Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. [1]
(Jesus)
Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. [2]
(John, the Apostle)
Theosis is the supreme, overall goal of Basileia. [4]
(The Constitution of Basileia)
It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship. [3]
(C. S. Lewis)
Kingdom Superheroes is a creative initiative that promotes a spirituality for 21st century builders of the City of God.
Kingdom Superheroes, an initiative of the Abbey of St. John, is fueled by the spiritual imagination of Basileia, which sees Christianity not merely as adherence to certain particulars of theology, not merely as an external effort to imitate Christ’s moral example, but as the intimate, direct union with the living Lord in and through His Church transforming our humanity by divine Grace.
Such transformation is of the Body, by the Body and for the Body.
Our destiny, your destiny, my destiny is to shine like the sun in the kingdom of the Father. Dare to imagine that. Dare to imagine becoming by Grace what God is by nature. As St. Athanasius says, Christ became “incarnate” so we might be “ingodded.”
Imagine a caterpillar in awe of a butterfly, not yet realizing through metamorphosis it will turn into exactly such a creature of winged beauty, one no longer bound to the earth. “Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is” (1 Jn. 3:2).
Jesus’ body shining more brightly than the sun in His Transfiguration testifies to an astonishing type of metamorphosis already unleashed upon humanity. He is the first. We are the next. This transformation, this metamorphosis, is not merely an abstract idea of a distant future reality. It’s for now. In Jesus’ Transfiguration, Adam’s fallen humanity is reanimated to shine brighter than the sun with the glory and splendor of God. This is God’s intention for us all. “Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father” (Matt. 13:43). “For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble. The day that is coming shall set them ablaze, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings” (Mal. 4:2).
That future is here. This is true on many levels at once, including physically, and if physically, then in every other way as well. Jesus says, “Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven” (Matt. 5:16). Christ’s Transfiguration demonstrates there is no aspect of our being or corner of the universe God’s transfiguring power leaves untouched.
“Touch me, and see,” says Jesus (Lk. 24:39). To shine like the sun is to be fully human. In His own person Jesus pulls back the curtain on what it means to be fully, truly, authentically and brilliantly human. He embodies our destiny. He’s why we journey. He now makes it possible for us by Grace to transcend mortality and death and enter with Him into immortality and life. Death is not normal for us or for creation. Ponder that. To think death is normal is misguided and sad. It’s scandalous. Death is common in the Fallen World System, but it is not normal in the Kingdom of God, the new world which has now broken in from the future upon the fallen world.
The joyful, awesome, good news of the Kingdom of God from a kingdomcultural perspective is death is now a temporary bump in the road, a valley we travel through, an exile we’re delivered from, an enemy to be destroyed, a night fleeing before the dawn, not a power we run from in fear or a power to be caged in a prison called Hades. Death doesn’t have a future. The night is over. The day is dawning. Evil’s time has come. The gates of Hades shall not prevail. They melt like wax before the rising sun.
The definitive deathblow to death came in Jesus’s death because by His death He trampled death under His feet. After the power of death unleashed all it had upon Him it fell short of victory because Jesus remained obedient. Death failed to break His obedience to His Father’s will. It had nothing left in its arsenal to break Him and so it was broken and effectively disarmed. After death had done its worst, Jesus was then declared with power to be the Son of God by His resurrection from the dead. He is Christus Victor. In Hades, as re-presented in the Icon of the Resurrection, Jesus stands upon death, crushing it under His feet, and with the locks and chains and the gates of Hades itself smashed and scattered all about, He grips Adam’s wrist, raising him from the dead to shine like the sun.
Imagination Required
Because we are made in God’s image, imagination is central to who we are. Imagination is our native language. It’s built into our bones. Therefore, we must not only mobilize our intellect, but first activate our imagination. A compelling vision of things seen with the eyes of our heart is needed to draw us forward into our destiny to shine like the sun. Cultivating such vision requires more than abstract theological discussions; it demands imagination. What does it mean to shine like the sun? Answering this epic question requires the immortal language of poetry and paint, of imagery giving flight to imagination, not merely the prosaic language of mortals.
Questions lead to quests. People without questions don’t quest, thinking they have all the answers. Questions move one’s feet out the door, and that’s a good thing. Where the feet lead the head follows. Imagination flourishes in the rarified air of daring adventure. “Through his concept of the Hobbit race, Tolkien acknowledges that most men appear to be comfort-loving epicureans but respond, inevitably, to the mystical appeal of chivalric high adventure.” [5] To shine like the sun requires we leave the Shire.
