We begin Lent this week, a time of reflection on Jesus’ life as he journeys toward Jerusalem and his death on the cross. Traditionally it has been a season of thoughtful introspection, often sad and depressing, but it needn’t be. Many Christians have traditionally given up something for Lent to remind themselves of the sacrifices that Jesus made in order to fulfill his destiny and bring all men and women into a loving, affirming, life-giving relationship with God. Some have more recently decided that in order to reflect the true light of Christ in their lives that they will instead add something to their lives during Lent by volunteering at a homeless shelter, or a food bank, or going to a nursing home to visit the lonely persons there who have often been abandoned by family and friends.
The story is told at the very end of Herman Wouk’s two book long series the Winds of War and War & Remembrance of a young mother, Natalie, reunited with her child, Louis, after their terrible ordeal in a concentration camp. The child has refused to speak while separated from his mother, but when she returns to him cradles him and begins to sing a soft lullaby to him; the child begins to slowly sing along with his mother. The two men watching this scene unfold before them “each put a hand over his eyes, as though dazzled by an unbearable sudden light.” They were looking at transcendent beauty that forced them to cover their eyes. That is the kind of light that emanated forth from Jesus that morning up on the mountaintop with his disciples.
We think of Transfiguration as a very supernatural kind of thing that only happened back in Biblical times, not something that could happen to you and I in our modern lives today. Oh, back then, we tell ourselves, God suspended the very laws of nature and physics to make really important statements…but, we also tell ourselves…God doesn’t act that way now.
But is that really true? Or are we misunderstanding and misinterpreting, as we are often prone to do, the very real spiritual experience that did happen to Jesus and the disciples? Do we do the same thing in our own lives today, ignore the truly spiritual moments of transformation and transfiguration that God wants us to experience?
As we begin this Lenten Journey with Jesus let us remember that we do so at the invitation of Jesus just as he invited Peter, James and John to go with him to pray on the mountain Jesus invites us to go with Him on a journey to Jerusalem. Like the disciples we are being called during Lent to go where Jesus goes and to do what Jesus does. And, like Jesus and the disciples, we are called to do this in community with one another, not alone, but together.
Just before they go up the mountain they have had a conversation about who Jesus was. Jesus asks all of the disciples to tell him what the buzz about him is among the people? They answer that some think he must be John the Baptist, others Elijah, or one of the other prophets come back from God. But that isn’t what Jesus really wants to know. So he asks them again, “Okay, guys, that’s what everyone else may be saying about me, but who do you say that I really am?” Its one thing to tell about what others think and believe about Jesus, about God, but it’s something else when we have to explain what we truly believe about who God is in Jesus Christ. It makes it very personal and very spiritual. Peter, the first one to speak, responds immediately, “You are the Messiah of God.”
You’d think that Jesus would have given Peter an A for his response to the question, but instead Jesus tells the disciples to not share that information with anyone because things are going to get very rough for him and for those who follow him. He says he’s going to suffer and die and on the third day be raised again. Anyone who wants to be his follower must be willing to lay down their own life, too. As we have talked about frequently before, the disciples don’t seem to understand.
And like the disciples we are often going to be less than understanding of what Jesus is telling us and showing us than perhaps we think we do. Jesus has just told the disciples that he must go to Jerusalem where he will face troubles and death but they don’t really believe him because they have a different outcome in mind than that which Jesus is trying to tell them about. They want a taste of victory and liberation from the despised Romans. Death and suffering is not what they had in mind; glory sounded so much better to them. How often do you and I ignore the obvious spiritual lessons that God wants to teach to us because those lessons don’t correspond to how we want to live our lives?
Oh, they get a big taste of glory up on the mountain that morning, but it wasn’t what they thought they were going to get, and the truth of the moment exceeds their understanding according to the text. Like Moses up on the mountain seeing and talking with God, Peter, James and John get a real taste of glory. As usual they aren’t able to pray with Jesus and stay awake. Suddenly they are brought out of their sleepiness by the sight of Jesus, whose body and clothing are now glowing with an unnatural brightness, is seen talking with Moses and Elijah. Moses represents the tradition of the Law and Elijah the traditions of the prophets. Joined together with Jesus, the author of Luke, is telling us that Jesus is the natural successor of these two traditions and in fact unites them into one spiritual wholeness.
Here we are in the middle of this holy moment Peter, like Peter often does, interrupts saying something to which he hasn’t given much thought. “Oh, wow, this is really something, Jesus. Let’s build three houses here. One for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah so we can preserve this moment forever. We can live right up here on the mountain for the rest of our lives.”
All over the world there have been monuments and churches built to preserve such holy miraculous moments for all of rest of history. Frozen moments in time to which we can return and remind ourselves how wonderful it was or might have been for those who were present when it happened. Sure, those moments are important, but I don’t think that God intends for us to freeze those moments in history and stay up on the mountaintop. I believe instead that God wants us to use such moments to be the motivation and the reason for us to accomplish God’s hopes and plans for us and others through us. We have to take the miracle with us back down the mountain to where we live our daily lives.
And so out of the divine cloud that surrounds them God speaks almost as if to tell Peter to shut up. God, who spoke to Jesus at his baptism and told him that he was God’s beloved child, now says to those with Jesus that this is God’s chosen one, God’s beloved and only child, and suggests that they listen to him.” Maybe God was annoyed with Peter for interrupting this holy experience. As one commentator wrote, “If Moses was told up on that mountain that he couldn’t see God and live, perhaps Peter should have been told that he couldn’t see God and talk so much.” Perhaps God was also saying to the mostly Jewish audience that Luke was writing to, “Yes, Moses and Elijah had a lot to say that you need to pay attention to, but you need to pay even more attention to what Jesus has to say because he is my chosen one.”
