Thanks to the writings of Lawrence Moore, Matt Skinner, and D. Mark Davis for their insights into today's reading.
MARK 9:2-9
Six days later, Jesus took with him
Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by
themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes
became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them. And
there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with
Jesus. Then Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be
here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and
one for Elijah.” He did not know what to say, for they were
terrified. Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there
came a voice, “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!”
Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them any more,
but only Jesus. As they were coming down the mountain, he ordered
them to tell no one about what they had seen, until after the Son of
Man had risen from the dead.
This is the Word of the Lord.
How many times have you heard sermons
and lessons on the Transfiguration? I mean, Transfiguration Sunday
happens every year, the last Sunday before Lent begins. And while not
every preacher follows the church calendar, I would think that it's a
pretty safe bet that a preacher can't resist telling a cool story
like this at least once a year...
So if you come to church regularly,
you've heard about the Transfiguration a whole lot. So have I. I've
preached a sermon on the Transfiguration every year I've been here,
obviously, but if you were to back me in a figurative corner and ask
me to state, definitively, what the transfiguration of Jesus means...
well, I couldn't give you one answer, and honestly, I think that if
we were to package this event into one specific, over-arching
explanation, we'd be selling the narrative short. God always speaks
to us where we are, individually and as a church.
And God speaks to us directly in the
Transfiguration: “This is my Son, the Beloved...” One translation
of this phrase reads, “This is my beloved son in whom I take
delight.” Far from an event that invokes sober reverence and awe,
for God, Transfiguration is an opportunity to declare love, to be
delighted with Jesus the Son.
And it is a shared delight – Jesus is
not alone, after all, Peter and James and John, not to mention Moses
and Elijah, are there in the presence of God, enjoying the delight
that God feels! Delight is an aspect of the holy – and this
holiness is a participatory, shared holiness. God loves, so God
interacts. God gives of God's self, because self-giving is just what
happens when someone adores and celebrates someone else.
So Transfiguration is an opportunity to
simply enjoy the presence of God in Jesus Christ, to be ourselves
transformed by the light of his grace and love.
Because, make no mistake, we cannot
stand long in the presence of God without being transformed. The word
for “transfiguration” and for “transformation” is the same
one: “metemorphothei,” the word we get “metamorphosis” from.
Romans 12:2 tells us “Do not conform to the pattern of this world,
but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be
able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing
and perfect will.” Which is all well and good, but I like being
told the “what” without the “how” just about as much as I
like paying sales tax. The good news is that God tells us the “how.”
In 2 Corinthians 3:18, “And we all, who with unveiled faces
contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image
with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the
Spirit.”
The light of Transfiguration lives
within us in God the Holy Spirit, bringing us into the image and
presence of our loving Creator! That's something to delight in, isn't
it?
So yes, the Transfiguration is for us.
It is, perhaps, Mark's Resurrection account, a picture of the risen
and glorified Christ in a Gospel which, in its original form, doesn't
really have one – it ends like it begins, with a sentence fragment,
and empty tomb and some terrified women.
On this mountain, we have Jesus, the
Christ, as King of Kings and Lord of Lords, robed in the blinding
glory of God, attended by Moses, who represents the Law, and Elijah,
who represents the Prophets. This is the Jesus of the Final Judgment,
prepared to separate the sheep from the goats.
From this perspective alone, it makes
sense that Peter and James and John were terrified (in fact, a
literal translation might be that they were “freaked out”). After
all, it's all well and good to talk about the Final Judgment,
especially when we're talking about all those other people who'll get
judged for their sins. Face to face with the reality of the Judge
Himself, we might not be so quick to point at others... just sayin'.
On the other hand, the promise of a
resurrected Christ is, after all, why we believe in the first place,
isn't it? Without the real and physical resurrection of Jesus Christ,
we might as well just sleep in on Sunday, we might as well live our
lives as if this is all there is, and once we are dead we are dust.
