You can be 90 years old, but as soon as you see a tiny infant or very young child, conditioning takes over, doesn’t it. And we begin the familiar game of peek-a-boo. As adults, we play it because it works – we see a smile on the face of that little child. And we do. Somehow, peek-a-boo works as a pretty effective strategy for engendering a smile. But why does hiding than suddenly appearing WORK for a little kid? What is it about that appearing/hiding/appearing/hiding that engenders a smile?
An early theory of why babies enjoy peek-a-boo is that they are truly surprised when things come back after being out of sight. It is that shock of recognition that makes the kids smile. The Swiss developmental psychologist Jean Piaget called this principle ‘object permanence’ and suggested that babies spent the first two years of their lives working it out. And of course those two years are prime peekaboo time. Looked at this way, the game helps babies test and re-test a fundamental principle of existence: that things stick around even when you can’t see them.
Though it might be a bit ludicrous to compare the transfiguration to the game of peek-a-boo, I wonder if taking into account both elements of the theory of why it works might open up for us something of the mystery of today’s gospel story.
1) It is the shock of recognition that makes the baby smile… We know that part of the experience foremost in airports and on vacations and while traveling outside of our normal routines. We stumble across someone we would not expect to see in that place. And in that moment of recognition – “Oh, it’s you!” – we come to a kind of surprising joy and sense of connection. “Oh – you belong in my world. You are a part of my story! You are a part of the journey I am on.”
For the disciples, this mystical experience had to be akin to that shock of recognition of something they had hoped for, but had not yet really seen in Jesus. They had seen the miracles and the healings. They had heard the teachings. But in this shocked moment of recognition, suddenly they KNOW not just the humanity of Jesus, but the truth of his claim of divinity. “Oh, it IS YOU.” And in the voice which bids them to listen to HIM, they recognize the truth of what their eyes tell them – that Jesus is that savior they had hoped for; – the fulfillment of the law and the prophets. And they know that their journey is linked to his. Though they don’t understand “what to rise from the dead meant’, they know they will follow Jesus come what may.
Aren’t there similar ‘transfigurations’ in our lives? Moments when the meaning of who we are and what we are called to be about become clear. In a diagnosis of a disease, in the sudden dawning of a love that fills our hearts, in the chaos of the protests in Ferguson, in the vigil for another inmate on death row, in the reporting of another slaughter by ISIS, – there is this shock of recognition – of knowing the divine presence right there in our midst. And in that same moment, we realize that there is a journey for us to make. Oh – it is you Lord. Oh, we have to walk together to create a world of justice. This week – expect a moment of transfiguration, a moment of shocked recognition
Secondly, like the truth of ‘object permanence’, this experience on the mountain was meant to strengthen the disciples’ faith that things stick around even when you can’t see them. Just as it takes a baby the first two years of their life to figure out the truth that things stay around even when you can’t see it, so too, for the disciples and for us, sometimes it takes a while for us to TRUST that God does not abandon us in the tough times. His presence, in the sacrifice of His son Jesus on the cross remains.
But here is the slight kicker. God no longer plays peek-a-boo with us to let us know his love for us. Rather, he empowers US to play it with one another. It is for us to finish the work he set in motion in the sacrifice of his Son. It is for us to make sure that this ‘object permanence’ –the reality of his love remains. And if you don’t experience a shock when that truth sets in, then maybe you need to play the game again.
Peek-a-boo!