Genesis 12:1-4; 2 Timothy 1:8-10; Matthew 17:1-9; Psalm 33
March 8, 2020
Rachel Braun
The Transfiguration
This is the season of Lent. The time we get ready to celebrate the mystery of Easter, the time we are all on the way to Jerusalem. But who will show us the way?
This is how we begin the stories in Atrium during this time of the church year, and I thought it would be a good way to begin my homily, as I consider the story of the transfiguration, which we just heard in the gospel reading. What does it mean to be on the way to Jerusalem? I had some ideas about this, but I also did some research. And there were two descriptions that stood out to me. Jerusalem, according to one author is the “sacred heart of the Christian story,” and also “a metaphor for all that they [Christians] yearn for in this world and the next.” So, I think in this context, going to Jerusalem can mean the annual pilgrimage of the soul that we engage in each Lent, as we progress towards Easter.
The answer to the question: who will show us the way, is Jesus. As we heard,
Around 40 days before the events of Easter, Jesus took a few of his friends and headed up the mountain. There, the light of heaven shone upon him as he conversed with the Jewish prophets, Moses and Elijah. Witnessing this, the disciples were awestruck and terrified, and Peter, in a grand, welcoming gesture, offered to build shelters for the three of them. Then, from the clouds, God spoke, blessing, claiming, and affirming Jesus as his son.
This scene reminds me a little bit of The Lord of the Rings, where the wizard, Gandalf the Grey, dies while fighting the Balrog, sacrificing himself to save his friends. He returns from the dead, newly transformed as Gandalf the White. His hair and his clothes are now pure white, signaling that he is now the leader of his order, and he has gained both status and power.
In a similar way, the transfiguration marks an important point in Jesus’ narrative. It is just before this event that Jesus first predicts his death. And so from this point on, Jesus is facing into the path of suffering and death. And it also, in a way, establishes Jesus’ status and importance, like Gandalf. It shows that Jesus, through his association with Moses and Elijah, these towering Old Testament figures, is both a prophet and a savior, and God’s son, someone to be followed and listened to. This association was very important in the early church.
But the transfiguration is about much more than just establishing Jesus’ street credentials. And I will only touch on a little piece of what it means today. Many years ago, my first year English professor brought a bag of pebbles to class. He called them Zen Pebbles. He gave one to each of us, and had us describe it. They were rough, plain, grey and hard. Then he had us dip them in water and describe them a second time. Now the drab plain pebbles had been transformed. They were glossy, black, shining orbs. I think the transfiguration is like this. It reminds us that our perception of reality is not the whole story. That moment on the mountain with the disciples and the prophets of old was a revelation, where Jesus’ true nature was revealed in fullness.
Many poets have seen the transfiguration as a moment where the veil of the ordinary is lifted, and we see a glimpse of the divine reality. One example of this is the sonnet titled “Transfiguration” by Malcolm Guite, which I will now read.
Transfiguration
For that one moment, in and out of time,
On that one mountain where all moments meet,
The daily veil that covers the sublime
In darkling glass fell dazzled at his feet.
There were no angels full of eyes and wings,
Just living glory full of truth and grace.
The love that dances at the heart of things
Shone out upon us from a human face.
And to that light the light in us leaped up,
We felt it quicken somewhere deep within,
A sudden blaze of long-extinguished hope
Trembled and tingled through the tender skin.
Nor can this blackened sky, this darkened scar,
Eclipse that glimpse of how things really are.
I love the first two lines especially: For that one moment, in and out of time / On that one mountain where all moments meet. “Mountain moments” call us to come away from the ordinary, to approach God, and to be transformed.
We all experience moments like this. But they are passing, and in due course we must come down the mountain again, back to ordinary life. What do we take with us from these transitory revelations? In this passage, like others, I think Jesus is calling us to a kind of mindfulness, to a more experiential way of being. Jesus’ requests to the disciples to watch and wait with him, and the many ways he invoked the senses through bread and wine and foot-washing, all convey the message “pay attention, be present here and now.” And although our lives cannot be one long epiphany, we can practice paying attention in many small ways throughout our daily lives, and it is this daily practice that gradually leads to our transformation.
Witnessing God’s glory and promise in the transfiguration also involves looking ahead to Jesus’ path of suffering. It is apparent in the last two lines of Guite’s poem that the narrator is looking back at the transfiguration from the cross, “Nor can this blackened sky, this darkened scar, / Eclipse that glimpse of how things really are.”
It leads me to ask the questions: how can we be present and face forward into the suffering in our own lives? And how will that help transform us into what we have been created to be?