But God identifies Jesus as the
beloved, in whom God is delighted! The resurrection is God's seal of
approval on the completed work of Jesus the Son, and the promise of
our faith is that in the same way that Jesus rose and lives
eternally, we will rise, and we will live.
But yet again, I think if we leave it
at this, settle for the triumphalism, we may well be missing
something that God is saying to us.
After all, it is no small matter that,
in order for Jesus to rise, he must die. And not a simple death, what
Rush Limbaugh might refer to as “assuming room temperature.” Yes,
I just quoted Rush Limbaugh in a sermon, and no, I am not proud of
it.
There is one path down from that
mountaintop for Jesus. One path that leads to Jerusalem, one path to
the Garden of Gethsemane, one path to the Pavement and the whip and
the crown of thorns, one path to Golgotha and the nails, one path to
the cold, cold tomb.
It's easy, far too easy, to simply view
the crucifixion of Jesus in the light of the Resurrection, and what I
mean by that is to too easily dismiss the fear Jesus felt, the mortal
terror that caused him to sweat blood at Gethsemane, the
hopelessness of his cry, “My God, my God, why have you forgotten
me?”
Our passage today begins with the
words, “six days later.” That's how long it had been since Peter
had declared that Jesus was the Messiah, and Jesus had begun trying
to prepare his disciples for what was to come: “...that the Son of
Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief
priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and
after three days rise again.”
But the disciples don't get it – they
either can't or won't understand. Peter and the rest continue to
impose their own terms on what following Jesus means. Before and
after the Transfiguration, the disciples refuse to accept Jesus'
political fate, they discuss who will be greatest among them when
Jesus takes over and imposes Empire upon the face of the earth; James
and John try to do an end-run around the rest to get the best seats
in the house.
So on the Mount of Transfiguration,
Moses and Elijah meet with Jesus to talk about what's to come – I
think that this was for Jesus, reassurance that the path down from
the mountaintop was the right one; and when God speaks from the
cloud, he says something to Peter and James and John – and to us –
“...listen to him!”
For Peter, James, and John, this means
to stop trying to frame the Kingdom of God in their own template.
Yes, life under the boot of Rome was tiresome and unjust, and yes it
would be nice to overpower, overthrow, destroy the Romans, grind them
to dust, and establish David's throne on earth by force. But the
Kingdom of God is more than mere earthly empire. There is more to the
Messiah than who gets to sit next to him in the throne room.
And – this was for the disciples and
it is for us, today – we will never transform the world, we will
not change people, by force. It simply cannot be done, not in the
name of Christ, and Christ knows we've tried. Kings and emperors and
Presidents and prime ministers too numerous to count have conquered
and ruled and have claimed to do so within the will of God. One after
another over the millenia, each on the ashes of the one before, and
what do we have to show for it?
Poverty is still rampant. Government is
rife with corruption. People the world over die every day from a lack
of food and clean water, people die of easily preventable diseases,
and even more despicable, far more shameful: children in our own city
go to bed hungry, and far too many without a roof over their heads,
every night. I will disagree with the governor and with the chief
justice and with the senator and the attorney general in that it is
this above all else which is the greatest sin in our state, that if
Alabama is to incur the wrath of God it is for our inattention to the
least of these in our midst, and the fact that we do it in the name
of God.
Jesus was transfigured by the love of
his Father, who delighted in him. We are transformed through the love
of God in the risen Christ, through the renewing of the Holy Spirit.
It is love – not power, not weapons,
not empire, which will ultimately transform this state, this country,
and this world into one where all are fed and can drink clean water,
where all are healthy and freed of poverty, where every child and
every veteran has a home, a world where men and women and children
from all walks of life enter the Kingdom of God not from fear of
damnation or promise of prosperity, but because of what God's people
have done to demonstrate the love of God in their lives, a world
where God truly is glorified not just with our lips, but with our
lives.
What does the Transfiguration mean to
you, today? By that I mean, how is God speaking to you? How are you
being transformed by the renewing of your mind? Which path is yours,
off the mountaintop of your transfiguration? How will you, in turn
transform your world?
