Through the Valley

There are bound to have been times in your life when you knew the struggle that lay ahead, and you needed the fortitude to make it. People go through lean times. They go through illness with a long path to recovery. A difficulty in the family can be a painful journey with a great sacrifice before you see light again. The devastation of the pandemic to the course of life we once knew has been extensive.

I imagine struggle, hardship and human suffering are familiar to most or all of us. The way that Buddhists retell the beginnings of their way is through the story of the Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama (c. 563 - c. 483 BCE). According to legend, when this Hindu prince was born, a prophecy was given that he would become either a powerful king or a great spiritual leader. His father wanted to steer things toward the former, by attempting to protect him from knowing anything unpleasant or upsetting. He thought if he could get him through 29 years of life without being exposed to suffering in the world he could secure his path to the throne. His plan failed.

Eventually, in a short string of days, the young Siddhartha encountered an old man, a sick man, a dead man, and a religious ascetic. He made the correct extrapolation: people can and do lose their health, their life, and the things in their life. He shifted, concluding that all of life was essentially defined by the suffering of want or loss. He was driven to venture, hit and miss, in search of what to do about it. His exhausting quest finally brought him to sit under the Bodhi Tree. By his still and silent contemplation there, and by all he had investigated, he came to an awakening or enlightenment. His father’s attempt to keep him from a path of spiritual leadership set him on course to discover it, in a monumental way.

Christianity is radically different from this Buddhist framework. In the story of Siddhartha, his father tries to hide his boy from human suffering, and the Buddha discovers the course for transcending the human predicament through enlightenment. In Christ, we acknowledge the reality of suffering, move in solidarity with Christ through it, and trust the suffering Savior to preserve us by his strength and grace.

The Last Sunday after Epiphany, I have always seen as a gearing up for a spiritual walk with Christ through the valley of the shadow of death. He is with us on this important and difficult walk. It is as though the Gospel lesson lifts us to the Mount of Transfiguration, fills us with the vision of Christ’s divinity, and thereby fuels us to walk the way of Lent, which starts next Wednesday. Standing with Christ, in his divine light, we look across the miles to Mount Calvary, where he will give his life for our sake. One is a hill of brilliant light. The other is a hill of deep darkness. Both of them bring us to life, because of our choice to be at Christ’s side. Jesus does not avoid the reality of suffering and death, he walks straight to it, and transforms it into the way of life and peace.

This Sunday, let the power of Christ, experienced in his brilliant, gleaming presence, invigorate and fuel you to face any hardships you have before you. Paul speaks of the glory of Christ in his remarkable letter (2 Corinthians 4:5-6): “For it is the God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” This notion of travel across the hard valley of life from Transfiguration to the Passion of Jesus is held up for our consideration in the Collect of the Day:

O God, who before the passion of your only-begotten Son revealed his glory upon the holy mountain: Grant to us that we, beholding by faith the light of his countenance, may be strengthened to bear our cross, and be changed into his likeness from glory to glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

You are acquainted with suffering, and you worship a Savior who knows suffering inside and out and by enduring it, conquered it for us. We cannot build booths and stay in the scene of his Transfiguration, but we surely may walk with him down that hill, across all the miles we have to go, and up the next to stay by his side through the saving act of his death. By giving himself to it, he defeated sin and death. Behold the light; soak it in. It will take you all the way to life and light everlasting.