsellor and our guide through the mazes of this life. He calls us to put on God’s word, like x-ray glasses of truth. And with the Word of God faithfully put on, we see through the facade of our veiled fragile flesh, and see Jesus Christ. We see who we really are, despite our fallenness!
However, the Holy Spirit’s job is no easy feat! He discerns each of us — guiding, correcting, and turning the fragile mirrors of our humanity. Within the folds of our sinful nature, the Spirit works. Sometimes this work is painful as he removes the masks, and smashes the mirrors with God’s holy law. But the Holy Spirit does this for our good as he leads us and counsels us to trust him, to trust God’s Word, and to trust that veiled in the ever-present sinful nature is Jesus Christ, the Son of God. The Holy Spirit turns us to Jesus Christ, to trust his work on the cross, to trust the word of the gospel, despite the swinging mirrors, that deceive us at every turn.
Hear again God’s word that Paul speaks to the Corinthians…
12 Therefore, since we have such a hope, we are very bold. 16 …whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. 17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18 And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
1 Therefore, since through God’s mercy we have this ministry, we do not lose heart. 2 Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God. 3 And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. 4 The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. 6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. 7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. (2 Corinthians 3:12, 16–18, 4:1-4, 6-7)
We are jars of clay, we are fragile mirrors. We can destroy ourselves and each other as we walk through the maze of this life. But we have been freed to trust the Holy Spirit, who comes through the Word of God, who turns the mirrors, who lifts the veil, and who destroys that which stops us from seeing who we are in Jesus Christ. This is the all-surpassing power from God and he will lead us to the end of the maze, and once that last mirror is removed we will see Jesus face to face. Amen.
