August 6, 2000
On August 6, we remember a great and terrible thing — an awesome event — the Transfiguration of Jesus. This feast has been forever changed in our minds by the first angry use of the atomic bomb. This, too, was a great and terrible thing which changed our perception of each other and the world.
We acknowledge that, but we look at the Gospel. We look at the transfiguration of Jesus Christ as he is revealed to Peter, James and John, as the one to whom all the law and all the prophets have pointed through all centuries. It's been eight days since he had asked his disciples who people were claiming that he was. Peter, in his usual way, said, "Well, you are the Lord, the Messiah." And then, in his usual way, Peter had tried to talk Jesus out of being the kind of Lord and Messiah that Jesus thought he was going to be.
But Peter's relationship with Jesus does not change. He is still one of the three greatest friends, one of the three prayer partners, if you will, one of the three who form a circle about him when his heart was troubled. Whenever Jesus wants to go off and pray, it is Peter, along with James and John, who go with him.
On this amazing day, this evening, as he goes to pray with the three men in his company, as they struggle against sleep to pray with him, Moses and Elijah are suddenly there on either side of their Lord. The three disciples understand the meaning of Jesus' saying to the lawyer, "On these two commandments — to love God and to love neighbor — hang all the law and the prophets." To have Moses, the lawgiver and Elijah, the ultimate of prophets, standing on either side of him, shows them that Jesus is the summary of all the law and the prophets, that Jesus is the Messiah.
Moses, of course, was the great lawgiver. Elijah was the one prophet of Hebrew times who did not die. You remember last Sunday, the lesson where Elijah and Elisha were together. Elijah was really trying to get rid of Elisha (he didn't want him around when the chariot of fire came to pick him up), but finally consents, and the mantle from Elijah's shoulder drops. Elisha picks it up and takes his place. Today, when Jewish families celebrate Passover, there is always an extra place set and food prepared for Elijah should he come again this year, and point to the Messiah.
For Christians, John the Baptist was the one whom we believe was Elijah returned, and Jesus was the Messiah. We believe that this incident on the Mount of Transfiguration is the thing that points us to that knowledge. Whatever else, it certainly represents that special attempt of God to cure spiritual blindness, to open the eyes of the disciples, to be able to see who Jesus really is. The word is transfiguration, not transformation. Jesus was not changed into something, he was transfigured and revealed to be what he always was, and always has been from eternity.
We must know that Peter, James and John were not some kind of hard-hearted, skeptical unbelievers. They were always Jesus' three closest disciples, his three closest friends. Yet, they too, were often blinded to the nature of the Lord. Peter had been eight days earlier. James and John were on the final journey to Jerusalem when they wanted to be the ones who sat at the principle places of honor in the kingdom. They didn't understand, but on this event their eyes were opened to see clearly as God struggles with them to heal their spiritual blindness.
It was years later before Peter would write of it, and then only when he was in Rome in shackles, knowing that it would not be long before Nero would have him crucified. He writes, "I must tell you that this is to be trusted. I saw it with my own eyes and here (in this kind of death bed confession) you must believe that Jesus is the Messiah."
The other transfiguration we read of this morning is the one of Moses on Mount Sinai. In talking with God, Moses was transfigured so that his very skin shone to the extent that it was frightening and blinding to the people. He always had to wear a veil whenever he came out from talking with God because the people were so blinded, they couldn't hear.
There are so many points that strike me this week as I read through these lessons. One point is that even faithful people can be blind. We can follow Jesus around, we can know the stories — we might not be able to quote chapter and verse, but we know the stories and we can tell the stories. Yet, how many of us ever see him as the fulfillment of our hopes and dreams, much less as the perfect expression of God's love for us? How many of us continue to strive to find something material to fulfill our hopes and our dreams? How many of us never really know, but only hope that God truly loves us? As faithful as we can be, sometimes we are blind to the very Gospel of Jesus Christ.
One of the points that we find in this story today is that even the faithful can be discouraged. Even the faithful among us can have dark nights of the soul where we wander in despair and hopelessness for a time. Even the faithful among us can have a God-shaped hole in our hearts and that nagging yearning that something is missing. Something is calling us closer to God, but we don't know what that is.
One of the points made in the transfiguration story is that it doesn't matter what our condition is; it doesn't matter what our level of belief is; it doesn't matter what our level of acknowledgment of God's sovereignty is — God is not undone. We cannot diminish God through our faithlessness, through our blindness, through our hard-heartedness, through our discouragement. We cannot diminish the nature of God when we walk through the dark night of the soul through the valley of the shadow of death. We cannot diminish God because we have a God-shaped hole. While people may say, "I don't believe in God," that statement does not diminish the majesty of God, nor his striving after us to open our eyes to see his hand at work in the world around us.
As we in this congregation seek to grow the body of Christ, we know that Jesus is everything we hope for. We know that Jesus is everything we need. We know that, indeed, Jesus is our Lord. So, it is time for us as Episcopalians to open our eyes and to become proclaimers of the great beauty of God and the fulfillment of the hope of all life. It is time for us as Episcopalians to behold Jesus as he is revealed in the scripture and the breaking of the bread. To truly behold him, not with the eyes of hope, but with the eyes of faith — a revealed truth, a final truth, the great and awesome truth, as awesome and as magnificent as it must have been for Peter, James and John on the Mount of Transfiguration.
We are called to respond to the Holy Spirit that moves in this place, the spirit that we can feel when we walk in here and there is no other person present, the spirit that we can feel on any Sunday of the year when we gather together as the people of God, the spirit that binds us together, strengthens us and sends us forth. It is time for us to climb out of caves that we may be living in. It is time for us to proclaim the day of the Lord. When we hear the words, "Go in peace to love and serve the Lord," we not only respond with, "Thanks be to God," but we actually go and proclaim. In this country, if we look at the neighbor on the right and on the left, we are just as likely to find someone who does not know the Lord, as we are to find someone who does. Proclaim to your neighbors, your families and friends that God truly loves them completely and without reservation. In spite of anything that we do and anything we believe, he still loves us. We are sent forth to call the people of God to fidelity and allegiance, to the one who fills every hope and comforts every dream.
The Lord bids you, he bids me, he bids all of his people to come out into the daylight, and to know that we are not alone. He bids us to look up from whatever fear consumes us, to know that he is present with us, to heal us in body, mind and spirit and to set us upon the sure foundation of Jesus Christ our Lord. He calls us forth in our stumbling and halting way to proclaim the coming of the Kingdom of God — to go forth from this place renewed and confident in Jesus Christ, to share this story with friends, and to bring those new friends back with you to this place where they may experience the spirit of God working amongst us and within them. Amen
The Rev. Dr. Robert Certain
rgcertain@stmargarets.org
August 06, 2000