Today, with our altar hangings changed to white, the colour of joy, we celebrate the Transfiguration of our Lord. You might ask if we haven’t already done this, and the answer is yes, we have. Every year, like Christmas and Easter, the Transfiguration falls on last Sunday of the Epiphany season. But here we are today, getting ready to celebrate it again – and it’s such a mysterious and glorious day, it’s well worth a repeat appearance in our Liturgical calendar. And, for a little variety, today’s Gospel reading comes, not from Matthew, as it did earlier this year, but from Luke.
Both our Bible lessons this morning have one basic thing in common – they tell terrifying stories. Of course, as so often is the case, we modern listeners are too far removed from the events and the times in which they occurred to appreciate fully just how terrifying these situations were for those who lived through them. Nonetheless, we are invited by the Church to, through our imaginations, place ourselves in their shoes – or sandals.
“Moses came down from Mount Sinai. As he came down from the mountain with the two tablets of the covenant in his hand, Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God.”
Moses, who has lead the children of Israel out of bondage, now comes down from Mount Sinai, where he has gone to converse with God. Often, in Biblical stories, in order to speak with the Almighty, one must climb a mountain. The image makes sense, because the top is close to heaven. The other thing one can always find in abundance at a mountaintop is silence. The world drops away below, and the climber is surrounded by silence. Moses ascends, in order to receive blessing and instruction, to be closer to, and more open to God.
On his return, Moses brings with him the two tablets of the covenant. They are not the focus of today’s lesson, though they demonstrate that one never comes away from a divine encounter empty handed. Up to this point, the story seems simple and straightforward. Then, comes the last curios bit. Having descended the mountain, “The skin of Moses face shone because he had been talking with God.”
The terror this must have caused the early Israelites is lost on us who know that a good makeup artist and/or some special effects can create that sort of illusion in a matter of minutes. But this was not an illusion, and for those who saw it, it was terrifying, so much so that Moses put a veil over his face, a veil he removed only when he went in to speak with God.
Moses and those with him have experienced God in fire, in whirlwind and pillar of cloud, they tremble with awe, respect, and fear, at what we today write off as “natural phenomenon”. We consider the ancients rather superstitious in the way they attribute such things to Divine intervention. Have we become too “sophisticated” to appreciate the glory of God? Perhaps so! Perhaps the glow of Moses’ face would today be just another “medical anomaly”.
Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray.
Again, a mountain top, and the nearness to God it represents. In our first lesson, Moses descends the mountain after talking to God. Jesus and His chosen disciples ascend a mountain to do the same thing. This is the type of journey to which the disciples would have been accustomed, but this day is different from other days. Normally, the disciples would be in good spirits, happy to go with Jesus. However, not included in our Gospel reading, but just prior to it, the disciples have heard Jesus say, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.”
As they ascend the mountain with their friend and rabbi, Peter, John, and James must have been in emotional turmoil. Such a state is one to which we can all relate. All of us know the upset, the tension, the drop in the pit of our stomach, when we learn of an impending death, and Jesus has not only told His friends He is going to die, but that He will be executed.
So today’s Gospel opens with three very upset men accompanying their close friend and rabbi, the man Peter has just identified, (again not in our reading today), as the Christ, as He heads up a mountain to pray – to speak to God the Father. Thus far we’re right on board. Perhaps because they are tired from the hike and emotionally exhausted, while Jesus prays, His three friends fall asleep. Up to this point, this is a very human story, and we know what’s going on. And then:
While Jesus was praying, the appearance of His face changed, and His clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Elijah, talking to Him. They appeared in glory …
This is where, because we can’t make modern day connections to their experience, we may lose touch with what is going on. But try for a moment, if you will, to put yourself in the disciple’s place. You’ve just completed a climb, a hike, up to a mountain top, a hike made in a condition of emotional stress, in the company of a close friend whom you deeply respect, but who has told you He will soon be executed. Up to this point, all you have experienced with this Person points to His humanity. Even His announcement concerning His coming death isn’t too surprising. His friends know the authorities would love to silence Him. But what is happening to Him now far surpasses anything human.
And there is symbolism here we might miss, but the disciples did not. Moses symbolized the Law, the first five books of what we call the Old Testament, which was the only Bible the apostles or the early Church knew, and Elijah symbolized the Prophets, who made up pretty much the rest of that Bible. So, for the Law and the Prophets to be there, but to vanish, and then for the disciples to be told to listen to Jesus alone, this is one way of saying that, if you have to choose between the Law and the Prophets (the Bible of the day) or Jesus, you choose Jesus. It’s a command from God, and pretty terrifying.
So what does all this mean for us? Today, we have heard about Moses, and how he was changed by his encounter with God the Father. And we have been told how Jesus was transfigured before His friends when they went with Him to pray. How do we receive these stories of the miraculous? What are we to learn from them?
First and foremost, we are reminded that God surpasses human understanding, and that we would do well to take a humble attitude toward things we may normally write off with modern explanations. When we aren’t looking for miracles, we are not likely to find them. Second, though equally important, in our Gospel we are reminded that we, too, are called to choose Jesus – even over the accepted norms of our day. We are called to find Him, seek His radiance in our lives, in our experiences, in each other. But how is this accomplished?
Do you know how to love the way we are commanded to love? Have you any idea what miracles that kind of loving reveals? Are we waiting for a burst of glory to illuminate Jesus in our daily lives, or are we too sophisticated to believe that the experiences of those disciples long ago could be found in our life experiences today? We would like to know how to love fully and unconditionally. We would dearly love to see a miracle or two – a burst of glory to guide us, answer our questions, our doubts, and reveal all. But it all seems so improbable, such things happened so long ago.
What we see depends on what we’re looking for. What do you find in each daily experience? Whom do you see when you look at a friend or even an enemy? Are you seeking the miracle, are you looking for the Transfigured Lord? Or are you just waiting for the light to dawn and all to be made clear?
Even the Transfiguration did not give enough light to see Jesus fully. To see Him fully required the whole journey; it required walking the road ahead, all of that road. And it is only by making the whole of their journey with Jesus, a journey they did not anticipate and could not have imagined, a journey that led to Golgotha and beyond, it was only by doing this that the disciples came to realize who Jesus really was. That’s why, old though they may be, the Gospels have lots and lots of stories and sayings. No single story or saying is enough—no single experience is enough—and no one can know the whole of who Jesus is and what He is about until that person has walked all of his or her entire journey with Jesus.
For us the transfiguration is an ongoing experience, one in which we are meant to be intimately involved. We are called to be channels of God’s grace and Love on earth. We are called to be less sophisticated and more humble, to look for the miracles and to find Jesus in each person we meet. We are called to climb the seven-story mountain. So, time to put on our hiking boots, or just tighten up the laces, and get ready for some hard work. We cannot know fully who Jesus is until we have walked our entire journey with Jesus, a journey we are still walking, a journey that is far from over.
What does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.
Let us pray:
Lord, transform us – not for our benefit, but for the benefit of the world. Do Your work in us – molding us, making us, shaping us, changing us, to be the new creation You have called us to be in Jesus Christ. Help us to humbly seek and serve You all our days. In Jesus Name, Amen.