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On this Sunday before Lent, we hear of the Transfiguration of Jesus. No matter if we are in Lectionary Year A, B or in Year C, as we are this year, the Transfiguration is the crest of Epiphanytide, being an occurrence of such significance that it is recorded in all four gospels, and is also attested to in the 1st Letter of Peter. The magnitude of the Transfiguration is such that it almost has two feast days on the calendar of the church year, for not only is it the gospel focus of this last Sunday after the Epiphany, the Transfiguration is observed as a feast of the church on August 6. The Transfiguration of Jesus hearkens back to Moses descending from Mt. Sinai, his face shining gloriously, as one who has been in the presence of God, bearing the stone tablets upon which God inscribed the Ten Commandments. As someone who appreciates the outline of mountains in my line of sight, and who feels a close communion with God on a mountain trail or summit, I cherish the biblical affinity for mountains as places to be with God.
Over the years, I grew accustomed to the prayer book lectionary concluding the reading by leaving us on the Mount of Transfiguration, but that has changed as we have adopted the Revised Common Lectionary, which gives the option I decided to take today, I think for the first time, to include details about what takes place after the mountaintop experience. But first, to reflect on what took place on that mountain.
It starts as Jesus grabs his closest three - Peter, John, and James - to go up the mountain to pray, to recharge and reconnect with the Father after a season of being particularly hard at the work of the kingdom. They enter into prayer, which for each means pulling their tallit, the shawl of prayer, over the head so that it becomes a tent-like booth for each one to be alone with God. Such a covering would also make it easy for prayer-time to become nap-time for sleepy-eyed apostles, but to their benefit, that does not happen. They manage to stay awake for the scene that unfolds. “The appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white” (Luke 9:29). It is reminiscent of shining Moses the law-giver, who along with Elijah the prophet, enters the scene arrayed in celestial resplendence. The two great figures of the Old Covenant then speak with Jesus about a very specific subject. Just as Moses is associated with an exodus, a journey from slavery into freedom, he and Elijah discuss the exodus Jesus will soon make at Jerusalem, meaning his departure, an exodus that will lead humanity out of slavery to sin and death into the liberty of God’s abundant life, a journey that traverses the rugged frame of the cross, the dark booth of the tomb, the sudden light of rising again, and the ascent to glory. For Jesus, in the fullness of his humanity, aware of what awaits in Jerusalem, hard-pressed to rally the courage to make the trek, this mountaintop experience is, says Leon Morris in the Tyndale Commentary on Luke, the seal of divine approval on the step he was about to take (Leon Morris, Luke: An Introduction and Commentary. Vol. 3 in Tyndale New Testament Commentaries. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1988. 191).
Peter wants to memorialize what has happened. “Let’s build three booths, so you, Moses, and Elijah can always get together.” But, this moment is a one and only, as the voice from the cloud that covers them enjoins them to, “Listen to my Son, my chosen” (Luke 9:35). Rather than a moment to be repeated, it becomes something for Peter, John, and James to keep to themselves, at least for the time being, as they follow Jesus down the mountain into the events of the next day, where a great crowd awaits. It is time again to be hard at the work of the kingdom, as out from the crowd comes a man imploring Jesus on behalf of his only son who is seized by a spirit that afflicts him with violent seizures. The man says, “Your disciples could not help.” Suddenly Jesus is full of frustration. Are all the teaching, the training, the marvelous signs having any impact on those he has called to follow him? “How long do I have to deal with you people?” The time is growing short, and Jesus wonders when, or if, his followers will understand and accept their mission to be his agents in the world. That’s a problem for later, because right now the immediate problem is the suffering child. Jesus, with authority, the same authority he so longs to share with his followers, the same authority he so longs his church to draw on, rebukes the spirit and returns to the man his only son, set free from suffering. The ease with which Jesus treats this seemingly hopeless case leaves everyone in awe at the greatness of God.
Time is short and the followers of Jesus have so much to learn. Like Elisha, who asked Elijah for a double share of his spirit, Jesus’ followers need a double-shot, probably a triple. What will it take for the veil to be lifted? It will take an exodus, seeing it, living it, being transfigured in it. It means for Jesus taking the step necessary to his vocation - submitting to the cross, subjected to the darkness of death, vanquishing it in the light of resurrection, leading the procession of life by his ascension, opening the ever-flowing spring of authority by the coming of the Holy Spirit to lead the church into all truth, to form it in the likeness of Christ, and guide its mission to share the good news of God’s kingdom where, as Franz Mikael Franzen wrote in his great hymn for the Advent season, the rule is “peace and freedom, and justice, truth, and love” (Hymnal 1982, 65). This rule stands in opposition to the rule of the present age, where peace and freedom are under assault as an iron curtain rises again; where justice is inverted to become a servant of the perpetrators of injustice; where novel ideas about any number of subjects are presented as truth that cannot be questioned on the pain of being labeled as hateful, bigoted, and trying to destroy the planet; where love is misused as a means of pleasure seeking instead of its high calling to self-giving and sacrifice for the sake of the other.
May God grant us, the church in this time and this place, the grace and good sense to drink deeply from the flowing spring of the Spirit that we may be formed in the likeness of Christ as faithful and effective witnesses who rightly use the authority he gives us, not for self-serving ends, but to invite all people into the peace and freedom, justice, truth, and love that are offered to all because of the departure, the exodus, Jesus accomplished at Jerusalem.
Matthew Rowe+
