When my children were small, there were some toys called Transformers, they have more recently been brought back to life with the transformer movies. Robots that can change and become something else, like sports cars, planes, tanks and so on. They could even join together to form bigger robots. As the children played with these toys they changed shape regularly, but the transformations were limited.Some of us find it hard to undergo even one transformation in life, letting go of the past and moving on into the future. Its often not very easy, especially if the past is still having a marked and possibly negative impact on who we are and how we behave. How often have I heard the comment "Its how I am get used to it because I am not going to change"? It always puts up my antenna because it seems like the cry of person locked into a behaviour pattern that they are unwilling to address, even if it has a bad effect on others.
As I read some of the things that Jesus had to say, one of the things I see is that he was about transforming people. Calling them to shed the old habits, religious rites, learned behaviours and attitudes and becoming something new and wonderful in him.
You must be born again - he tells Nicodemus, to the man's confusion and surprise.
Sell all you have, give it to the poor and follow me - the wealthy man is told.
Give up your families and livelihoods the disciples are told as Jesus calls them together.
Lives are changed when they come into contact with Jesus, we are transformed. The old is gone the new is put on. But we have choices, we can hold to the past, we can continue to live by the old habits and attitudes or we can allow the full open heart surgery of Christ to remodel, to transform us into those who he means us to be. We can allow Christ to be totally in control or we can try and fit him into our way of thinking and doing so that we can justify being as we are.
Which will each of us choose, to let Christ transform us or to cling on to the things that have shaped us and so made us so often less than we might be in him?
