Transfiguration

It's that time of year again. We are at yet another transition point. This time, this community has embraced and truly dug into it. Ash Wednesday is only three days away, which prepares us for the 6-week long journey through Lent. A time taking on a fast or a particular focus as a way of drawing us closer, as a way of reminding us of our utter dependence on God.

But before we enter into Lent, before we turn our face towards the wilderness, we are taken up a mountain.

"Six days later, Jesus took Peter, James and John with him 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."

We are taken up a mountain and given a little bit clearer of a glimpse of who it is we will be drawing nearer to during the time of lent.

You know it's interesting - I did a search looking for artistic depictions of the Transfiguration and spent a good while looking at a vast array of paintings.

There is one painting by a contemporary artist, Linnie Aikens, where Jesus is almost indistinguishable from the clouds/sun and Moses and Elijah don't seem to be there at all. But the disciples, as a silhouette, are seen below on a mountain top just starting to be washed out by the light. I think what she is trying to do is to pull the human veil back as far as possible, show that everything is taken in by Jesus, trying to show the truth of Jesus' divine radiance! In this, she does a pretty good job.

In contrast The most famous by far is by Raphael. The colours are deep and saturated, and the edges are well-defined. The painting has two main parts. The top half is up the mountain, Jesus is elevated above the ground, his clothes are flowing, and the radiance is coming from behind him. Moses and Elijah are elevated slightly and looking at him longingly; James and John are on the ground, covering their eyes, and Peter is in the middle on his knees, worshipping.

The bottom half, down the mountain, is where the other disciples are trying to heal a sick child but are unable. And then set way back in the distance - you'll miss it if you don't take a good look is Jerusalem—the place where Jesus will be tried, convicted and hung on the cross.

It's the beauty of perspectives.

In these two images, we see much more of what is wrapped up in the Transfiguration. The absolutely blinding Glory of God in humanity, and God who has come down in a man to set up free. All of this is true -

and what is so special - is that all of this is true /as/ Jesus turns his face towards Jerusalem. Towards his death.

—

Now, the second part of our Gospel reading tonight is the bottom half of the Raphael painting. Peter cried out and said to Jesus in his radiance, "Let me build three booths here - that they might be a place where we can come and remember this blinding beauty."

A voice from the Clouds came seemingly to admonish Peter, telling him to listen to Jesus - though there's more to it than that... and it was all over.

The veil was re-placed, Moses and Elijah dis-appeard and everything was back as it was. That which was left was memory /no/ - more than a memory, an experience - an experience that would sustain them as they moved through terrible few days that were to come.

You see, Jesus knows what it means to be human. He knows that we cannot move through the hard times without something to sustain us. Without him. So, while the Transfiguration may seem to be utterly gratuitous, which in one way it is. It is also a gift we didn't know that we would need until the moment we needed it.

A gift of overwhelming Divine presence so that when in the wilderness - the experience of that gift can maybe poke through the darkness a little bit to re-mind us that God is present with us in miraculous ways.

Imagine what it must have been like when they had come down from the mountaintop and found life just as they had left it, only not quite. There was a boy whose father had brought him to be healed and asked Jesus to help him believe that his boy might be healed.

Oh, if only he'd been on the mountaintop, he would have no doubts - Peter, James, and John - they believed! What about this poor father and his son if only...

Only this father /will/ see his boy transfigured. He /is/ about to see the the absolutely blinding radiance of God in Jesus through the work that he came to do. "[Jesus] rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, "You dumb and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him, and never enter him again." And after crying out and convulsing him terribly, it came out, and the boy was like a corpse; so that most of them said, "He is dead." But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him, and he arose."

And with this, Jesus again commissioned the disciples and all of his followers to do the same. To take their belief and experience of the light and beauty of God and bring it into the darkness.

That will mean different things to everyone. It may mean taking the light into one's one dark place and letting the Divine Radiance of God do its healing work within. Or it might mean taking the light we've been given to a place where darkness prevails.

In Jesus the blinding radiance of God has come down from the mountain and has been passed on to each of us. Both for our own sake when we are in the wilderness and for the sake of all those we serve, we are the ones acting on God's behalf.

The Reverend Fleming Rutledge puts it like this, "He comes down from the mountain. He comes down from the throne of majesty on high. He comes down from the infinite spaces of uncreated light and prepares to enter the darkness of human suffering in pain. God is not looking down with detachment from a great distance. God did not remain magisterially aloof somewhere over the rainbow. God is not a distant observer of our struggles. God does care. As Jesus of Nazareth sets his face towards Jerusalem, he is about to become in his own person, the embrace of God for all the misery of the world. And so whenever one human being reaches out for another, in the midst of suffering, wherever a person in power stoops down to help, wherever the mighty bend to the lowly, there is the Lord. Whenever you do this, you are becoming a disciple of Jesus."

So, as we move into the season of Lent, let the radiance of the Transfiguration guide you through the wilderness to come.

Amen