Monday, February 20, 2012

Transfiguration Sermon

2 Kings 2:1-12, 2 Corinthians 4:3-6, Mark 9:2-9

Today’s gospel reading is full of really great biblical imagery and symbolism. Jesus takes Peter, James, and John up a mountainside, for what reason we don’t really know besides to be alone, and on the way something happens: there is this “mountaintop” experience. The Bible has many similar “mountaintop” experiences: it is atop a mountain, in Matthew’s version of the Gospel, that Jesus gives the Beatitudes to his disciples, it is atop a mountain that we read about the Temptation of Christ by the evil one, and venturing into the Hebrew scriptures, we have Moses at Sinai receiving the Ten Commandments and encountering God. Important things happen on mountaintops! In this instance, Jesus is transfigured before his disciples: his clothes turn a dazzling white. And on top of that, Elijah and Moses appear alongside Jesus and speak to him: as two of the great and important prophets of the Old Testament, Mark symbolically places Jesus alongside these well-known prophets indicating not only the authority of Christ but also as a sign of the “breaking through” of Kingdom of God. And then, the pièce de resistance, a great cloud appears and the voice of God speaks “This is my Beloved, my Own; listen to this One.”

All of this seems to clearly indicate that this is an important event!

But, what I find most ironic is what comes next:  the voice in the cloud says: “This is my Beloved, my Own; listen to this One." (Pause) But, Jesus doesn’t say anything; there’s only silence! Here we have this grand moment, with all of the appropriate symbolic features – and Jesus doesn’t say anything; there’s no great message from Christ. We are left waiting, hoping, anticipating a statement, a direction, a piece of information, an explanation…but none comes.

How often have I found myself in this predicament: waiting to discern the right decision, yearning to sense what may be even the slightest hint of direction from the Divine, but seemingly alone in the silence.

Many of the patients I visited this past summer when I was working as a Chaplain at a large hospital in Rhode Island seemed to find themselves in this predicament as well. Don’t get me wrong, I was often asked to pray prayers of thanksgiving for surgeries that had been successful, healthy babies being born, and illnesses being cured. But, there were also many prayers offered up that included feelings of desperation, helplessness, and confusion: anxiously waiting to hear God speak to them in some way.

In the last verse of our gospel today, we hear that Jesus finally did speak to Peters, James, and John: we don’t know exactly what he said, but we are told that, on their way back down the mountain, Jesus orders the three disciples “not to tell anyone what they had seen, until after the Promised One had risen from the dead.” How anticlimactic! After just witnessing Jesus’ clothes transform into a white they could hardly look at because it was so bright, the appearance of the great prophets of old, and the voice of God claiming Jesus as God’s Beloved, they are ordered not to tell the other disciples, or anyone else for that matter, what they just witnessed.

Well, that certainly wasn’t what those disciples wanted to hear. Peter, the only disciple we hear from in this text, doesn’t want it to end that way for sure. He was the one that suggested building shelters – sometimes translated as tabernacles – something that the disciples could build so that all would remember and know what happened on that mountainside: all would know the glory and authority of Christ!

But, instead, his idea is seemingly dismissed, and Jesus invites his disciples down the hill to continue the journey without mentioning what just happened. Jesus seems to be pointing towards something else – seems to be indicating that the story isn’t over, this isn’t the ending.  In this great moment of transfiguration, our attention is brought not to this glorious image of Jesus in dazzling white clothes, but rather it is pointed in a different direction, towards a different image of Christ. The journey Jesus is about to embark on is one of arrest, persecution, humiliation, crucifixion, and death.

But, that’s not what we want to hear, nor is it the image we want to focus on. In the hospital, I encountered many different images of God from the different patients I would meet. More often than not, I encountered patients who remembered Jesus as Peter hoped to: robbed in the whitest of white, high up on a mountain, empowered by the Divine – the Victor, the Savior, the Almighty, the All-Powerful. In fact, that’s often the image many people have and many parts of our scripture will illustrate this. But, that’s not the image Jesus is pointing us towards in today’s lesson.

No, as Jesus comes down from that mountain, and as we’ll be reading in only a few short weeks, Jesus faces some of the most challenging encounters: betrayal, violence, violation, torture, torment, prejudice, persecution, pain, and death. It is at this point, at this time, in this moment, in the face of this scary set of circumstances – and Jesus knows what is to come – it is now that Jesus is transfigured and claimed as a beloved child of God.

And Jesus has to lean into that relationship with the Divine; he must lean into that truth as the great, glistening light of the transfiguration transforms into the great darkness of the crucifixion; as the dazzling, white clothes are stripped away and he is left practically naked; as Elijah and Moses slip away, and Jesus is instead accompanied by two criminals; without the encouragement of his beloved disciples who have fled in fear and with no great cloud or the voice of God claiming Jesus as the Beloved One, but instead Jesus crying out, aching for God saying “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” – “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”

This is certainly not the ending we expected. The great Healer, who could cure an illness with the touch of his hand, was not relieved of his pain. The great Prophet, who taught inclusion and started a radical love movement, is not spared like Elijah who was taken up in a great chariot of fired, but instead dies. It’s just not the ending we expected.

And, I learned this summer, that no matter how ill someone is, no matter how much we may know it is a part of our stories, death is never expected.

But it is in the face of this fate, that the story of the transfiguration captures us: the “mountaintop” experience which the disciples weren’t supposed to mention wasn’t just about the glory and authority of Christ – even though Christ be glorified – instead it is about a relationship. A relationship that we first encountered at Jesus’ baptism a few weeks ago – when the Spirit descended like a dove and God claimed “You are my Beloved, my Own” – a relationship that sustained Jesus in the first phases of his ministry, and a relationship that is re-emphasized to sustain Jesus in this last phase of his ministry.

It is a relationship we, too, are called into in our baptisms; we, too are beloved children of God, we are the body of Christ. And we know that as the actual body of Christ suffered, we, as the body of Christ today, suffer. We experience betrayal, violence, violation, torture, torment, prejudice, persecution, pain, and death – both corporately and individually. And, it’s not that Jesus is this ultimate example of how to endure such suffering, it’s that in, with, and under our suffering God has transfigured us, wrapped us in stunning white linen, and claimed us as beloved children of God.

It’s not easy, but we need to lean into that promise, into that truth – so that we can walk with Jesus through our persecution, rejection, suffering, and death. Because we know, as nice as those mountaintop experiences are, it's not on the mountaintop that all is made known - it's in the trenches.

Amen.