“The Magic Mirror”

irror, mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?

Have you ever looked into a magic mirror? There was such a thing once. There was a mirror which, if you looked into it long enough and deeply enough, you would begin to see your reflection, but a different kind of reflection: the reflection of your true self, the reflection of the beauty and virtue and glory of the self you were always meant to be, the reflection of your perfect self. And the more you looked and the more you studied your reflection in the mirror, the more you became aware that something very strange and wonderful was happening: that while the reflection always remained the same, you yourself were slowly, magically, being changed to conform to its image. Not the reflection conforming to you, but you to it. And then you finally realized the truth: that all along you were the reflection and the image in the mirror was the reality.

Sounds sort of like a Twilight Zone episode, doesn’t it? And I say that there used to be such a mirror, but in fact there is one still. It’s just that, anymore, people rarely look into it deeply enough to be changed by it. And it may not really be a magic mirror, but it does have the power to transform you into the reflection of your perfect self. The mirror is the Holy Scriptures, and image of your perfect self revealed in it is the Lord Jesus Christ.

St. Paul himself uses this analogy. He says, “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory.” (II Cor. 3:18)

We look into the Scriptures- all of the Scriptures – and because the Holy Spirit has taken away the veil of darkness and misunderstanding, we see Jesus. We see Jesus on every page, from Genesis to Revelation. And in him we see ourselves, our true selves, the glory of our perfect humanity, what we were always meant to be.

You see why the Scriptures are likened to a mirror, even a magic mirror. In them we see the reflection our perfect selves in the image of Jesus. Jesus Christ is the true man, the second Adam. And we are, in fact, to be the reflection of him. He’s the original; we’re really the image in the mirror being changed to conform to Him. Paul says that those the Father foreknew, “He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son.”

So to behold His image in the mirror of the Scripture, is to be transformed into his image.

Do you remember what happened to Moses on the Mountain? He saw a partial glimpse of the glory of God, and when he came down from the mountain his face shined the like the piercing brightness of the sun. Why? Because by his very constitution as a human being made in the image of God he couldn't help but reflect His glory. To behold the glory of the Lord is to be transformed into that glory.

St. John says, “Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.” (I John 3:2)

Now do we have to wait till the last day to see him? Do we have to wait to the last day before we begin to be changed into his glory? Jesus said, “A little while longer and the world will see Me no more, but you will see Me.”

We see Jesus by faith – faith given us by the Spirit through the Word.

We see Jesus is the magic mirror of the Word of God, and to see in that way is still to be transformed. The Scriptures have the power to transform us from glory to glory, says Paul – from the glory we already have as the image bearers of God to the perfected glory of the image of Christ … if we look deeply enough into them; if we return to them daily and continue to behold and study his image and character, if we read, mark, learn and inwardly digest them.

In other words, we’re called to the spiritual discipline of formative reading, reading that’s not just saying words in you mind, but reading that involves engaging the text, wrestling with the truth of the passage, making the Word the rule for your thinking and acting so that you begin to have the mind of Christ.

It’s in this sense that St. James also uses the analogy of the mirror. He says, “Be doers of the word, and not hearers only… For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who sees his natural face in a mirror,… but then goes away, and immediately forgets the true reflection of himself.”

If you’re not reading the Word formatively, if you’re not seeking to do the Word, you’ll never see you’re true self. You’ll never see the reflection of your perfect self in the image of Christ, and you’ll go away and be transformed into the false image of man displayed in the mirror of the world. For one way or another you will be transformed. You will be transformed, not the image in the mirror, not Christ or the world. You’ll reflect one or the other. And so we’re admonished by St. Paul not to be conformed to this world, but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds in the Word. (Rom. 12:2)

And, beloved, this is a transformation that brings liberty. Both Paul and James, when they liken the Scripture to a transforming mirror, speak of the liberty we’re given by that transformation. James says, “He who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the word, this one will be blessed in what he does.” And Paul says that its the Spirit of the Lord who transforms us into his his image through the word, and where the Spirit is, there is liberty.

Many people have tried to come up with a definition of liberty, but I’ll give you my own: Liberty is the freedom to be what you were made to be. Liberty is conforming to the nature God created you to have. You’re not free when you try to live otherwise.

You’re not free to live underwater, because life underwater doesn’t conform to your nature. But a fish is only free when it lives in water.

You’re not free to soar through the air, at least not for very long, because by nature you don’t have the apparatus to keep you from hitting the ground.

Liberty is the freedom to be what you were created to be. But you were created to conform to the perfect humanity of Jesus Christ, and until you do you’ll never have perfect freedom. That’s why say in the collect for peace in Morning Prayer, “Thy service is perfect freedom.” To be transformed into the image of Christ not only by hearing the word, but by doing the word, by obeying the word, is how we grow to be free to be who we were made to be. There is no other way to be a free human being.

Think about it this way. You may have a lifelong dream to play basketball in the NBA. You may even have all the aptitude, the physical agility and size and coordination necessary to be a star in the NBA. But you’re never going to be free to be what you could be until your arms and legs and the rest of your body become obedient to what my mind tells them to do. And that obedience can only come through a tremendous amount of training and practice. Even your mind must be trained to become obedient to the rules of the game and to the mental discipline involved in the game. But without that obedience, you’re not really free to the NBA star you were created to be.

To behold Jesus in the mirror of the Word is to be transformed in his image, and to be transformed in his image is to be given liberty – the freedom to be what you were always meant to be. But be doers of the Word, and not hearers only. Look deeply into the mirror.

Be vain. Look at yourself, your true self, in the mirror of the Word. Love that image. Seek to be transformed into that image, and then you will be free. +