Peter is just like you and me. We often try to talk our way into understanding. We want to process the experience so we can come to understand it and make our understanding a part of who we are. But more often we want to, like Peter, carve that moment in stone by building a monument or by hardening our own traditions and interpretations of scripture to say, “This is what we believe. We’ve always believed this way. We’ve always done things this way. We’ve always said it this way.” We want to take the experience and make it into something that we can hold on to, something that won’t change, and best of all, something that really won’t change us…or not that much, hopefully.
But Jesus wouldn’t let them preserve the moment. Jesus takes them back down the mountain and back into the world where they meet a man with a sick child. The man had approached the disciples to heal his son, but they couldn’t help, even though they had been up on the mountaintop with Jesus. So he calls upon Jesus to heal his beloved only child, echoing the words of God about Jesus up on the mountain. And Jesus responds with the loving-kindness of God and heals the boy.
My four grandsons love transformer toys. They are always showing me a toy that looks like one thing but with a few twists and turns becomes something else entirely. When I don’t know what else to give them, I can always purchase a transformer toy and know that they will be delighted with it, for at least a moment or two. That’s usually what we want to do with transformational experiences in our own lives. Hold on to them for a moment or two, but not long enough to let them really change us into what God wants us to become.
We are truly afraid of being changed. Because when we allow God to change us, we aren’t in control of the outcome any longer. And that scares us. I don’t understand why, but it does. Because the one thing that we do know is that God loves us and wants the very best for us, so why are we afraid to let God change us to become the best that we can become?
The word transfiguration is different from the word transformation. Transfiguration is about change, but it emphasizes a dramatic change in appearance, and it especially means a change that glorifies or exalts someone, which truly works well for today’s scripture reading about what happened to Jesus. But transformation also means the “changed state that results from this change in appearance.”
And that works well for us as we come to the end of another season of Epiphany. During Epiphany we have turned our hearts and minds and opened our eyes and ears to the ways that God is showing forth God’s self in the world around us. Here at the edge of Lent, as we set out with Jesus toward Jerusalem and the mount of Calvary, we pause on another mountain for one of those “mountaintop experiences,” one of those thrilling moments when we truly glimpse glory, a bright flash of light, an indescribable moment when everything seems to change not just in appearance, but becomes forever different for us.
Oh, we may not be up on a mountaintop this morning, but the experience this past year of watching this congregation grow in so many different ways, not just in the number of persons, but in heart and soul of each person, as we have deepened our spiritual growth and our relationships with God and with each other, yes, that is a mountaintop experience all by itself.
The stories of your lives are the stories of people who have found their way to God and to us, people who thought that there was no church home for them anywhere, no spiritual community that would welcome them and their faith walk, no place that would be grateful and celebrate their presence. But here you are today. Your personal stories make my heart fill with wonder and awe and I am transfigured by the changes I see in you, changes you never thought you would experience, that I have to put my hands over my eyes because you move me to transcendence with your faith and your hope and your presence here this morning. You are a miracle that I cannot ignore nor explain away.
Metropolitan Community Church Seattle is a different church than we were a year ago. Together we have begun a journey toward heaven. Soon we will receive more new members, persons who have already told me that they are committing to joining us on this journey. Their stories will be joined with ours and we must not expect them to do things the way we have always done them or to believe the way we have always believed. We won’t put up pup tents nor will we carve anything in stone. We will instead, stand still for our moment of glory and then we will go back down the mountain and continue the work we have been given as we journey with Jesus everyday of our lives…together.
The true work of discipleship isn’t up on the mountain; it’s out there in the world. We take the church, this church, to the world when we leave here this morning, transfiguring lives as we go.
The story is told by a surgeon about a young couple. The doctor had to perform a disfiguring surgery on a young woman so that she could live. As a result of the surgery she would never be able to smile on one side of her face again. The surgeon felt very bad about this outcome and watched with a heavy heart as her partner went into her room and saw her for the first time, her mouth drawn permanently downward on one side. Her partner reached out and touched her face and said, “I think it’s kind of cute; your crooked little smile,” and kissed her gently. The doctor said he had to look away from these two young people, as if the light of their love were too bright for him to bear.
Where is God? All of the earth, all of creation, broken and yet beautiful, is full of the presence of God. We don’t have to climb a mountain to find God, although we probably should turn off our cell phones, computers, and television sets long enough to notice…like our ancestor Jacob, who said, “God is in this place, and I wasn’t aware of it.”
God is in the beauty of nature. God is in those moments of unconditional, tender love. God is there, between the lines of our lives, when we share our stories and our, oh, so fragile hopes. God is there in our suffering and in every moment of rescue, restoration, and resurrection. But be careful, my dearest friends, because the light may be so very bright that you will need to cover your eyes.
You and I don’t need to climb mountains or even look for miracles in order to be transfigured and changed for always. Every time we experience love, forgiveness, healing, God’s grace in our lives, we are changed forever. Every time we have a glimpse of God’s presence in our lives…a presence that is everywhere and with everyone all of the time…we are changed forever. The love that we show to one another and the love that we offer the world, the peace and justice and healing we work for, the forgiveness and reconciliation we seek, the hope we offer to those we meet, no matter who they are, no matter how we may feel about them, this is the kind of love that can change the world, change the way it looks, and feels, and the way it is, not just today, but in all the days ahead, for all of us: all God’s children, beloved and blessed by God.
Lent lies ahead of us, my sisters and brothers in Christ. The road to Jerusalem is waiting for us. Let the light of Christ shine forth from us as we walk that road with together.
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