The Last Sunday After the Epiphany
February 18, 2007
Exodus 34:29-35
Psalm 99
2 Corinthians 3:12-4:6
Luke 9:28-36
Well, joyful day of Transfiguration. Okay, preacher, you say, and why should this day be so joyful? Why should this Sunday be any different from all the rest. Well, to answer the second question first, it is not so different from all the rest. In our traditions as Episcopalians, every Sunday is a mini-celebration of Easter. And, so, every Sunday is a day to experience the joy of the Easter, and regardless of the nature of the scripture readings or the sermon we hear, our celebration of Eucharist is a celebration of that Easter event. But why would I begin this sermon making a special wish for joy on this day of Transfiguration. Well, truth be told, I can’t help myself, because the story of transfiguration has always been an uplifting one for me, despite the fact that I know the outcome. I know Jesus will come down off that mountain with his disciples only to meet with harsh reality. The large and demanding crowds who follow him, the boy who suffers a terrible affliction, and a father who pleads with Jesus to look after his only son. But these are the kinds of realities Jesus will face as he journeys to Jerusalem to face the most painful reality of all, his betrayal and suffering and death on the cross. Yes, I know well the realities Jesus will face once he comes down from that mountain. Perhaps that is why, on this day, I want to stay with Jesus on that mountain top. I want to stay with him because just three days from now, on Ash Wednesday, we will begin our journey with Jesus through Lent to his passion and death upon the cross. And our only joy will come in Easter hope.
But this Sunday we celebrate Jesus’ transfiguration. It is our final encounter with joy before we meet him in our Easter joy, and I can’t help feeling what I believe Peter was feeling when he said to Jesus, “it is good for us to be here.” This is a good place for us to be this Sunday because the story of transfiguration gives us a real look at who it is we are following. It also gives us a glimpse of where our journey with him will ultimately take us as we hear Moses and Elijah talk with Jesus about his three-fold “departure” down the mountain, into Jerusalem and from this life. So what an awesome thing for us to be privy to so many experiences of epiphany on this last Sunday of Epiphany. The experience is so awesome for Peter that he wants to build sacred places to house Moses and Elijah and Jesus. But they cannot stay on that mountain. All three of them must depart. But before we depart with them it is important to go back to the beginning of this story, because right from the beginning what we are told has so much significance.
First, it is important to know that the story of the Transfiguration is found in all four Gospels. Now that is significant. The fact that four different writers, writing for different people at different times over the better part of a century definitely indicates the importance of the Transfiguration. Jesus reveals God’s glory in every one of the Gospel accounts and that is what makes transfiguration such a joy-filled event. We get to know what it is like to be in the presence of God. And it is “awesome.”
The story of Jesus’ transfiguration in our Gospel lesson today begins with a significant detail. Jesus takes Peter, James and John up on a mountain to pray just eight days after Peter has acknowledged Jesus as the “Christ of God,” the anointed one of God, the Messiah. This is an awesome acknowledgment in itself. In fact it makes me realize how important it is for us to experience God if we are to acknowledge him, and how necessary acknowledging God is to transfiguration. It is important, indeed necessary to our experience of God that we acknowledge him in worship at least once each week. It is in our scripture and prayer, in our hymns and in our celebration of Eucharist that we can be transfigured to become a people who reveal God to the world. Eight days before his mountain top experience, Peter told Jesus that he believed him to be the Christ, the Son of God, but it is in Jesus’ transfiguration that Peter is able to experience and acknowledge the truth of God’s presence in Jesus, and the truth of God’s presence with him. People who experience being in the presence of God know why Peter wants to build those dwellings for Jesus and Moses and Elijah. For the same reason Christians want to build churches. For the same reason we want to see them grow and prosper. And for the same reason we want to rebuild them when they are in decline. For the same reason a faith community like St. George’s calls a priest to be their rector to help them rebuild a church which has long been a testament to the presence of God in this town of Lee. Because we are a lot like Peter on that mountain of Transfiguration. We want to plant ourselves and grow ourselves in the experience of transfiguration. We want to be the people and the place in which God continues to be revealed in our community.
“It was eight days after Peter acknowledged Jesus to be the Christ that they went up onto the mountain to pray.” And this is another significant detail in the story of Transfiguration, because in biblical times the number eight indicated a new state or condition, following the number seven which indicated the completion of a former state. Jesus’ resurrection is considered to be an eighth day event, and the Christian day of Sabbath is likewise an eighth day celebration of resurrection and new life in Christ. It has always been important, even necessary, for Christians to set aside Sunday for rest and worship of the God. But this becomes increasingly more difficult for the Church in a secular world which makes increasing demands on our time and our resources on the only day we have put aside to give our time and our resources to God. Practicing Christians are finding it increasingly difficult to juggle the demands of this world with worship and service to the church. As a result, church attendance becomes unstable; even worse it begins to dwindle making it necessary for the Church to find ways to compete with the world for people to fill their worship spaces. Churches in every denomination are trying to accommodate the demands made on us in the world by offering worship services at various times in the week, and by offering more varied worship experiences. Churches are having worship in coffee houses and in parks, in homes and in movie theaters. Our eighth day Sabbath has become a movable feast. And do you know why churches are doing that? Because in an increasingly secular world, church settings are becoming the ONLY place where people can come to know God; the only place they can experience God, and acknowledge his presence in their life; the only place they can become transfigured in that presence. And we are the only people God has who can make his presence known to others. We are the only people who can lead others to the mountain top to be transfigured, because we have been there. And God is counting on us to be here for others.
