Luke 9:28-43 (Year C)
“I’ll never be the same again!” That’s what we say when something happens to us that is so amazing, so wonderful, so unbelievable, and awesome that we are changed forever. Maybe it’s the birth of your first child… maybe it’s the experience of your wedding… maybe it’s an experience of grace through service… or making it through an especially difficult time. Transformation marks our lives in a particular way. The word implies a new focus coming to our lives. It signals being more in tune with ourselves and with God. Being transformed means recognizing a turning point in our lives. And understanding that, in many ways, we can never go back to the way it was. We are different. We are changed. We are transformed.
That’s what the trio of disciples and Jesus experienced on the mountain. They went up on the mountain to have some alone time… some recharging time… and there Jesus is suddenly and inexplicably joined by two ancient figures of faith. Moses appears – Jewish representative of the Law – and Elijah with him – prophet par excellance – representative of the prophecies of all of God’s creation. And they spoke with him and talked about what Jesus, and by association, his followers would encounter in the time that remained. They talked of betrayal, suffering, and death. They spoke of glory and power and the might and wisdom of God.
And the disciples were so affected by the experience that they did what any of us would have done. They wanted to build a monument, to tell others what they had seen, and so that they would be able to return often to remember the full impact of what had happened to them. It was a very Jewish response to a very holy experience. Wherever God makes God’s presence known to humankind, let’s at least pile some rocks together so that people will know – “God Was Here!”
But that’s not what God wants for our lives. God doesn't
want us to freeze the mystery in our lives nor even to sit still and ponder it
forever. Instead, God calls us to enter into the mystery and use it as our fuel
for living. That's really the only effective way we can deal with mystery. And
how do we do that? "Listen to him," says El Shaddai. "This is my
son, the beloved, the chosen. Listen to him." At the center of the mystery
are not more words. At the center of the mystery are not enlightenment or
understanding. At the center of the mystery is a person. Jesus. "Listen to
him."
In the church, we celebrate Transfiguration Sunday just before Ash Wednesday. The prayers of the early church give us some indication of why this is appropriate. When we experience the awesomeness of God, we are given the strength to bear our cross and become more like Jesus. The Lenten season gives us a path to renewed discipleship – walking the way of the cross and rediscovering what it means to resist evil in whatever forms it presents. During Lent, we can take on opportunities to give up things that draw us away from God and take on things that bring us closer to Him. These can make our Easter that much more lovely, that much more holy, that much more miraculous.[i]
In the ancient Church, five big celebrations commemorated the life of Christ: Christmas & Epiphany (or Three Kings Day), Baptism of the Lord, the Transfiguration, Holy Week/Easter, and Ascension Day. Remarkably, we celebrate all within a four to five-month period, and the rest of the year is just about figuring out what to do with what we know about who Jesus is and how he wants us to live – that’s why we call it Ordinary Time.
Transfiguration Day is sort of the middle of the journey, and in the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), this event serves as a bridge between Jesus’ public ministry and his passion. Throughout Jesus’ Epiphany journey, we have seen him travel near and far, preaching, teaching, healing, and redefining what the Kingdom of God is all about. As we transition into the Season of Len, we will see Jesus set his face toward Jerusalem, continuing even though he knows what is to come.
If we take nothing else away from this passage into Lent, as we prepare for the crescendo of Good Friday and Easter, we must do this: "Listen to him.” According to Paul in this week's epistle lesson, the reason Moses wore a veil is so that the people wouldn't see the glory fading. We can't stay on the mountain. The shine of our encounter with the holy will fade away. But the reality does not. Jesus is the Reality, who stands in our midst as the living Word. "Listen to him." Really listen.
This Sunday, some preachers will end the reading here, with Jesus and the disciples leaving the mountain to go about their life and ministry. But the lectionary has given us the option to continue to Jesus’ next acts of ministry, service, and healing.
It’s is a real-life tragedy – down and dirty – it’s going from the sublime to the depths of despair. Whether this man was indeed possessed by a demon, or whether he was demonstrating signs of mental illness, the fear surrounding his behavior and the shadow that it cast on his family and community was a real and present danger to himself and maybe those around him.
But we have to come down from the mountain to get there. We have to go through Lent to experience the full joy of Easter. But in it all, we remember the mountain… we relive it in our minds, we know that it changed us forever, and set us on a new path of faith. Our time in worship, study, and retreat… all the places where we experience the awesomeness of God – that’s what gives us the fuel and enthusiasm and courage we need to return to the “everyday world” of human need where, often through us, Jesus heals the sick and opposes the forces of evil. We must remember that if worship is a retreat, it is not a retreat from the world but a retreat to come back to the world in love, mercy, and grace.[ii]
Jesus knew what was in store for him. He knew that his time on earth was limited and that despite his teaching and example, for a moment, evil would have its way. But he came down off the mountain anyway. He came down with his disciples and he did the hard thing that needed to be done. His ministry wasn’t over. His journey among the people taught important lessons. They were not theological lectures on the nature of God or sacred worship spaces or who are the great spiritual leaders. No, these lessons were lived out in service to God and others and brought healing and wholeness to people’s lives when they were in the depths of despair and saw no hope for the future.
