Hope of the World | Hope Ascended, February 14, 2021
“Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them. And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus. Then Peter said to Jesus, "Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.
And then Jesus said….
Wait— no, nothing.
There’s no “Get behind me, Satan!” There’s no alpine equivalent of Jesus chastising overeager Peter for thinking he too could walk on water. Jesus doesn’t say anything in response to what we take to be another example of Peter sticking his apostolic foot in his mouth and getting Jesus all wrong.
Every year the liturgical calendar and the Revised Common Lectionary conclude the season of epiphany with this penultimate epiphany of Jesus who is the end of the law and the prophets and, like the burning bush, afire with the glory of God but not consumed by it.
For three out of the last four years, I have not figured out a way to stick Pastor Jeff with preaching the Transfiguration, so I’ve been left trying to make sense of it for you. Or rather, you’ve been left— stuck— with me making a muck of it.
Icon of the Transfiguration of the Lord (Athos)
Matthew, Mark, and Luke all testify to the Transfiguration of Jesus. It’s a primary icon in Orthodox Christian worship. It’s a story we should all know, and every preacher should be able to preach. Yet perhaps because I’m addicted to coming to a biblical text for its utility— asking how this scripture can apply to my practical, everyday life— I’m left scratching my head when I come to a lesson like the Transfiguration.
I wonder if it’s that way for you too. To be transfigured is to be transformed into something more beautiful or to be elevated. In Eugene Peterson's paraphrase of the Bible, he describes what happened on this high mountain as Jesus had, "His appearance changed from the inside out, right before [the disciple's] eyes.”
Mark begins with Jesus calling three disciples and bringing them with him up a mountain. In the previous scene, the disciples answered a question asked by Jesus, "Who am I?" “The Messiah,” Peter replied. Jesus had just fed the 5,000. Both of these encounters declared his divinity, his messiahship, and pointed to the presence of the Kingdom of God. From the beginning of the gospels to the end the focus is on Jesus, and yet, time and time again preachers (color me guilty) use the Transfiguration of Jesus to point to the actions of the disciples instead of the glory of God. Looking to make sense of the oddness of this scene we, I, look to it for utility.
Two years ago, I pointed out that Peter, James, and John were standing in the midst of divine revelation. God, throughout the history of Israel, had a habit of revealing God's self and making a divine scene on mountains. God made a covenant with Israel through Moses on two mountains.
The theophanies – visible manifestations of God to humanity – of the Old Testament were terrifying experiences. There was fire and rushing wind, to say nothing of voices coming from places voices don’t belong coming from. Moses went up to Mt Sinai on behalf of the people— and even then, his appearance was so altered by the glory of God he had to wear a veil for the rest of his life. And when Uzzah accidentally touched the ark to keep it from falling, he was struck dead. Such is the glory of God.
But here in Mark, in this theophany, not only does Jesus show forth the full glory of God – bleached teeth, jeans and all – and the disciples survive. Like Harry Potter, they’re the boys who lived.
And that’s all correct.
Still, two years ago I said Peter, James, and John, Peter especially, missed the bigger picture because they, Peter, wanted to memorialize the event by erecting tabernacles on the mountain. I reminded the congregation that Peter, James, and John, led by Jesus, had to come back down the mountain. I chastised Peter for wanting to stay on the mountain because there was ministry to be done. The Gospel of Luke tells us a boy needed to be healed as Jesus and the disciples left the Transfiguration. “There is work to be done,” I said, and “there is no time to be wasted.”
Last year, I pointed out, very cleverly I thought, that Jesus was constantly on the move and thus we should be as well. Missing the point of the Transfiguration of Jesus, explaining away stained-glass language I do not fully understand, I implied that discipleship – actively living in accordance with the teachings of Jesus – was about gritting down, putting our noses to the grindstone to feed the hungry and clothe the naked, doing as my friend put it, "everything upper-middle-class Christians aren't embarrassed to affirm."
The problem here is that the focus is not on Jesus. It is on us. Maybe Peter wasn’t so wrong after all.
Putting our noses to the grindstone, gritting down, and saving the world by ourselves cuts Jesus out of the picture, and nowhere in the gospels is Jesus cut out of the picture.
If the Transfiguration of Jesus is about our actions and our good deeds, then what is the point of the gospel writers connecting Jesus with Moses, the one God gave the Law through, or the prophet Elijah? In focusing on the actions of Peter at the Transfiguration of Jesus we make ourselves the focus of the story. Peter may not have known exactly what was happening, but he knew what was being revealed – he admitted as much 11 verses earlier – and so he knew how to respond. Peter responded with an act of worship instead of a vain attempt of explaining away what he did not know.
Jesus never rebuked Peter’s act of worship.
Peter saw, even if just for a moment the fullness of the humanity of Jesus alongside the fullness of Jesus’ glory, his divinity. Peter had a glimpse into the mystery of our faith: that God became fully human so that humanity might become righteous. The Good News, the hope contained in the Transfiguration of Jesus is not the message to come down the mountain and serve the poor – a message of utility that many would affirm without ever knowing Jesus. No, the Good News is that God became like us, like you and me.
The light that beamed from the transfigured Christ is the same light that said, "Let there be…" The same Light that the creation waits for with sighs too deep for words. The same Light that will one day make all of creation ablaze like a bush with God's glory, but not consumed.
As the United Methodist Church’s communion liturgy states, suggesting Peter was right, “It is a good and joyful thing always and everywhere to give to give thanks,” to give praise to God. That is to give praise to God in Christ.
What we see here in this theophany, is that Christ is the Maker of heaven and earth, the second person of the Trinity, the Son of God, and that same one has promised that his yoke is light, and his burden is easy. His yoke is light, and his burden is easy because, as we see today, he is the end of the law and the prophets. Therefore, we can show up like Pastor Jeff said last week by being present and doing X, Y, and Z without the burden of expectations or performance. The one God tells us to listen to today promises “Behold, I make all things new!”
And that includes you.
He has and he is and he will do it.
The good news is not that we must ascend up to God by our own good deeds or spiritual striving; the good news of the Gospel is that the one who met Moses in a burning bush and spoke through Elijah has come down to us in Jesus Christ and will come again to….
Howard Thurman wrote of the glad surprise, describing it, “as if a man stumbling in the darkness, having lost his way, finds the spot at which he falls is the foot of a stairway that leads from darkness into light.” This is precisely what Peter did. He worshiped. The goal of discipleship is to be transformed, ourselves transfigured, not by our own hands rather through the one who to whom the law and all of the prophets pointed to. If not, what is the point of going up the mountain with Jesus?
We can try to contain the hope of the Good News revealed to us on the mountain but the Good News for us, revealed by the faithfulness of Peter, is that as Jesus’ humanity was transfigured so too will our humanity be called into perfect union with God, and not because of what we do when we come down from the mountain. Rather, because of the one who invites us to ascend, to worship, and to be transformed, and there is no containing that news.
