Transformers

It's hard to believe that the "Transformers" movies are still in production.  My son, Will, played with toy Autobots after watching the original movie when he was 7.  That was nearly 30 years ago in 1986.  But as far back as the Autobots go, they are far from the original.

It was Jesus who transformed water into wine (Jn 2:1ff), wishy-washy Simon into a rock (Jn 1:41 "Peter" means rock) and Christian-hunter Saul into the great apostle Paul (Acts 9:1-19).  And, since "without [Jesus] nothing was made that has been made" (Jn 1:3), our Lord transformed nothing into everything in the existing universe.

Jesus is the original and true Transformer, who is responsible for untold true and real transformations, some we will not even be aware of this side of Glory.  But the greatest transformation, the transformation, which was the reason the universe was brought into being is the redemption of mankind: "He chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.  In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ..." (Eph 1:4-5).

This same Jesus is still in the transformation business.  He calls each of us to resist the downward pull of worldliness saying, "Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of our mind" (Rom 12:2).  And it is by the power of his Spirit that we "are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord" (2 Cor 3:18).

The transformation He has in mind for us, by the way, does not end here.  As much as we are changed into his likeness in the here and now, there is a greater transformation coming in the there and then: when the Lord "will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body" (Phil 3:21).

Even the imaginary Autobots will have nothing on those of us who accept Jesus Christ as Lord as we "will all be changed in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet...will be raised imperishable, and will be transformed...imperishable and...with immortality" (1 Cor 15:52-53).  Jus' Say'n.