Transfiguration
Eight weeks ago, we celebrated Epiphany Sunday, when three seekers followed a light only they could see that eventually revealed the glory of God made manifest in Jesus. They had a Divine epiphany, even if they couldn’t quite understand it. Moving though Luke’s Gospel in the intervening weeks, variously called the weeks after or of the Epiphany, we see Jesus teaching in the temple, being baptized by his cousin John, calling his disciples, and working his ministry of teaching and healing. Today’s Gospel reading finds another trio of seekers experiencing their own epiphany as they observe a different light.
Jesus invites Peter, James, and John to climb what scholars think is Mount Tabor in northern Israel. Last week, Mother Brenda described St. Teresa of Avila’s approach to prayer as one of intimacy with God. Jesus wants his friends to join him in this prayerful closeness with the Divine, although they seem to be nodding off a bit. The disciples are shaken out of their stupor by an amazing sight – Jesus, shining like a beacon, talking to Elijah and Moses, whose own face was transfigured after an encounter with God as we heard in our reading from Exodus.
I can relate to Peter’s excitement and his desire to freeze this moment in time and live in it forever, although I don’t generally start building projects when I feel like that. When I’ve been a part of retreats that really touch me, like the annual St. Andrew’s Women’s Retreat, I often think I could stay there in the warmth of God and community, especially when I know laundry and grocery shopping are waiting for me at home.
Peter, dazzled by the glory of God, wants to stay on the mountain with his friends, relaxing in the cozy dwellings they’ll make and learning from these great teachers. But God has other plans, appearing in a cloud and telling the frightened disciples “This is my son, my Chosen, listen to him!” echoing God’s blessing at Jesus’ baptism. To understand the message God wants Jesus’ disciples to remember, we have to go back to the verses just prior to our reading in which Jesus tells them he is going to suffer and die, so that he can be raised again. Jesus goes on to tell the disciples that they too will have to take up their cross and lose everything if they want to follow him.
Jesus’ earthly departure, translated from the Greek word exodus, is exactly what Jesus is discussing with Moses and Elijah when the disciples witness this supernatural scene. Standing with Moses, representing the Law of the Ten Commandments, and Elijah, representing the Prophets, Jesus is physically fulfilling the Scriptures, just as he promised earlier in Luke’s Gospel. We associate the word exodus with Moses leading the Israelites to freedom; here, Jesus’ exodus and resurrection will free humankind and restore God’s creation.
Peter, James, and John didn’t quite understand all of Jesus’ teaching about dying and renewal before they got on the mountain, and now they’re not quite sure what they’ve experienced in Jesus’ transfiguration. What they do understand, as members of the dispossessed Jewish community chafing under Roman rule, is Jesus’ reference to the cross. It’s not a metaphor for them; losing everything means dying a horrific death. It’s no wonder Peter doesn’t want to leave the mountain; he’s facing more than a few loads of laundry.
But even in their confusion, Jesus’ friends know they’ve had an epiphany. As theologian Frederick Buechner puts it “It was Jesus of Nazareth all right , the man they'd tramped many a dusty mile with, whose mother and brothers they knew, the one they'd seen as hungry, tired, footsore as the rest of them.” but “it was also the Messiah, the Christ, in his glory. It was the holiness of the man shining through his humanness, his face so afire with it they were almost blinded.” So, the three disciples stumble down the mountain, following Jesus and carrying the memory of that light into the chaos that awaits them below.
Though they’ve seen the glory of God shining through Jesus, Peter, James, and John won’t fully grasp Jesus’ teaching until after the resurrection – that the incarnate God shines through them as well. It’s only after this deeper revelation that they can perform all the same miracles as Jesus and spread his Good News of love and compassion.
It’s easy to despair in the seemingly unrelenting darkness of the world and run to the refuge of our own places of comfort, seeking to stay wrapped in a cocoon of security. Maybe one of those places is this sanctuary here at St. Andrew’s. But God persistently reminds us, as he did the disciples, that Divine glory is all around us. Though we may not see Jesus’ shining face or his dazzling white robes, Frederich Buechner continues “Even with us something like that happens once in a while. Every once and so often, something so touching, so incandescent, so alive transfigures the human face that it's almost beyond bearing.”
In the next few days, I invite you to consider how you’ve seen the light of Christ shining through the faces around you. Maybe, like me, you’ve seen the light of hope in folks gathered around our Table of Kindness after Saturday breakfast, or maybe you’ve seen the light of joy in the faces of family and friends at dinner, or maybe you’ve seen the light of adoring love in the gaze of your pets. Next, wonder about how you’ve been Christ’s light to those around you, offering a helping hand, laughng in friendship, crying in grief. Paul tells us and the Church in Corinth that “All of us” “seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.”
Soon, we’ll observe Ash Wednesday and anticipate Lenten revelations to come. We may be no more sure of where they will lead us than the three wise people at the first epiphany or the three disciples at Jesus’ transfiguration, but we do know God asks us to move out of our comfort zones to walk with Jesus. We can trust that the way is alight with God’s glory shining through each of us and for each of us.
As civil rights leader John Lewis wrote, “You are light. You are the light. If you follow your truth down the road to peace and the affirmation of love, if you shine like a beacon for all to see, then the poetry of all the great dreamers and philosophers is yours to manifest in a nation, a world community, and a Beloved Community that is finally at peace with itself.”
