By now I am sure that everyone has heard about my leading the Canterbury Club through the process of “writing” an icon of Jesus. I say the word “leading” as I am not qualified to teach anyone this very detailed, focused technique. BUT I will say that I am excited that the results which you will get to see next week when we bless these icons on the altar are pretty darned amazing! And are certainly the results of hard work, lots of prayer, and the guiding hand of the Holy Spirit!
I fell in love with icons about 10 years ago when teaching Humanities. When I first encountered this particular style of art, I thought they were very one dimensional and not very life-like…. And even at times out of proportion and seemingly contrived. That is until I learned the beauty and meaning of the technique. You see, an iconographer does not try to represent a person as he or she appears in life… but as a sacred prayer as the iconographer’s hand is guided by God. Each stroke of the brush is like a form of meditation. Each subject is a sacred geometric composition with the intention of conveying the saints in the light of the Holy Spirit operating within them.
Linette Martin, in her book Sacred Doorways: A Beginner’s Guide to Icons writes that during the Middle Ages, people believed that things could transform into other things. They grounded this belief in the transformation of the Eucharist where bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ. When artists create an icon, they do something similar and just as sacramental; their work reveals the unseen face of God. (uscatholic.org. Jonathan Ryan)
While there are many steps to the process, the main one is the idea that the light of Christ should always shine through every image. The aspiration to make light radiant and luminous using basic colors of brown and blue and red and yellow and white is certainly a challenge. But this is what made me fall in love with icons and the creative process. We start with the darkest of colors and add transparent layer upon transparent layer… moving toward the light, because the light radiates from within as shown in this icon of the Transfiguration
An iconographer must learn how different colors are layered and allow for the transparency of each different, underlying color to show through each other. (Letting the Light of Christ Shine Through: Icons and Iconographers. vw1.antiochian.org)
For the Hebrews, darkness evokes everything that is anti-God; therefore light reflects the presence of God overcoming the darkness. Using light to reflect the presence of God is used throughout scripture starting with the first book of the Bible.
Gen 1: God spoke and light came into being.
And in John: Jesus declares that he is the light of the world….. He is the incarnate Word of God who has come as the light that enlightens all people so that those believing in him will no longer be in darkness. (John 8, 1, 12)
In Job, the Psalms, Isaiah and Matthew, Salvation is said to bring light to those in darkness.
And this morning… we read of the shining radiance of the transfigured Jesus…. A final revelation on this last Sunday of Epiphany that also serves as a transition into Lent.
Remember that Epiphany begins with the Baptism of our Lord… and the voice of God calling out to Jesus and all who were there to witness: "You are my beloved son. In you I am well pleased." Jesus goes through Epiphany finding out who he is, the disciples finding out what it means to follow Him, and the world trying to discover what it means to have a Messiah.
And so we began this season with God announcing TO Jesus, YOU are my son…. And transition to Lent with God telling the WORLD THIS IS my son…. Listen to him. These words tell us Jesus’ primary job: to be a proclaimer of the message that the Kingdom of God is at hand.
And so here we have another “mountain top” experience. Jesus takes his three trusted disciples Peter, James and John…with him to a place where earth meets sky…. One of those thin places where God’s voice is easily heard…. Jesus becomes transfigured… filled with the glory and light of God. And then, the disciples see Jesus talking with Moses and with Elijah who we just heard about in our OT reading…. Two great prophets who carried the message of God to the people.. and who are now turning to the fulfillment of the very words they shared and taught. That Jesus… is not a replacement of the OT law and prophets but a fulfillment of them. The prophetic voice continues…
And of the three disciples, you know which one would speak up first! Peter! Even though he had no idea what to say as he was in the presence of all of God’s light…. And the only thing he could come up with was…. “Let’s build some tents”! But of course, anything that they could possibly muster would have not been able to explain what they had seen. Anything they could say would be incomplete. Just as Jesus’ story is not yet complete.
Note that on their way back down the mountain Jesus tells the disciples to wait… to be silent and not to share what they have seen until after the resurrection…not the crucifixion…. But to wait until the resurrection… so that they can know and then tell the story in its entirety.
Waiting, while often uncomfortable, is an important part of faith. While in discernment, I wanted to control my own journey through the process… only to find it was stymied at every turn. It quickly taught me that the waiting was a valuable part of the process and of my own transformation.
Today…. This week… we begin our walk with Jesus to the cross. We begin our waiting for the outcome that we already know is going to happen. Remember, we live in the is-ness of the was! And yet, while we wait, we are given the opportunity to remember… to relive…to experience again what it means to walk with Christ toward Jerusalem. In our reading from 2 Kings….To be like Elisha who followed Elijah until the end, even though Elijah told him to go back. Three times, Elisha tells him, "I have been with you this far. I will stay with you until the end."
I don’t know if any of you read Richard Rohr’s daily meditations, but in his February 4th post, Lean Not on Your Own Understanding, he cites a passage from Barbara Brown Taylor’s book Learning to Walk in the Dark who is quoting John of the Cross, a
16th century Spanish mystic.
She explains that [John of the Cross] says that the dark night is God’s best gift to you, intended for your liberation. It is about freeing you from your ideas about God, your fears about God, your attachment to all the benefits you have been promised for believing in God, your devotion to the spiritual practices that are supposed to make you feel closer to God, your dedication to doing and believing all the right things about God, your positive and negative evaluations of yourself as a believer in God, your tactics for manipulating God, and your sure cures for doubting God. All of these are substitutes for God, John says. "They all get in God’s way. . . ."
As we prepare for Lent, let us open our selves once again to the story. Let us shed all preconceived notions and practices…. And hear the story as if for the first time so that we can deeply understand what it means to walk to the cross and experience the true darkness of the loss of the light and to sit in that darkness waiting for our own transformation. Amen.
Sources
Lectionary Lab Podcast: twobubbasandabible.
Martin, Linette. Sacred Doorways: A Beginner’s Guide to Icons
Rohr, Richard. Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditations, Feb. 4 Lean Not on Your Own Understanding. Center for Action and Contemplation.
Taylor, Barbara Brown. Learning to Walk in the Dark
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