What Does Transfiguration sunday Have to do with Us Today?

Mark 9:2-9 Transfiguration 2018

My husband and I recently traveled to the Holy Land. We saw these amazing holy places related to the life of Jesus.  For Christians, the two most sacred of these sites are undoubtedly the Church of the Nativity, in Old Town Bethlehem, which marks the spot where Jesus was born, and, in the Christian quarter of Old City Jerusalem, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. This is the church built over the stones of Golgotha, where Jesus was crucified; through a hole in the floor, you can even reach down and touch the stone. At a lower level in the complex that makes up this site, there is a cave believed to be the empty tomb where Jesus was laid following his crucifixion, and from which he was raised in the resurrection on Easter morning.

The two churches that stand at these sites were erected over 15oo years and 1000 years ago respectively; each has experienced cycles of construction, conquest, destruction, reconstruction and holy pilgrimage. Today they are overseen and administered jointly by a constellation of ancient church bodies, among them several Orthodox expressions of Christ’s church.

If you’ve ever been to an Orthodox church, you know they are very ornate by our standards. It is typical to see a great deal of polished brass and silver, gilded icons and gold mosaics at any Orthodox place of worship, especially around and upon the altar and the chancel area. While we might consider this ostentatious, to the Orthodox, the finest textiles, silver and gold vessels, icons and adornments symbolize the glory of God, and give praise and adoration to God Most High.

As you might imagine, there, in the Holy Land, when it comes to these holiest of Christian sites, these sites connected with the pivotal moments of the life of Jesus, the adoration and therefore the amount of ornamentation placed by the Orthodox churches is incredible, with massive displays of precious metals and stones surrounding the areas devoted to Christ’s birth, death, and resurrection.

With lighting from modern-day fixtures shining down on them, the light reflecting off the shiny brass, gold and silver surrounding the places of holy attention is overwhelmingly brilliant - the effect quite stunning, and sometimes, at certain angles, quite blinding.

As I read the texts for today, especially the description of the sheer brilliance of Jesus’ clothing, I thought about the places we saw. I understood, for the first time, I think, what inspires such showy extravagance. It’s a lot like what God did for Jesus that day.

As Jesus was changed before Peter, James and John, high upon the mountaintop, the place traditionally considered the closest place to heaven the text says, “his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them.”

Throughout Scripture mountains are places of divine revelation, and what happened on that mountaintop was God’s doing. God, who sent his Son to earth to save us from our sin, now, before these trusted disciples puts on a display the meaning of which there can be no question – the display reveals the divine glory which God himself ascribes to Jesus. In what is what is known as the Transfiguration of Jesus, God causes Jesus, sent to be the light of the world, to shine like the sun.

The sites throughout the Holy Land are preserved for people like my husband and me and the millions who have preceded us and the many who will follow us throughout the centuries to see and experience these places of holy significance. That’s what we, as finite human beings do. We attempt to capture or encapsulate special events, places and things that hold meaning for us, far various reasons.

We want to hold on to the special moments and places by capturing them, memorializing them, sharing them with people, and building monuments and keepsakes to our experience of them.

I wonder if that is what Peter was trying to do in our gospel text this morning. Perhaps he, too, was trying to hold on to, capture, encapsulate, or memorialize the moment and the experience. Maybe he even thought if he built dwellings there on that mountain it would preserve the moment and keep Moses and Elijah there too, and then he could bring people back here and share this experience with them, too. Because really, if we can’t share in that experience, what does this Transfiguration mean for us?

Today, each of our lessons reveals divine light. Together, they build to the climax of the gospel, where the glory and favor of God is revealed in the person of Jesus Christ. The voice from the cloud comes – God’s own voice, declaring, “This is my Son, the Beloved,” and then, a command, “listen to him!”

As the clothes fade back to normal and the two heroes of the faith disappear, Jesus and his companions start back down the mountain. That’s the remarkable thing. In some ways, perhaps, the most remarkable thing – apart from the Transfiguration itself – that Jesus, moments after being revealed in divine glory upon the mountaintop chooses to return, to dwell among humans, knowing what will come of his earthly enterprise.

Because Jesus does know what is coming. After all, in the verses just before these, Jesus has just predicted his own passion and death, and delivered a teaching on the suffering path of true discipleship.

So, we need to ask ourselves, what does this Transfiguration Sunday have to do with us today?

Episcopal priest, Wil Gafney writes, “The worlds in which these texts are set include brutal wars, occupation, colonization, slavery, financial exploitation, and interpersonal violence. And yet God chooses to dwell among her people, accompanying them through the perils of a very broken world. These texts testify to God’s presence in our world as well; we are every bit as broken and God is every bit as present. In a world deluged by floods, shaken by architectural and economic collapses, and bruised by violence between persons and nations, the enduring presence and undimmed glory of God is a beacon of hope and comfort.”

God’s final word in this text is a word of command – listen to him. That’s God’s final word to us on this Transfiguration Sunday. Listen to Jesus.

To listen to Jesus is to hear his word, to follow his call to serve as his disciples. To listen to Jesus involves picking up our crosses to follow wherever he leads, knowing that the road may not be easy, but that he does not leave us alone.

To listen to Jesus is to know that in him, God pours out God’s heart and love into the world to transform you and me and all who believe in Jesus so that we can follow him, for the life of the world. To listen to Jesus means to be transformed by his presence in our lives –transformed into disciples who live our lives like his, caring about what he cares about, and persisting against the injustices and sin Jesus himself persisted in speaking out and acting against. Listening to Jesus involves shaping our lives into cruciform witness to his glory and his love.

God, in Jesus, sees all people as worthwhile, and worthy of love and dignity and respect. Through Jesus, God intends to use the gifts God has given us to care for each other and the world.

My friends, the reality is that brutal wars, occupation, colonization, slavery, financial exploitation, and interpersonal violence still exist in our world. We are both part of the brokenness, and part of the healing. Acknowledging our need for a savior, God still transforms us into servants of the world, sent to listen to Jesus by reflecting the light of his love in our lives. 

While the kingdom of God has broken into the world in Jesus, the fulfillment of the kingdom will not come until Jesus comes again in all his glory.

And yet, even now, God chooses to dwell among her people, not in tents built upon a mountaintop, but here among us, accompanying us through the perils of a very broken world.

What does Transfiguration Sunday have to do with us today?

Transfiguration Sunday leads us toward the season of Lent. It leaves us with a transforming command – listen to Jesus, and do as he does.

As Jesus and the disciples will leave the mountain and its glory behind and descend into the brokenness of the world to live out their callings, the church heeds the call to Lenten disciplines amid the troubles of the world.

At the end of today’s service we “leave our alleluias” behind, and we pledge to focus not on the dazzle and shine of the light of Christ, but on what it means that he not only descended from heaven to live among us, but that he came down from that mountain that he might complete his journey to the cross.

Transfiguration Sunday serves not only as a bridge between Epiphany and Lent, but as a reminder that in Jesus, God not only bridges the place between heaven and earth but eradicates it, filling us with possibility, love, and the hope of the ages.

Amen.