We are made in God’s image to inhabit the created world, not as spectators, but as participators in its development and glorification. But because of the sin of fallen men and angels this very creational reality we have been so perfectly fitted to inhabit has been invaded by a foreign and evil power working to twist it to different ends not ultimately compatible with life. We are honest about this. We don't stick our heads in the sand and pretend like ugliness and evil do not exist. Yes, evil is a dark power, a parasite of the good and a counterfeit of the truth. However, we are not victims who obsess about the darkness, but victors who wield light to extinguish darkness. We aren’t blind to the suffering that evil causes. We weep. But don’t mistake our weeping for mortal sentimentality bereft of imagination of what the world was like before the darkness and so shall be again in an even more glorious way. In Christ we restore our good but broken world. We utterly reject the notion a world ruined by evil is normal. Death is not normal. Darkness is not normal. Life is normal. Light is normal. The glorious transformation of the old darkened by evil into the new shining like the sun is our destiny. This is our obsession, our passion.
We’re not groping about in a dark world waiting for the lights to turn. Christ has already turned on the lights for humanity in general, enabling each of us to shine from the inside out when we make this potential our own. “In him was life and the life was the light of men” (Jn. 1:4). To shine like the sun is the end of the night, first within, then without.
Shining like the sun, which some call theosis, can be imagined in different ways, such as putting on Christ, the restoration of the image of God in us, being made in God’s likeness, reopening the gateway closed to Adam of communion with God at the Tree of Life, participating in the life of God, entering the kingdom of God, leaving Egypt through the desert to the Promised Land, exchanging corruption for incorruption, receiving the Holy Spirit, being built into a dwelling in which God comes and lives by His Spirit, being seated with Christ in heavenly places, becoming by Grace what God is by nature.
To shine as the sun is our story; it’s the goal of our journey with Christ from life to death to life. This is Basileia’s central theme, chief aim, basic purpose and highest ideal. It’s the golden thread woven through our worship, lifestyle and action. We dare to imagine we shall be like Him. We dare to imagine life in a world where the Fallen World System is replaced with the Kingdom of God, where evil is destroyed and all things ruined by evil are restored. We then dare to build this world and inhabit it.
A Lifestyle Shaped by the Seasons of the Year
Touching this eternal story – the story built into the divine rhythm of the days and seasons of the year – ignites the nuclear fires of a spirituality shining like the sun. We must enter the fire to become fire. In the rhythmic telling and retelling of this story – the story of Christ incarnated so we might be ingodded – we cease being spectators and become participators in a fire purging us of the stain of mortality. We become the heroes of story and legend who
- Breathe the atmosphere of spontaneous, creative, steady-state spiritual empowerment
- Rule as the visible, functional agents on earth of a new, transformed humanity
- Envision a sublime reality shattering the status quo of the present age
- Walk as bold, dashing, barefoot immortals among mortals on earth
- Awaken from sleep into a new state of consciousness
- Shine like the sun in the kingdom of our Father
- Do justice for the fatherless and the widow
- Bring good news to the poor
- Vindicate the oppressed
- Set prisoners free
- Heal the sick
- Love
- Fear not
- Exhaust evil
- Listen to Wisdom
- Leave angels breathless
- Crush serpents underfoot
- Dismantle the gates of Hades
- Embrace a superhuman destiny
- Thirst for unexpected adventures
- Feast with God at the Tree of Life
- Dwell in the thin places of the earth
- Exercise chivalric power and authority
- Transcend death as sons of the resurrection
- Release the creation from its bondage to decay
- Open gateways where angels ascend and descend
- Commune with the spirits of just men made perfect
- Experience purification, illumination, and transfiguration
- Exceed the valor of the gods and goddesses of myth and legend
- Steward the cultural, political and economic destiny of mankind on earth
- Engage in a world-building enterprise of supreme danger, grandeur and reward
- Advance the aesthetic, intellectual and juridical triumph of chivalric faith over all its foes
- Cultivate ingodded communities dripping with immortal, sophisticated, spellbindingly beautiful, theanthropomorphic adult glory
Our story is not part of a larger context; it is the context.
Our annual pilgrimage into and through this story unfolds in rhythm with the seasons of Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Pascha (Easter), Pentecost and Kingdomtime. In the rhythm of these seasons we experience a charism of passion, convergence, wisdom, empowerment and transformation, which respectively give rise to our lifestyle in which we journey, assemble, listen, govern and serve.
