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There is an experience from my own life that I will always think of when Transfiguration Sunday comes around. I’ve told this story before so don’t be surprised if it sounds familiar. It was a Sunday morning in early December in 1999 during my first pastorate down in Marlinton, West Virginia. My father was dying with cancer and I was expecting “the call”. It came. My brother informed me at about 5 AM. With it being Sunday, there were church services to be looked after. I could have made some calls and took the morning off, but I wanted to be in church and do what I do that morning.
I had two services to do that morning: my main church there in town and then my once a month up at Mary’s Chapel which meant a 25-minute winding drive up over Elk Mountain. It was a warm December morning and it was quite foggy there in town, the type of fog that burns off later in the morning. It took its time that day because it was December and not August. When I left Marlinton just after 11 AM it was still quite foggy and I wasn’t looking forward to twisty turns going up Elk Mountain, but away I went. About two-thirds of the way up I suddenly drove out of the fog. The sun was burning bright. The sky was clear. The dew moistened trees and ground were glistening in the sun. That just happened to be the spot where there was an overlook and I decided to pull in and take a moment because it was just absolutely beautiful and my dad just died.
I got out of the car and went to the edge of the lookout and the top of the fog clouds were just right there as if to tempt you walk out on them. It was just glory. I felt so special in God’s eyes at the moment. I felt like God had orchestrated that moment just for me just to let me know everything was going to be okay. I was still God’s beloved child and everything will be okay.
I have had quite a few blatant experiences of God in my life. Up on Elk Mountain that particular morning is one them. Because of them I feel I can say to whatever it is out there that wants to destroy any sort good in our lives and wreck our faith and hope in God, “Do what you want to me, say what you want about me, make my life fall completely to shambles, no matter what happens, I know my God is real. I know he loves me. He will work all things to the good for those who love him. It may not be in this lifetime, but Easter is coming. Resurrection is coming. God is good.”
Not to ruin the moment, but I think here in Mark’s Gospel the story of the Transfiguration, this experience that Peter, James, and John have of God (you know, a full God experience – the voice of God the Father, Jesus the Beloved Son, the Holy Spirit like a cloud overshadowing them as he did Mary and she became pregnant with Jesus – Trinity) this full God experience was supposed to establish their faith in Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of God because the worst was yet to come. When they come down from the mountain, they won’t be heading back to Galilee and Capernaum for some more wonder working by Jesus. They will go to Jerusalem and Jesus is going to die.
Something we need to know about this moment is that it happened at a low point in Jesus’s relationship with his disciples, particularly Peter. In the months leading up to this moment some pretty big things had happened. Jesus had been rejected by his home town, Nazareth. He followed that up by sending the Twelve out on a wildly successful mission trip where they, like him, taught, proclaimed, healed, and cast out demons. Then John the Baptist was put to death. Jesus followed that by feeding at least 15,000 people with 5 loaves of bread and two fish and then he walked on water to catch up with his disciples out on the Sea of Galilee only to come to shore to yet again get into a dispute with the religious leaders over their abuse of traditions. He followed that up by leaving the land of Israel only to be recognized by a Syrophoenician women who got him to heal her daughter of a demon. Back through Galilee they went to the other side of the Jordan, to a very Roman area called the Decapolis where he healed a deaf mute. Then he fed upwards of 12,000 in a desert with seven loaves of bread and a few fish. And then, after all that, the religious authorities, whom we would expect to have clued in by now, demand Jesus to give them a sign and prove he was from God, like he hadn’t been doing that all along.
If there was a pattern in all that it would be confrontation with the religious authorities followed by big signs and miracles proving Jesus to be the Messiah if not indeed somehow God in their midst. The religious authorities had a problem. God was moving right before their eyes, but their beliefs about God and the power over people that they held by being religious authorities kept them from seeing it. It’s a classic example of how faith in a living God, a real person-changing relationship with God, can so easily be supplanted with rules about behaviour, rituals, and a cadre of individuals sitting as judges. Rather than leading the people of God to a reverence for God and the healing hospitality of unconditional love, these religious authorities used fear to manipulate God’s people and create boundaries of exclusion.
Continuing on in our march to the Mount of Transfiguration and the low point Jesus was at with his disciples; Jesus told his disciples to beware this yeast of the religious and political authorities which, as I just described, is using fear of God to get power over people; but the warning only confused the Twelve. They thought he was mad at them for forgetting to bring along the bread leftovers from that feeding of the 12,000 that they could hand out along the way like they did after they fed the 15,000.
Things went downhill from there. They went to the little town of Bethsaida, a sister city to Capernaum, and Jesus oddly has some trouble healing a blind man. After the first attempt, the man can’t see clearly, so he has to try again. Is there reason to doubt him now? Is his power waning?
Jesus then led the Disciples up to Caesarea Philippi, the farthest town in Israel from Jerusalem and the most Pagan and Roman town in all of Israel. Everywhere you looked there was a shrine to some god or another and…there was also a temple of the imperial cult where one could pay homage to or even worship Caesar as Son of God. There, Jesus asked his disciples, “Who do people say I am?” They answered, “John the Baptist, Elijah, or some other prophet.” Then he asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter immediately rises to the occasion and don’t miss the gravity of the context. In this most patriotically Roman of all places in Israel, Peter professes, “You are the Messiah.” Matthew adds, “…the Son of the Living God.” Mark withholds the Son of God profession because there’s a Roman Centurion who’s going to make that confession at the end of the story upon seeing Jesus crucified. And, remember “Son of God” is what the Roman Emperor’s liked to call themselves.
