(This is the first of three posts on Rom 12:2.)  In his book Couplehood, comedian Paul Reiser laments that there’s an inevitable moment every morning that gets our day off on the wrong foot:

You know how you get out of bed, drag your feet into the bathroom, flip on the light, and stand in front of the mirror?  You know how you squint your eyes and look?  That.  That’s the big mistake.  Looking in the mirror that early in the day.  It’s always a disappointment, no matter who you are.  You just see your reflection and think, “That’s not what I was hoping for.  I could have sworn I was better looking than that.  I must be thinking of someone else.”

It’s true.  Sometimes I look in the mirror, and the face that stares back at me isn’t quite the one I expected.  People I haven’t seen in a long time tell me, “You haven’t changed a bit.”  But I know better.  The face in the mirror is older, less resilient.  When people take pictures, I smile less broadly than I used to, because bigger smiles carve deeper lines into my face.

But are any of us ever happy with our reflection?  It’s not just who we once were, but who the world tells us we must be.  Billions upon billions of advertising dollars go into planting images in our minds: look like this, or people won’t like you–or at least, they’ll like you less than you’d wish.

In a sense, it’s a contemporary reminder of Paul’s wisdom:

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. (Rom 12:2, NIV)

Don’t mold yourself according to the patterns of the present age in which we live.  Don’t bow to its fashions.  Quite frankly, that’s tough to do in such an image-conscious, consumerist society as ours.  But we’re called to be nonconformists.  Or better yet: transformists, people who give themselves over to the work of the Holy Spirit, who will change us from the inside out.

“Transformed.”  It’s not a word that occurs often in the New Testament, but when it does, it’s important.  It’s the same word Matthew uses to describe Jesus’ transfiguration on the mountaintop–metamorphosis.   Jesus had just declared to the disciples that when they reached Jerusalem, he would be arrested and killed.  Peter didn’t take the news particularly well, and we might imagine that the rest of the Twelve didn’t either.  And in the very next episode that Matthew narrates, Jesus became radiant with the glory of God.  The Father declares, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.  Listen to him!” (Matt 17:5, NIV).  Possible translation: when he tells you he has to die, believe him; it’s all part of his glory.

And here’s one of the few places, other than Romans 12, where Paul uses the word:

And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. (2 Cor 3:18, NIV)

He’s referring to Moses, who had to hide his face behind a veil after meeting with God, because the people were terrified by the after-glow.  Paul wants to say, “If you think that’s glory, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.  The glory on Moses’ face faded quickly–that’s nothing compared to what God is doing among you through the Holy Spirit.”

But in that verse, I think the NIV loses a little something with the translation “contemplate.”  The older NIV had “reflect,” and the verb actually stems from the word for “mirror,” a product for which the city of Corinth was famous.  The Common English Bible renders the verse this way:

All of us are looking with unveiled faces at the glory of the Lord as if we were looking in a mirror. We are being transformed into that same image from one degree of glory to the next degree of glory. This comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. (2 Cor 3:18, CEB)

I imagine a person coming out of the shower and looking in the bathroom mirror, fogged as it is by the steam; they begin to wipe in circles with a towel.  At first, the reflection is vague and imperfect, but it gradually clears, and the image is unmistakable: it’s Jesus, in all his glory.

I’ve heard preachers teach on the classic doctrine of the imputation of the righteousness of Christ to believers.  Sometimes they say, “When God looks at us, he sees Jesus.”  But what do we see?  More often than not, we look in the mirror, or we look at each other, and all we see are highly fallible people who seem to stumble through the Christian life.

And that’s all we would ever see, were it not for the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit.  God’s will is that we would not be conformed to the patterns and images of our age, but to the image of his Son.  And the glorious, wonderful truth is that God will do that work in us, if we would just stop looking for the wrong things in the mirror.

Father, teach me to not look in the mirror to find who I once was, nor the person that the world wants me to be, but instead to look for the reflection of your Son.  Transform me from day to day, from glory to glory.  Amen.