Advent spirituality awakens in us passion for the journey. Christmas and Epiphany spirituality call us into a life of convergence manifested in our assembling as a fellowship of adventurers who love God and each other. Lenten spirituality listens to wisdom, beholding the beauty of Him who is the Truth, which then overflows in obedience to the will of God, not man. Pascha and Pentecost spirituality is the empowerment to govern according to the authority from above rather than of this world. Kingdomtime spirituality is our mission of transformational chivalric service to heavenize earth.
The divine gifts or operations of passion, convergence, wisdom, empowerment and transformation are all dimensions of Grace inwardly compelling us to shine like the sun, and which therefore cannot help but work together as a whole to then outwardly impel us in our lifestyle disciplines of journey, assemble, listen, govern and serve. The covenantal pattern of these five disciplines (and the threefold priestly, prophetic and kingly way we observe each of them) is not only a pattern of life for us individually as men and women created in the image of God, but also for us in our collective humanity created in the image of God. For we are created in God's image in two complementary ways: 1) individually, both "male and female," and 2) as a "him" in God's image collectively (Gen. 1:27). Therefore, there is a natural relationship between the seasons of the Church Year and these five disciplines of our lifestyle, because the Church Year is the original epic story structure, not just for our lives individually, but also for our lives collectively in the Society, Empire, and Kingdom of God. We become Kingdom Superheroes as our individual story intersects with the collective story of the Kingdom of God and the two stories become one and the same story without mixture or confusion between what is individual and what is collective. When the individual and collective dimensions of this story become one in this way, we are set on fire and shine like the sun because we become more than just individuals without ceasing to be individuals; we become individuals in union with God and each other, forming a shinning City on hill.
Where Adam failed, Christ succeeds. Adam sought to become like God on his own terms. Christ transforms humanity, both individually and collectively, to be like God on God's terms. So we look to Jesus as our first and ultimate priest, prophet and king who does more for us than just model this threefold way to journey, assemble, listen, govern and serve. He is more than just an example to imitate in an outward, external sense. More radically, when we come into union with Him, we experience Him as our inner source of empowerment to journey, assemble, listen, govern and serve in priestly, prophetic and kingly fashion. His life becomes our life and His life is the divine life of the Trinity. Jesus prayed to the Father for you, for me and for humanity in all of its expressions, "that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us" (Jn. 17:21). Our destiny is to be restored in the likeness of Christ who is in the likeness of God. He is the story, our story embodied. He is the sun, the light in which we see light. For “when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is” (1 Jn. 3:2).
Our lifestyle is nothing less than the quest for Christification.
A Symphony of the Ages
A spirituality shining as the sun is like a symphony where our lifestyle disciplines are the notes and the seasons of the year are the rhythm. The priestly, prophetic and kingly melody woven throughout resonates in the deep places of our souls. This is the melody heard in the world before the darkness fell. It’s the song the orchestra’s instruments are perfectly designed to play; it’s the elevated sound the voices of the choir are perfectly fit to sing, vocalizing it in divinely creative and sublimely imaginative lyrics of rhyme and verse.
As we enter the symphony hall we receive a printed program heralding an experience soon to transport us to a place where the veil between heaven and earth is thin. It reads,
First Movement
Our Good but Broken World Re-Imagined
Journey with Christ to the Mountain in Advent
Second Movement
Unlikely Heroes Chosen and Gathered
Assemble as the Church in Christmas and Epiphany
Third Movement
Dangerous Paths Taken
Listen to the Word in Lent
Fourth Movement
Thin Places Reopened and Immortal Genius Awakened
Govern from the Table in Pascha and Pentecost
Fifth Movement
Chivalric Love Triumphant
Serve the Church and the World in Kingdomtime
What sort of music is this?
The hum of the orchestra’s tuning fades into a soft hush. The Conductor steps onto the stage to applause. Mounting the podium, He lifts his hands. And then, for the briefest of instants, He holds absolutely and effortlessly still. In this perfect pause we experience an eternal moment when everything goes utterly quiet. Breathing stops. We now inhabit the perfect silence of the divine calm out of which worlds are born. It’s the pause before “In the beginning.” Then, music! We gasp. A mysterious, hauntingly beautiful melody emerges from beyond the veil. Voices breathe out, “Let there be light.” Yes and amen. So be it. This is the symphony of the ages, the story of worldmakers who shine like the sun.
Notes
- Matthew 13:43.
- 1 John 3:2.
- C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses, rev. ed. (New York: Macmillan, Collier Books, 1980), 18.
- “Theosis,” The Constitution of Basileia, 153.
- John Pilkey, Origin of the Nations, 258.
Kingdom Superheroes is a global community of chivalric adventurers engaged in an epic lifestyle of heroically advancing the Kingdom of Christ.