Transfiguration Light

Transfiguration Sunday

St. Matthew 17:1-9

March 6, 2011

The darkness of winter is waning and the light of spring is waxing.

The season of the church year ending today is Epiphany, a season at play between darkness and light.

And what we have in the Scriptures read through Epiphany — a gradual unveiling of the light of Christ.

The Transfiguration of Our Lord marks a bright burst of light before we enter the more somber times of Lent and Holy Week.

As a day in the Church Year, Transfiguration ranks right up there with Christmas and Easter.

But it is never celebrated like those days. You’ll search in vain for a Hallmark card marking the occasion.

And I know why. This is one very strange story. The story, it is almost an embarrassment telling it, because it is just too weird.

Jesus takes Peter, James and John to a mountain.

These are the same three who go with him to Gethsemane.

And before their very eyes, he is “transfigured.”

His clothing becomes dazzling white.

As this happens, the two greatest prophets Israel has known — Moses and Elijah — appear with Jesus.

These two are the only two other people — according to the Old Testament — who had experiences similar to this one.

They have some discussion with Jesus, but in St. Matthew we don’t what it is.

In Mark and Luke the reports are very explicit: they discuss with Jesus his coming “departure” — his crucifixion, short.

Matthew doesn’t mention that.

Peter lurches into his motor-mouth mode and says something stupid.

Then a cloud covers them and a voice speaks.

“This is my Son, listen to him.”

And then it is done.

In the Gospel of Mark and in today’s Gospel of Matthew, Jesus warns the three disciples to say nothing about it until the Son of Man is raised from death.

The way St. Luke tells the story they don’t have to be warned. They just clam up on their own.

But it is hard to know what it means, except to say of course it has something to do with the light of God’s presence, unveiled in Jesus Christ.

We are in chapter seventeen of St. Matthew.

By this time his opponents are conspiring against him, plotting his elimination.

Jesus’ name had come to the attention of the Roman occupation authorities — and they were always nervous about any Jew who attracted large crowds.

Then that last, sad Passover Meal.

After that, everything simply collapses: Comes next the arrest, the trial, the execution, the tomb.

Up to the mountain, he was in safe retreat

— up and away from all it

— away from the Roman security checks, the village squalor, the camp-followers and crowds that pestered him for just one more miracle

— up and away from his opponents

— up and away, safe.

The journey down from the mountain was a journey to his crucifixion, where the prophetic gift of myrrh at his birth will find fulfillment and that old Epiphany hymn comes to life:

Myrrh.

I bring its bitter perfume

breathing a life of gathering

gloom.

When Peter offers to build three Pentecost tents, isn’t that just another temptation

— a temptation to stay

— to stay up and above and away from everything below?

He ignored Peter, left his safety, and went back down into the mix and mess of human living.

The human temptation is always to get away from it all.

Away from the headlines, the bad news, the great sad things we confront.

Here we are getting through life: consumed by our study, our work, our businesses, our marriages, our children, our doubts, our fears

— some of us are beset by thin billfolds and thick bills

— some of us confront coming grief, sorrow.

Couldn’t you use a little of that light yourself right now, shining upon some place away and safe?

Where is my light for the darkness ahead?

Well, I have already got it, and so have you.

There was once a light given to you.

Do you remember, or have you been told, how once at your own baptism a community of Christ prayed over you, that you might be like him?

A light in that darkness in which we try to survive.

What he says to you and to me is what he also said Peter, James and John:

Get up, and do not be afraid.