Sermon – “Tranfigured and Transparent”
One of my favorite places is a mountain top in Western North Carolina, nearly every summer when I went to church camp there I would climb it. It was there that I first felt the presence of God. Sitting there on the rocks looking out the valley below, listening to the wind, and watching the clouds slide slowly across the afternoon sky I would feel that I was in another world, in another place, another time. I could sit there for hours, but always had to come back down to the everyday routine of camp life. I’m sure we’ve all had those moments when we are closest to the divine mystery, the presence of God. Sometimes it is on the mountaintop, sometimes it’s in the valley, sometimes it’s in even the most mundane everyday activities of our lives.
Kenneth Grahame in his wonderful little book “The Wind in the Willows” tells of a time when Ratty and Mole were called upon to search for a little hedge pig that had gone missing. The two best friends who lived along the river’s edge had taken their boat out onto the water to search the riverbanks for the missing hedge pig. As they searched, they found themselves on a part of the river they had never seen before. The trees and bushes overhung the river, dappling the water with their reflections. The air with heady with the perfume of the flowers and bush’s that surrounded them. As they moved slowly up the river the air began to change, the light became brighter and the music of the insects and birds became louder. Ratty, who was sitting in the front of the boat, was filled with awe and wonder if the sound of this strange and beautiful music. He asks Mole if he can hear this beautiful sound. At first, Mole could not hear it, but then as they approached an island in the middle of the river, Mole was suddenly overcome with the joyous sound of music. At that moment, as they stepped out of the boat onto the land, they were surrounded with a brilliant white light, and the music intensified. Suddenly they came upon a sight too beautiful to behold, they saw the Great God Pan standing in the midst of the glade with the tiny hedge pig curled up asleep his feet. As they approached the sight, the vision vanished, leaving them filled with awe, wonder, and fear. They had witnessed a theophany, a manifestation of the presence of God.
Both the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament scriptures for today are examples of theophanies. Each speaks to the presence of the divine and its own unique way. In the first reading, Elijah the prophet is taken up in a chariot of fire to heaven. In the second reading, Peter James and John are taken to a mountaintop by Jesus and witness a theophany of their own.
Jesus to Peter and James and john and let them apart up the mountain, for anyone familiar with the scriptures, going up a mountain meant the possibility of encountering the divine presence. And as most of us know, after seeing or hearing God usually meant trouble or lead to painful missions like those experienced by Abraham, Moses, and Isaiah. Perhaps the disciples were too disturbed by what they heard six days earlier, when Jesus said he must suffer, die and be raised three days later, to be expecting a divine encounter. But suddenly Jesus was transfigured before them. And in the brilliant white light that engulfed the mountaintop and the disciples they saw Moses and Elijah speaking with Jesus. The Jesus that they had known was no longer just an ordinary man, he was transfigured into something more. The whole place on the top of that mountain became instantly a holy place. And as history with most encounters with divine the disciples were overcome with fear, wonder and awe. At first they are speechless, too afraid to move or to speak. The text tells us that the person of Jesus became dazzlingly white, that his face was ablaze with divine Glory.
What an awesome experience it must’ve been. This was how the disciples must have hoped to see Jesus in the coming kingdom: radiant with divine Glory. For them this was a preview of what was to come. This is what Paul later described as the Glory of God shining in Christ’s face; and Peter, James, and John saw it firsthand before anyone else. They heard uses his teachings about suffering and death and the demands of discipleship. Now these three are given a glimpse of the Glory to come. Nearly 2000 years later how to we feel when we experience the painful demands discipleship? When we fail to see God’s Glory shining in the face of Christ among us? When we fail to allow it to shine through us as Paul called us to do. We are called to reflect what we say in what we do, or we speak in the words. We’re called to live the gospel daily and not simply talk about it. When our lives have integrity between word and action, we become transparent and God’s light shines through us enabling both house and others to see God’s Glory face of Christ revealed in those around us, but back to our story.
Peter has a way about an up being have comic and half on target with his reactions to goes on around him. Perhaps it is this ability that makes him so appealing and easy to identify with when we see him in action. He has probably one of the most human of the disciples and the one most prone to missing the mark when it comes to understanding this man Jesus. This time Pierre finds himself in the midst of a full fledged epiphany, an experience of the divine, a preview of the Glory to come, and being the human that he is, overcome with all and wonder, and wanting to preserve the moment, break since the moment with his outlandish idea of putting up tents or booths so Jesus, Moses, and Elijah can stay around.
Perhaps Peter is not reacting so simply after all; perhaps something more complex is behind this offer. Yes, Jesus has been transfigured before them. Yes, Jesus reflects the Glory of God. But this is but a preview. The tree glorified state comes only with the resurrection and the resurrection comes only after the cross. There is no escaping the cross, not even by keeping Jesus on the mountaintop with noses and Elijah. Perhaps Peter only wants to prolong this experience because it is a moment of consolation. Perhaps he thinks that if Jesus was go to Jerusalem to suffer and die than perhaps this momentary comfort can last a little longer. Aren’t we often just like Peter? We also want to avoid what we do not understand, what is too painful to face, to avoid our own crosses even when we know that that is the only way to salvation. It is natural to keep want to keep Jesus close and transfigured. But epiphanies did not last forever. When this come down from the mountaintops and like disciples, we missed over juice goes, be transformed and changed into his image and let him shine through us.
On that mountaintop Peter, James and John were also transfigured and changed. Their understanding, their consciousness of the situation was changed. They knew that Jesus was determined to see this journey to its end, even if they still did not fully understand. And that moment, the heavens opened and the lights became even more brilliant and a voice spoke saying, “This is my beloved Son. Listen to him!” God has claimed Jesus, in the presence of these three, as his beloved son and heir commanded to listen.
This is more than a stamp of approval. This is more than a sign of friendship, a recognition of good were, or an award for faithful service. This is a sharing in God’s life and Glory, of being loved and known by God at a deeper and more intimate level. They are being invited, as we are invited, to join in this journey to and through the cross. They cannot remain on the mountaintop, nor can we. They’re called as we are called to forge ahead to what awaited them. Peak experiences are good and necessary, but we bust always returned to the daily. Mountaintops can offer consolation, encouragement, and hope; daily life is the setting in which we carry out our roles whatever they might be. The peaks are where we experience the transfigured Christ. Daily life is where we become transparent so Christ and shines through us. We need both the mountaintops and the daily line. We need both hope to sustain us and a reality in which to live out that hope in transparency.
As they came down from the mountain, Jesus charges them to tell no one. How confusing this must’ve been. To have an experience of the Glory of Christ and then be charged with silenced… Until after Jesus had risen from the dead-in other words until after the suffering and death and resurrection, which is the inevitable, inescapable cost of discipleship. They were back face to face with the problem that they wanted to escape: behind this glimpse of Glory Allies the cross. But behind that cross also lies Glory, everlasting Glory. And so they come down, as must we, and must carry on courageously.
So where does this leave us? Are we puzzled by Peter and James and John? Do we want to return to the mountaintop, prolong the vision, avoid across? Are we hope-filled and ready to move forward alongside Jesus? Perhaps we’re a little of each. But move on we must. We move on to our work, our leisure, our prayers, our lives as Christians with all the demands sorrows enjoys, the omens essential for daily life. But with the assurance that god gave to the disciples that day on the mountaintop we can face them with hope and with faith. It is God who removes the obstacles within us and makes us transparent. And as Paul says: “In our transparency, God shines forth with glorious light. ”
Amen.
Tags: Sermons, Transfiguration