Today we celebrate transfiguration in our mountain top experiences of God. We know them to be moments of complete awe and utter joy because God has revealed himself in us. They are moments that by all appearances change us but, in fact, they have not changed us; we have become more of who we are—who God made us to be. You might not be aware of how your face glows and how your demeanor changes, but others see a change in you. Moses was not aware of the shine on his face. And Jesus does not know that the appearance of his face had changed and that his clothing had become dazzling white. It is the disciples who notice it. As sleepy as they are, the light awakens them, and they see the change which has come over Jesus’ face. They also observe Moses and Elijah who have come to join him in is glory. And this moment is just too awesome for Peter. He will capture this event for posterity by a method Jews have always used when they find themselves in the presence of God. He will build a dwelling, a sacred place where people can come to worship in the presence of God. But this mountain top is not the place where Jesus is to dwell in glory. He must go to Jerusalem first. And then to the cross.
It would seem, however, that Peter will not take “no” for an answer. So, quite suddenly, a cloud appears—always a sign of a visitation by God—and a voice says to Peter, “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!” When the voice finishes speaking, the disciples walk down the mountain with Jesus in silence, unable to speak about what has happened to them there. As we well know, silence is characteristic of a mountain top experience, because mountain top experiences are not easy to talk about; they are difficult to put into words. Even Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in his famous, “I have been to the mountain top speech,” did not try to describe it to us. He simply wanted to assure us that he had been to the mountain top, and that we would get there ourselves with great faith and trust in God to take us there.
It is certain that mountain top experiences take us out of the ordinary places of our life to experience the extraordinary. And just like Peter’s experience, they are so awesome to us we want to stay in them. We don’t want to go back to the ordinariness of our life. We try to capture our mountain top experiences by absorbing them into our memory. We want to capture on film or in a painting or in music or in writing or in telling about it over and again or in the silence—even holiness—of remembering. We even try to return to them. But they are rarely happen in the same way for us. That is because mountain top experiences are not meant to be repeated. If we lived our lives going from one mountain top experience to another—and there are people in our world who make this their life’s goal—we would soon tire of them, and they would become ordinary to us. Our lives would be a constant quest for another mountain top experience and we would never learn to live in the reality of our life and in the truth of life itself.
I can tell you that my new vocation as a priest began in a mountain top experience. And I admit that I wanted to stay there. I admit that I tried to capture it in many ways and that I have tried to find my way back to the mountain many times since. But we are not meant to have mountain top experiences at will, nor are we to stay in them when we do. Not if we pay attentions to how the story of the Transfiguration ends. Jesus knows that he must go back into the world to do the work God has given him to do. His experience on that mountain reveals God and it reveals who Jesus is.
So it is that something similar happens to us in our mountain top experiences with God. The experience does not change us; rather, we come to know more of who God is, and we come to be more of who we are and who we created to be. In the eyes of others, however, we have changed. We are different from the person we were, and it shows. And the only reason why we know it shows is because of the ways people begin to respond to us. Peter and James and John certainly saw Jesus in a new light that day. They knew whose presence they were in, and their response turned from fear to awe to silent acceptance. Unlike the crowd who awaits them at the bottom of the mountain who are astonished by the greatness of God at Jesus’ healing a very sick boy. But Peter and James and John are not surprised, because they know and have seen.
If the story of the Transfiguration says anything about us, as a people of God, it tells us that mountain top experiences matter to our life and to our relationship with God. Because they make us mindful of our life in God and how our life can reveal God to others. In our Epistle lesson today, Paul tells us that when we draw near to God we are changed into his likeness. And changed into his likeness, we serve God’s purposes for change in the world. But not if we insist on staying on the mountain. We can be sure nobody will ever be able to reach us. But that is not what God wants for lives which become transfigured and transformed in him. He does not want us to stay in the ecstasy or in the awe when there is so much need in the world.
It is undoubtedly a good thing that after people like myself come to our vocation as priests in mountain top experiences, God puts us into real churches. That is as it should be. For this is where we honor God in our transfigured life. But what is so wonderful about serving God in the Church is that every Sunday is a little mountain top experience for us, because every Sunday is a mini celebration of Easter. We are given regular opportunities to go to the mountain top. I especially find myself on the mountain top when I am celebrating the Eucahrist. Especially when I place the body of Christ in your hand. Because I can see the face of God in your face, and I can see the hands of God in your hands. And it never ceases to “dazzle” me. It is always an awesome to be in the presence of God with you in this way. And many of you have indicated to me how much it shows.
But transfiguration only matters when we come down from that mountain. Transfiguration only matters on Monday morning. Transfiguration only becomes complete by the life we live in this world and in the ordinary details of our life. Transfiguration only matters if we are willing to go to places in our mind and heart we never could have imagined, and on a journey we never thought we would take—like the journey we will soon take with Jesus through Lent, into Jerusalem, to the other side of the cross. But for today, before we meet again on Ash Wednesday, I wish you the joy of transfiguration.