Hans Kung states, “the church is essentially more than what it appears to be. It is not an ordinary people or group, but a chosen people; it is not an ordinary body, but a mystical body; it is not an ordinary building, but a spiritual building.” (The Church; Hans Kung; p. 62; Image Books, a division of Doubleday & Co.;Garden City, NY;1976) In a world where people are very cynical about the church, how do we come to experience the church as something more than one more human organization?
When the disciples went up on the mountain with Jesus, they saw him transfigured. In their perception, they saw him move from a wonderful man to the Son of God. The pattern of that transformation is what must take place for Christians who move from seeing a church to experiencing the Body of Christ. It will not be obvious to the world around us that what is happening in a church is the revealing of the Word of God. To the outside observer what takes place in the church will continue to be seen as nothing more than the ordinary interactions of a group of human beings.
To understand how the believer experiences a transfiguration, one must look at how that took place in the life of Jesus. There were many who saw Jesus and did not see the Christ but only another human being. Most of the world did not understand that anything significant had happened when Jesus was born or when he walked the dusty roads of Galilee. Even when people came in direct contact with Jesus, most asked, “Is this not the son of Joseph the carpenter? Wasn’t he the little child who used to run through the streets with my cousin’s boy? How could he possibly be the Son of God?” It was an act of faith that enabled some to open their eyes and see more.
In the Gospel of Matthew when Peter acknowledges, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God,” Jesus responds, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church.” In a similar manner to the first disciples, it requires an act of faith for members of the church to encounter something divine in the church.
