If we think of ourselves as pilgrims and of our life as a spiritual journey, then every now and then we need to climb a tree. Where we have been? Where we are going? We have to rise above the day-to-day details to find out. On a real pilgrimage our path is linear. On a spiritual pilgrimage it is both linear and cyclical. From a linear perspective we just keep growing. We grow in understanding. We grow in commitment. We grow in love. We grow more alive. On the other hand, from a cyclical perspective, we keep passing the same wayside shrines again and again. The incarnation – or Christmas – is one such shrine. Following that comes Epiphany, Lent, Easter, Pentecost, Advent, and then the Incarnation again. I am calling them shrines, in keeping with the image of a pilgrimage, and yet like real shrines, they both measure our progress and inspire us for further progress.
If you will join me in this tree top, I want to point out our path to date. The birth of Jesus stands for our own coming to faith, the beginning of our pilgrimage. Each year we pause at that shrine again, and if we use it as it is intended, we renew our baptismal covenant and focus ourselves, for those few, short weeks of the Christmas season, on making a fresh start. Gazing at the infant, we recapture the wonder of this new presence in our lives.
If the shrine of the Incarnation drew us into our hearts, the shrine of the Epiphany speaks more to our heads. Centering on the symbol of light, it invites us to understand the meaning of the Incarnation. The star, for instance, reached beyond the confines of Judaism, to beckon the three Gentile kings, and so to show us that the life of Jesus is for all people. We are invited to ponder how Jesus enters our lives as light to lead us out of darkness.
The shrine of Lent calls not so much to our hearts or heads, but to our souls. Have I let myself become side-tracked on my journey? Am I walking the talk? Gaps open up stealthily between the person I want to be and the person I have become; and the result is dis-ease, sometimes even disease. This is the time and the place to take stock, re-set my compass if need be. Honesty marks the clear, sharp air in the shrine of Lent. And honesty, in turn, always attended by humility, prepares us for the great turning point in the pilgrimage, the feast of Easter.
What makes Easter great? And why a turning point? To answer that question Christians through the ages have turned to the life-cycle of a butterfly. It begins as an egg, hatches out into a worm, lives a blind, earth-bound life, munching its way up one twig and down another, grows larger and larger until one day it spins a cocoon – creates its own tomb – and dies. Its body turns to mush. End of story, or so it would seem. But no. Days pass and a moment comes when the tomb is opened from the inside. Gradually a whole new creature emerges in brilliant color. No longer earth-bound, it can soar in the light, it can mate. Now it lives to give life to others.
The shrine of Easter promises this – the possibility for us of a whole, new life. At this point, however, the metaphor of the butterfly no longer serves. The butterfly’s life was linear: first the worm, then the air-dancing sprite. Resurrection life, in contrast, does not supersede our earth-bound life, but transforms it. We could put it this way: up to this point our journey has been a self-centered one. I do not say that in the negative sense of a selfish one. I mean that for a normal, healthy spiritual journey we must set out by focusing on our own growth; focusing on developing our own talents and gifts. I may be a generous, kind person, and yet initially I am my own first concern. Easter marks the turning point where all of that shifts, and we begin to live for the good of all. A helpful image for this might be the way a mother cat moves her nurslings when her lair is discovered. One by one, she picks up the babies and carries them over to a new hiding place, until the whole lot has been transfered. In a similar way we begin to shift our energies from our old life centered on self to our new life centered on all.
During the coming weeks of the Easter season I will preach about this new life in Christ in order to prepare for Pentecost, the next shrine that marks our journey. Pentecost marks that promised moment in the life of the disciples when they were filled with the Holy Spirit, empowered by the new life of Christ to go out and serve the world in his name. The season of pentecost is as long as all of the other seasons put together – a time of consolidation and integration, a time of practice and insight.
Then, just as we might begin to grow stale, we see the shrine of Advent rising on the horizon. It says: get ready for a new start. It also says, let’s see how far we have come. The cycle is about to start all over again. Unlike the face of a clock, however, the new cycle starts at a higher level. Transformation has been taking place in us. We are no longer the person who passed this shrine before. So now the shrine of the Incarnation holds new meaning, offers fresh insights; as do the ones that follow. The journey does not grow old and the peace and joy quietly grow. This is a mystical journey in which, unlike the earth-bound pilgrimage, we grow younger year by year, more and more like babes.
I have been speaking as if these shrine-like experiences took place in an orderly way, one after another. Not so, of course. At any given moment we dwell in the midst of all of them. And yet there is a progression in some sense. Not only that, but we can help the progression, or not. The seasons and feasts of the church year – what I am calling shrines on the spiritual pilgrimage – are meant to help us move on through the egg stage, through the worm stage, through the tomb stage, and even through the stage of Resurrection life. That last, also called the stage of eternal life, might seem to be the goal, the end of the journey; but not so. It is possible to stop there and simply bask in its joy and peace, but our journey would be incomplete.
If we seek an image of the the journey as fully complete, we need look no further than the time when Jesus took Peter, James and John up a high mountain. There they saw Jesus transfigured. He stood before them in a state of radiant joy, aglow with the intensity of God’s love for him and his for God. Time had stopped for Jesus and perfect peace held him in her eternal embrace. Transfixed on a spiritual pinnace, he did not move or speak. The Gospel could have ended there. What could be more fitting? And yet it did not. Jesus let the moment pass and led the disciples back down the mountain. They rejoined the other disciples and immediately Jesus was caught up in a wrangle. A man had brought his son to them for healing, and they had been able to help. Jesus rolled up his sleeves, so to speak, and from that point on he served. He healed and he taught. The next time Jesus was raised up before the disciples on a spiritual pinnacle he was nailed to a cross. That is the image of the journey as fully complete, and the Gospel of John calls it raised in glory. Amen
