Last Epiphany

May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)

SEASON: Last Epiphany
PROPER: A
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: February 14,1999

TEXT: Matthew 17:1-9 - The Transfiguration of Jesus
"Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun,and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him."

ISSUE: The passage reveals the great honor of Jesus as God's beloved Son. Jesus stands with Moses and Elijah upon the mountain top, and is the prophet Moses claimed would eventually be sent by God to follow him. It is an account of new creation and new hope for the world. It is still another call for us to "listen to him" and to accept the invitation to view accept the presence of God's Son into our lives. While Moses was alone on the mountain, Jesus invites his disciples - Peter James, and John - to be with him in glory.
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The transfiguration of Jesus on the Mountain was undoubtedly an important story in the New Testament. The story of Jesus being transfigured on a mountain top is recorded in all three of the synoptic gospels: Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Each have some varying details, but all report a very mysterious event. Mysterious events are difficult for Americans to understand. In fact, American culture stands alone among many of the other cultures in the world in terms of appreciation of mysterious events and the meaning of dreams. We are very scientifically oriented. We worship and adore our scientific technology. We like practicality. Mysterious events, miracles, dreams as a means of revealing things are often discounted or held to be suspect. However, in other cultures and certainly in the Middle Eastern culture of the 1st century, mysterious events, dreams and visions, or alternative consciousness events were seen as a means for learning and ultimately understanding more information. While we may hold the story of Jesus being transformed and becoming dazzling white as an unimportant event in the life story of Jesus, it was a significantly meaningful event for the early church. It revealed a deeper understanding of who Jesus was, and what he was about.
The story says that six days later, Jesus took several of his closest disciples - Peter, James, and John - up a high mountain. In the clouds they saw standing with him Moses and Elijah. Furthermore they became enshrouded in a thick cloud or fog. The voice of God again is heard saying, like it did at Jesus' baptismal account: "This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!"
For the people first hearing this story, especially Matthew's early Jewish Christian community, the vision had great significance. The simple mentioning of "six days" had meaning. The world was created in the Genesis story in "six days." "Six days" implies a new creation, a new order coming into being. Notice that in the Old Testament reading today from Exodus which tells of Moses receiving the Ten Commandments from God on the moutain top, that a cloud covers the mountain for "six days." The giving of the commandments to the people wandering in the wilderness marked their new beginnings as a moral people of God. In Matthew's account, Jesus is revealed in this mysterious mountain top experience as the new creation that emphatically reveals God's healing, restoration of the lost, a new order of humanity that is revealed in his life and ministry.
What is even more is that the vision experience sets Jesus in the midst of the greatest. He is seen in the spiritual presence of Moses and Elijah. In this time a person's honor was of extraordinary importance. Jesus himself was a simple carpenter from Nazareth, and the question was raised, Can anything good come from Nazareth? Jesus left his family to become a wandering teacher. For many he was held in suspicion for this activity. He broke with his family's traditional place. He dared to heal and teach in a culture that did not honor change. His place and honor was always on the edge of being dishonorable and shameful. To claim more honor that you were expected to have was shameful. The vision of Jesus standing on a mountain top with the greatest, with the voice speaking from the cloud, "This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him." is indeed a godly declaration of his ultimate honor as the Son of God. He stands among the most honorable, Moses the Lawgiver, and Elijah, Israel's most notable and respected ancient prophet. His brilliance, his brightness, his en-lighten-ment, his lighting up if you will, is similar to the brilliance of Moses who was noted to return to his people after his mountain top experience with a shining radiant face. What is seen in this vision is the two faces of Jesus, his humanity with his disciples, and his divine radiance as the Son of God. He is fully honored and held in great esteem by God, inspite of the suspicion and challenges of the world.
What is even more exciting about this visionary story to me is that Jesus has taken with him his close disciples - Peter, James and John. While Moses went to the mountain top alone, Jesus has taken witness and friends to participate in being in the presence of God and to see the revelation of just who Jesus is. They too are to participate in this moment of glorification, to be knowledgeable, to be privy to, and aware of the glory of God revealed in Jesus Christ. Peter would like to freeze the moment by building a memorial. But momentous and mysterious events cannot be captured, they can only be appreciated in the moment and they must with Jesus return to the world. They have to return to the plains and valleys. They return to the joys and sorrows of life. The return to the sick and the dying, the possessed and afflicted. They return to the uncertainties and anxieties of life. But having had the mysterious and moving event they carry on the ministry, their lives, and ultimately even the crucifixion of Jesus with a certainty that God is with them and his Son Jesus is Lord.
It is interesting to me that in one of Martin Luther King's famous sermons, he refers to having gone to the mountain top. He got to look over the top, and he saw the promised land. It was a mystical, spiritual, and moving event in his life. It told of hope. But he believed that God would deliver his people. I too have just returned from a vacation that took me to some of our countries most beautiful and highest mountains, the Rockies, the Sierra's, the Panamint Mountains beside Death Valley. Mountains are mysterious. They are the place of visions and mystery. They speak of awesome volcanic power and the awesome shifting and changing of the earth's crust that has raised them up. Their tops are more often than not in the clouds. Their explanation may well lie in science for us, but they still speak of a profound and awesome mystery and power of God. To be caught in their abrupt blinding snow storms, or to drive through their winding foggy roads can have an element of fear. But to treat to the mountains is also a time of being inspired and with the awe and wonder of God. From my own experience of being in the mountains and appreciating their awesomeness, I can better understand the experience of the transfiguration and what it must have meant to the disciples and to the early church.
The reading of the Transfiguration Story on this Sunday is also intended to be a transition between the church's season of Epiphany and the beginning of Lent. It is the climactic Epiphany story which holds up Jesus as the radiant brilliant light for the world. His close disciples share in that brilliance. It is also calls us all as the disciples of our Lord to prepare ourselves for being close to him. Lent marks that time in each of our own lives for making a retreat from the world's business, for carving out time to be with the Lord and let ourselves be immersed in his glory and lifted to the Presence. It is our time for climbing the mountain to be with Christ, and to be ready to share in rigors of his crucifixion and the struggles of our own lives, and at the same time to look forward to and to be assured of the hope of resurrection and new life. It is a time of experiencing our own transfiguration, that we might ourselves be enlightened and radiant and faithful to Christ in his ministry and in anticipation of his resurrection and our own.