Ancient Israel had a bias against graven images: as we hear in Exodus, “You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or worship them” (Ex. 20:4-5). For the Hebrews, humanity itself was the only “image and likeness of God” (Gen. 1:26) that was available and allowed.
When it came to the revelation of God, there was a decided preference for the word spoken rather than the image seen. Remember how creation begins: God speaks it into existence, as in “’Let there be light,’ and there was light” (Gen. 1:3). God was revealed in speech and hearing, and often obscurely. For instance, when Moses asked God to tell him his name, God said, “I am who I am” (Ex. 3:14), which gave Moses almost no handholds for understanding. Words, yes, but words that simultaneously concealed as much as they revealed. The God of the prophets was revealed, and the People of God called, not only in the word of God that was pronounced, but in the case of his revelation to Elijah, in the “sound of sheer silence” (1 Kings 19:12).
Our reading from St. Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians gives us a different perspective, one in which vision and sight come into play. “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” (2 Cor. 3:18). Here, the glory of the Lord is something that is seen: much like the classical Greek idea of truth, in which “seeing was believing.” The glory is not only visible, that is, perceptible to human beings, but reflected in a mirror, compounding the image; and the whole point of the revelation is the transformation of the image that human beings bear. Once again, a visual metaphor: God revealed through the sense of sight.
Paul used the idea of a mirror one other time, to make a different point. In the First Letter to the Corinthians he writes “For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face” (1 Cor. 13:12). Here, the mirror does not bring things into focus, but obscures them; it’s the opposite of revelation in the clear light of day. It’s something partial and incomplete; something limited that will be replaced by a fuller vision as we draw closer to God.
But in our reading today the mirror has a very different function. Rather than obscuring, the mirror clears things up, as the glory of the Lord is revealed. Paul is contrasting the experience of Moses with the Christian experience of Jesus. The glory revealed to Moses had to be veiled, he says; but now in Jesus Christ the complete has been revealed. We see the fulness of God’s glory, as in a mirror, when we look at Christ. It is his image that we glimpse. As the Apostle says a little later in the letter, it is God “who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. 4:6).
Paul’s visual metaphor of the mirror and image has the same point as the prophets’ proclamation of the word of God: our drawing near to God and our transformation in the process. When God made humankind according to his image and after his likeness, as it says in Genesis, that image became degraded as human beings fell away from God. You know the story. In the shadow cast by human sin, it was necessary for the image to be renewed and to be remade.
Jesus Christ comes into the world to restore the image. “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created” (Col. 1:15-16), as Paul says in the Letter to the Colossians. In other words, Jesus is the template: all things were made through him in the beginning, and now they are remade. A bit later in that letter Paul tells them, “You have stripped off the old self with its practices and have clothed yourselves with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator” (Col. 3:9-10). St. Paul says in the Letter to the Romans, “Be transformed by the renewing of your minds” (Rom. 12:2). The point of hearing the word of God, and seeing the glory of Christ, is our renewal and transformation in his image.
The good news for us is that Lent begins this week: forty days to seek our renewal in the image of God. That renewal began with our baptism, by the grace of God; and during this holy season we will turn once again to the practices that make for holiness. In Jesus, we are made new; brought through his death and resurrection to new life in him. Our confirmands will be showing us the way, and giving us the opportunity to renew our own baptismal vows. God’s glory has been revealed. Through prayer and fasting, repentance and works of mercy, Jesus’ own image will be emerging in us. “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” (2 Cor. 3:18).