Jesus is impressed that Peter’s got it, but he tells them to keep it under wraps. Then he explains to them that because he is the Messiah he will suffer greatly and be rejected by the religious authorities who will in the end kill him. But all hope was not to be lost for after three days Jesus was going to rise from the dead. Peter took him aside and dressed him down. I imagine it going something like this: “That’s not the way it’s supposed to go. You’re supposed to cast the religious authorities out and the Romans too and set up God’s kingdom, not die rejected and…Jesus…people don’t raise from the dead.” Jesus then sternly nailed Peter, “Get behind me Satan. You are not thinking the things of God, but the things of Man.” He called Peter Satan, the thing that tempted Jesus in the wilderness to use his power to rule the world for himself. And then, Jesus called a crowd together and said that if anyone wants to be his follower, they have to deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow him because there is no true life in this world to be had.
The cross Jesus referred to wasn’t just those difficulties in life. The cross was what the Romans used to execute insurrectionists. Jesus was blatantly telling the Disciples that following him is a death sentence not some self-righteous, hypocritical exercise of denying yourself chocolate and coffee during Lent. He finished saying, “Truly I say to you, there are some of you standing here who will not taste death until they see that the Kingdom of God has come with power.” That altercation left things more than a bit tense between Jesus and his closest followers.
Here we come to the Mountain of Transfiguration. It is six days later. Do you remember what happened on the sixth day in the Creation story of Genesis? Now would be a good time to recall that story because this Transfiguration story alludes to it. On the sixth day God created humanity in his image and called the whole Creation very good. Jesus led Peter, James, and John up the Mountain to re-Creation, New Creation, glorified Creation. The Greek word for led them up is the same word you would use to say “offer up a sacrifice”. We don’t translate it that way because its awkward, but think of Abraham leading Isaac his only son, the son of the Promise, up Mount Moriah to sacrifice him to God. Jesus isn’t taking them up there to sacrifice them, but rather to….hmmm….I can’t quite find the words to give body to my hunch….
Suddenly everything is changed, glorified. They step into the Kingdom of God come in power – Creation glorified – and Moses and Elijah are there. Just like on the sixth day God pronounced the creation very good, Peter says as if it is the seventh day of Creation when God reposed “it is good for us to be here, shall I build some tents for the three of you to repose.” It may have been good, but we also know that Peter is terrified. He is aware that he is in the presence of God and rumour was that anyone who goes into the presence of God will either die or is already dead.
Jesus talked with Moses and Elijah, two prophets who had had also experienced similar disillusionment with God’s purposes as well as mountain top experiences where they got things sorted out with God. They knew what Jesus was going through and had some advice to give. Quite often it happens that God will put people in our lives who can relate to us at just the right time to help us sort it out. And…sometimes God just goes all out and shows up himself. Suddenly, a cloud overshadowed them like the Holy Spirit hovering over the primordial waters of darkness just before God said “Let there be light.” And here, God the Father speaks, “This is my Son, the Beloved, listen to him!” Astute people would clue in here and conclude that what Jesus has to say to his disciples is nothing less than the light of the knowing of God that God created on the first day of Creation.
Just as I am not quite sure what to do with all this, so also the disciples are pretty shaken here. Top it all off with Jesus telling them to tell nobody about what just happened until after he rises from the dead. That confused them even more and it didn’t change the fact that things were about to get worse. As I said, they aren’t walking down the mountain to return to the good times of the Kingdom of God miracle working ministry that they had had in Galilee. They are now headed to Jerusalem.
To be a little practical here, we are in a moment of disillusionment with this pandemic going on. We look forward to the day when it’s all over and we naively think we will be able to just go back to life as it was. I remember the first few months of the clearwater canals of Venice. Smog had all but disappeared over major cities. We were hoping that when this was all over there would be real change for the better economically, socially, and environmentally. If we are looking for a fix to the world’s problems, then for all appearances this pandemic isn’t shaping up to be the catalyst for it. It is for all appearances a bunch of needless suffering caused and furthered by human lifestyle choices.
We ask the question where is God in all this. One person responded to my sermon last week which was on God restoring this big Bubble called Creation that he made so that he could have a place to repose. The response was that it is not very comforting to think of God reposing in the midst of this tumultuous world these days. I can agree. But to explain myself a little better…maybe….there are moments when we enter into the Sabbath rest of God, the Repose, the Presence of God and it is good. Like the moment of Transfiguration, he pulls us aside and it is good, but the take away seems to come back to we need to do a better job of listening to him. But here are also times like when Jesus and the Disciples were out in the boat and a wind storm blows up, waves are swamping the boat they are about to start sinking and it really seems that something out there is personally out to get them. What was Jesus doing? He wasn’t reposing in the back of the boat enjoying the goodness of bunnies and deer frolicking in his well-ordered, very good creation. He was asleep on a pillow.
To be honest, the present circumstances of life has me feeling like God is asleep on a pillow in the midst of this storm and there are people who have it a lot worse than me. Their boats really are sinking. It would be nice to see some healing, to see some demons get cast out, to see certain political and religious leaders actually get held accountable for their lying. I want to say, “Jesus, forgive my lack of faith, my impatience, my focus on me, but wake up and calm this storm.”
But, I/we don’t see the world from God’s perspective. We don’t know why God let’s happen the things he let’s happen. “Why?” is a question best left alone. It’s just best to let God be God and resolve ourselves to having the patience of Job. But this I know. Looking back on the moment of glory I had up on Elk Mountain. Yes, my father had died and that hurt and it still hurts. I knew beforehand that everything would be okay. Death just did what death does. We had known for months that there was no miracle coming for Dad. They didn’t have the treatments 20 years ago that we have today. I wasn’t looking for God to do anything because I knew this was just the way life goes, but still God pulled me aside up there on Elk Mountain just to let me know he loves me. I am a beloved child of God and so are each of you…and that’s the Transfiguration. I’ll shut up now. Amen.