God’s words from the mountain
were a commandment to us – “Listen to him.” - a directive for getting on with
the business of faith. And in listening, and leaving the mountain to go down to
all that we know will happen to Jesus and disciples - the teaching, the
healing, the suffering, and the death – those parts of the journey are the only
way that we can get to the point of what Jesus’ whole story is about.
We only understand the importance of Jesus’ life and ministry when we think about the whole thing. Jesus isn’t different because he dies on the cross. Jesus is different because on Sunday when the ladies went to prepare his body for burial, he wasn’t there. Everything Jesus does when he comes off that mountain points through his death to the resurrection. That’s why we worship on Sunday – because every Sunday is a celebration of Easter… a “little” Easter if you think about it. That’s why when we are counting the days backward from Easter to find Ash Wednesday, we don’t count Sundays. Because Sundays are still celebration days. Sundays are still resurrections days, filled with all of the hope and joy and amazement of the first resurrection on the first Easter morning.
Will Willimon once shared a story about a Duke sophomore who we’ll call Mark. A life-long Presbyterian, he felt called to work in inner-city ministry after hearing Dr. Tony Campolo, a famous evangelical preacher, speak at Duke Chapel on Palm Sunday. After a rigorous interview process, Mark was asked to join a summer mission team in Philadelphia and later described his first-day experience to Will.
In mid-June, Mark met about a hundred other youth in a local Baptist church. They sang for about an hour before Dr. Campolo arrived, and when he did, the youth were all worked up and ready to go. Dr. Campolo preached to them for about an hour, and people were shouting and clapping and standing in the pews. Then Tony said, “OK gang, are you ready to go out and tell them about Jesus?” “Yeah,” the kids replied, “let’s go.”
So, he loaded them up on buses, singing and clapping. But as they began to enter the poor neighborhoods of Philadelphia, the kids gradually stopped singing, and the bus Mark was on got very quiet. When they pulled up to one of the worst housing projects in the country, Tony stood up, opened the bus door, and said, “OK gang, get out there and tell them about Jesus… I’ll pick you up at five.”
The young people slowly made their way off the bus, and they stood in little groups as the bus drove away. Mark walked down the sidewalk, faced a run-down tenement building, said a prayer under his breath, and walked inside. There was a terrible odor. Windows were out. There were no lights in the hall. Babies were crying behind thin, scrawled walls. He walked up one flight of stairs and knocked on the first door he came to.
“Who is it?” a voice called out. The door cracked open, and he could see a woman holding a naked baby. He told her he wanted to tell her about Jesus. With that she slammed the door, cursing him down the stairs and out into the street.
“What made me think I could do this,” he thought. “What kind of Christian am I?” He sat down on the curb and cried. When he looked up, he noticed a store on the corner and remembered the naked baby in the lady’s arms. So, he went in and bought a package of diapers and a pack of cigarettes, and went back and knocked on the lady’s door again.
“Who is it?” the same voice called again. When she opened the door, Mark slid the diapers and cigarettes into her arms. She looked at them and motioned him in. He put a diaper on the baby, his first, and smoked a cigarette, his first and last, and sat there talking to the lady and playing with the baby all afternoon. About four o’clock, the woman looked at him and said, “Let me ask you something. What’s a nice college boy like you doing in a place like this?” So, he told her all he knew about Jesus. It took about five minutes. And she replied, “Pray for me and my baby that we can make it out of this place alive.” And he so prayed.
That evening, when they all got back on the bus, Tony asked, “Well, gang, did any of you get to tell them about Jesus?” And Mark said, “I not only got to tell them about Jesus, but I also met Jesus. I went out to save somebody and ended up getting saved myself. Today, I became a disciple.”[iii]
In our lives, the
transforming power of God is most real to us in the intense moments of knowing
and is with us in both our mountain-top and valley experiences. And through it
all, when we worship and when we serve in his name… through Christ, we are
transformed. And we give thanks… Amen.
Peace, Deb
[ii] http://www.davidlose.net/2016/02/transfiguration-c-worship-transfigured/
[iii] [iii] Will Willimon, Pulpit Resource, Volume 24, No. 1, pp. 12-13.
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