Have you ever not wanted to admit you liked a TV show? Or maybe even a movie? That happened to me a few years back. I took my two nieces to a girl’s movie maybe because I have two sons. The three of us went and saw the Twilight Saga movies. I actually enjoyed them, an updated romance, vampire theme. The interesting thing is the way Edward, the heart-throb, and all the other vampires are set apart when their skin is in the sun. It is not fatal as so many movies claim, but rather their skin becomes iridescent, beautifully sparkly and other worldly. It looks like there are tiny diamonds embedded in Edward’s skin whenever the sun reflects off him. His skin is almost aglow with radiance and light. Now the rest of the time he is simply pasty white, add the rays of the sun and there is no doubt that he is not of this world.
Both our passages today speak of skin being aglow for a very different reason. Not the magic of Hollywood, but for being in the presence of God. There is a long standing tradition that no one sees God and lives; Moses and Jesus are the exception to that rule. Listen now for the Word of God as it comes to us from Luke.
Radiance abounds, skin is aglow, and clothes dazzle not because of sunlight but because of God’s light, God’s glory. Moses and Jesus encounter God, commune, pray, and listen to God and in so doing they are transformed and changed. We are even told that Peter and the disciples see the glory- meaning the glory of God. The Glory of God is not something we speak of much, but it is the foundation of our calling as Christians- for the chief aim of humanity, according to the Westminster confession, is to glorify God and to enjoy God forever. God’s glory predates anything we could ever do. God’s glory is eternal, powerful, transformative and vibrant. We see a glimpse of God’s glory in the beauty of a spectacular sunset, in the miracle of birth, in the majesty of the heavens and the witness of Scripture. Excellence, praiseworthiness honor and adoration all find their meaning in God’s glory. The very essence of God’s glory is the holiness and goodness of God with its apex being in the wisdom and love of the incarnation of Jesus Christ. God’s glory is so magnificent, as we see in our texts, and often is encountered when ascending a mountain. Moses received the Ten Commandments once before up this same mountain- mount Sinai, also known as Tabor, Jesus went up a mountain while teaching the Beatitudes proclaiming, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God,” Jesus is transfigured while elevated up a mountain. Wonderful things happen while up a mountain and open to God. You might call one such time a Mountain Top Experience, when you feel the presence of God. The Transfiguration of Jesus is more than a mountain top experience it is a theophany a revelation of God that inspires and transforms. For “theo” means “God” and the second part means “appearance.” So theophany is the appearance of God, the revelation of God, as a demonstration of God’s glory.
Both Moses and Jesus are transformed by God’s glory as they listen, pray and open themselves up to God’s presence. We all seek to have a more vital prayer life, a better way of being in God’s presence. During the transfiguration God’s voice comes from the cloud declaring “This is my son, my chosen; listen to him.” Prayer is essentially listening to Jesus, hearing God. The past leader of the Armenian Church, was also a former bishop of Iran and New York, His Holiness Kerekin I had some passionate things to say about faith and life. I was intrigued by his reflection of meditation, in other words listening to God. He writes, “Meditation is not a simple conversation with oneself. Meditation is a person climbing Mount Tabor, the mountain where Jesus transfigured himself before his disciples. It is the moment when you feel inundated by the presence of God, when his light illuminates you and when you feel a force inside yourself that is not your own. The transfiguration constitutes one of the five greatest feasts of the Armenian Church. However, meditation is Jesus transfigured, visiting our souls; it is a moment during which all of the past returns, as when Elijah and Moses appeared on Tabor. You see your existence in a new light, and for a few minutes, you cut yourself off from all that is ephemeral or temporary; you leave your dimension, where time governs you, in order to taste eternity.” (Between Heaven and Earth pg. 8)
That is the glory of God. That is the wonderful and transformative power of God in our midst as we seek to be in God’s presence through prayer and meditation – to leave time and taste eternity.
Yet sometimes I think we like to keep our faith in a box, where we know everything and we can just open the box on Sunday mornings and have a conversation with God. Today our story is one that wows, one that is full of mystery; it is a revelation of the glory of God. The glory of Jesus shines through this story, illuminating and highlighting his divine nature. This is not an everyday text, this is a demonstration of the power of God. Of course it is no accident that this is the last message we hear before entering into the Lent, a season of darkness, a journey towards the cross. Here, before we take that trip we are climbing mountains and seeing the glory of God in the radiance of Jesus.
God willing, we will have moments of glimpsing God’s glory, transformed by being in the presence of the Almighty. The question is how will we respond? First we have the example of Moses, faithful in his dealing and listening to God, and yet he hid his face, hid the radiance that proximity to God created in him. Whenever he was not seeing God face to face, he veiled his own face. Now this has a practical purpose of helping those around him not feel so afraid. I can’t help but wonder do we hide our encounters with God? Do we have moments when we feel connected to our Creator, only to cover them up with the busyness of our lives? Or we veil them, afraid of what people might think.
Maybe the example of Peter is more the way we want to respond. We come in contact with Jesus, with the Glory of God, and we want to capture the moment, we want to enshrine it for all eternity. A more modern way of saying that might be that we are more committed to a church building, a dwelling, than we are to glorifying the God we worship- the one who transforms, the one who leads us into our next purpose. Sometimes we think the ways of the past are the things we need to glorify more than the inspiration for our being, our Savior and Lord. Peter wanted to build three alters: one for Jesus, Moses and Elijah all of which would be very common to the Jewish tradition. Joshua did this after crossing the Jordan, Jacob did it after he wrestled with God. Jesus did not take Peter up on that offer. Rather our encounters with God are to be motivators for service not a reason to make a shrine.
If we don’t hide our face like Moses, or build a shrine like Peter, maybe we want to serve like Jesus. As soon as Jesus descends the mountain he heals a child. He leaves the mountain top to go into the valley, into the pain of the world to help. For glorifying God is not something we do in our shrines all by ourselves, rather we glorify God by being of service in God’s name, helping those around us just like Jesus did.
In closing I would like to share with you the story of a small congregation in the Bronx aptly called Transfiguration Lutheran Church. Heidi Neumark tells this story in her memoir entitled Breathing Space: a Spiritual Journey in the South Bronx. Neumark served this congregation 20 years but when she arrived the community was struggling, barely surviving. Standing amid poverty and the myriad of problems like drug abuse and lack of education, opportunity and hope their doors were mostly kept shut tight to the world around it. She found great inspiration in Jesus’ transfiguration and what follows. She writes, “When Peter and the others came down from the mountain, they found a father and a child gasping for life. But Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit, healed the boy and gave him back to his father. And they found transfiguration. And so it is. When the disciples of this Bronx church unlocked the doors of their private shelter and stepped out into the neighborhood, they did meet the distress of the community convulsed and mauled by poverty. But they also discovered transfiguration as a congregation with others.”
The story of the transfiguration of Jesus loses its power if it does not include that moment when Jesus and the disciples come down from the mountain. The transfigured Jesus is changed, not in essence, but in the way he is seen; he acts in and for the world accordingly. Seeing Jesus differently means seeing oneself and others differently too. The congregation at Transfiguration Church understood this as Neumark writes, “But living high up in the rarefied air isn’t the point of the transfiguration… It was never meant as a private experience spiritually removed from the public square. It was a vision to carry us down, a glimpse of unimagined possibility at ground level.”
Jesus was transfigured on high so that he could transform down below. May Christ transfigure our own community, so that we might be a light, a symbol of God’s glory, as we transform the community around us. Amen.
