Matthew 17:1-9
“What Now?”
February 19, 2023
Just for a moment, before I say anything more – sit with the awe that is this story. Silence
Too often we spend a lot of our precious time in church trying to figure out the meaning of the stories in the Bible.
Some of us were taught from a young age that if we just paid close enough attention to what the Bible has to say and model our life after the prophets and people like Moses, Elijah, and Jesus, then we will have discovered the answers.
We are big on having answers and the way we do that is to figure out what is the message we’re supposed to grasp here.
Much interpretation of this story has scholar types presenting their interpretations as if they have unlocked a code.
Many say that this particular part of scripture has Moses as a representation of the law while Elijah represents the prophets and then Jesus is the Messiah.
We’re meant to listen to Jesus and the Gospel over the law and the prophets is how this has been read.
This story has also been interpreted as we’d best be quiet in the presence of God (pipe down with your crazy ideas, Peter) and that any mountaintop experience we have is meant to strengthen us for all of the hard and dark work down in the valley of life.
These may all be spot on as interpretations…or not.
What we do have here is a view of people encountering God, and other people.
Could this be one episode in a long list of episodes of people coming face to face with the glory of God?
They saw God. And they were changed.
We are moving today from Epiphany – the season of light – into Lent – the wilderness season.
This is the transition point when Jesus pivots away from Galilee and makes his way to Jerusalem and the cross.
Before he makes his way to Jerusalem, though, he takes his trusted followers to a place where they get to encounter the light of God’s love face-to-face, knowing that there will be deep valleys ahead for all of them.
Jesus seems to want to make sure they know the power and majesty of God because they will all need that knowledge when the going gets tough.
And so they get to see Jesus in his shining glory that belies all of our common sense – and probably theirs.
And what does God say – “This is my Son, my Chosen One. Listen to him.” That’s where transformation takes place – they are forever changed by this experience.
So many of the transformative moments happen when we are on our way from one time and space to another, often when our heads are focused elsewhere.
The pull into a whole new way of thinking and being can be so powerful that our other priorities take a back seat for a while.
We can exert so much energy in resisting the new thing in our midst instead of sitting with it for a while.
Peter quickly wants to hold on and protect this amazing moment in time, but there is more living and action ahead.
Think of an instance when you wanted time to stand still, knowing life would never again offer that spectacular or simple of a moment – a reunion with family or friends, the birth of a child or grandchild, or a final hug or grasp of the hand before the death of a loved one.
Peter is only doing what he can to hold onto something that is amazing and fleeting.
And just as powerful as this moment of the blinding light of the face of Jesus happens, his face goes back to the one they all knew and loved.
Maybe this Lent, in the midst of the ordinary, we can look at the world, in all its pain and beauty, with new eyes.
Perhaps we could eliminate whatever is blocking our view and make time in these 40 days to come for being on the lookout for wonder and awe.
No day will be totally wonder-filled but there will be moments, I’m sure of it, that will warrant a pause and an appreciation.
The instruction from God to listen to Jesus, is not just to his words but to his actions.
Those are the footsteps we want to walk in.
This mountaintop experience is in-between the healing ministry on one side and the descent into Jerusalem on the other.
We know what lies ahead and so we go into this Lent with the knowledge that we don’t experience the wilderness alone.
We don’t have the same exact view of Jesus that these disciples had, shining luminously one moment and just ordinary Jesus the next, but we do get a glimpse of the love of God in ways both extraordinary and mundane.
The eyes we have with which to see Jesus are ours.
We are changed when we seek out the Jesus to be found in every other person.
Let us consider then these words from a blog appropriately called, “Unfolding Light:”
Sometimes someone changes and you get to see it.
And sometimes you finally see what was always there.
Maybe this is the real grace of transfiguration,
not that things change but that our seeing does,
that we see with eyes of wonder,
that we see divine presence in this world,
that we see resurrection in every death,
see the gleam that is each person, even the doomed,
that we see them beyond the limits of their flesh,
see them in company with saints, see them divine,
risen already from whatever deaths and disappointments
they will endure, still shining. We see with eyes of mercy.
Maybe the miracle is not in the light that enters our eyes
but the light that shines out from them.
Pray that by the grace of the God who shines,
our eyes may be transfigured. (www.unfoldinglight.net)
Amen.