Mark 9:2-9
“Glimpses of Glory”
February 14, 2021
After a couple of sets of eye drops,
naming multiple lines of letters that stayed the same, but the lenses kept changing,
commentary on a freckle on my right eye that does not mean anything,
lights on, lights off,
directions to “keep your head still but make your eyes look at your right shoulder,”
along with that creepy machine that goes right up to the very surface of your eyeball and stops just before it feels like its going to poke through it,
my vision this past week was declared to be almost the same as it was at my last vision checkup with Dr. Porter 15 months ago, but I would beg to differ.
Since the social distancing, lack of travel, masking,
obsessive handwashing (thanks for our weekly reminder, Karen)
and the sometimes-mind-numbing sameness that has been a part of every day for the past 11 months of this pandemic,
I think my vision has changed for the better.
Suddenly details that went unnoticed, especially outside on my daily walks have taken on heightened levels of importance.
The sky is an endless point of wonder and awe.
The falls of Ice Pond up the road – some days frozen in place, other days flowing freely – make me stop in my tracks just to drink it in.
Shadows and how light can change everything have become much more noticeable, first from the leaves as they hung over the road or a yard or a darting squirrel.
And now with the bare trees that are reflected on the glistening snow it is a different view every single day.
Our lighted steeple casts a beauty in the sky that beckons a view from different angles – our porch, the corner of Pleasant Street, from the parking lot beside the dumpster over the roof line of the garage.
My phone’s camera is filled with many of these moments and the rest are memories of comfort.
If there has been a single gift from this frightening time of loss and sadness and isolation, it has been a new, more intense vision for the wonder that surrounds us. And, I have to admit, more than once the beauty of it has moved me to tears.
This story of transfiguration sits at the midpoint of Mark’s Gospel between John’s Baptism of Jesus and the Resurrection.
It is a strange, mysterious, and unsettling story but sometimes we need to be shaken from the ordinary and expected.
We don’t understand fully why and how the appearances of Moses and Elijah happen or totally grasp why it was so important to Jesus that none of those three disciples tell anyone – which they obviously did.
Amazing things happen in moments that we want to hold onto and yet there is always the return to the routine and the familiar. Maybe, though, we are intended to be shaken up a bit, to view the world with new eyes. And
Could this new view generate a renewed commitment to caring about what happens to our world and all our sisters and brothers within it?
Maybe what we take from this story of transfiguration on the verge of lent is the wake-up call we need to see the world and its issues and problems and people with new eyes.
When such moments make us catch our breath or do a double take, what do we do with awe?
God enters our world from all different angles, transfiguring, changing outward appearance constantly.
That form might come in the shape of powerful words,
Or musical notes strung together and offered in a way that tugs at us and won’t let go.
In the shape and color and texture and imagery of a piece of art.
God also is found in the very being of every other human.
The apostles were presented with the images of the great prophets Elijah and Moses and Peter can think only, “How do I hold onto this profound moment?”
How often do we allow our contact with the divine to take hold of us?
Do we allow ourselves to feel the change, live into it, perhaps linked more deeply with our fellow human beings in the wonder and mystery that is our life, or do we brush it aside quickly, perhaps confused by that momentary sense of awe but not placing too much stock in it for the long haul?
This pivotal point in the Gospels, this moment when, to all appearances, Jesus comes down from the mountain and goes about the business that calls him with his first act being one of healing and newness for a tormented child shows that despite appearances something is new.
Jesus has been changed and so too, have his disciples. It is from this point that we could say that these three will never see life the same and will certainly never look at their beloved teacher in the same way.
How will we be changed by the wonder we have witnessed in these disorienting pandemic times?
-The look of relief and even tears shed in gratitude for a vaccine received.
-The importance of looking deeply into eyes and half a face to determine mood or intention or emotions of our masked friends.
-The lines of cars representing families in need of food at Farm to Family events here in Bennington County.
– The technology that allows us to see and hear each other right now in real time, with some of us hundreds of miles away from each other.
Let us not lose sight of each other for there we catch glimpses of the glory of God.
Those glimpses offer us the opportunity to be changed for the better. Amen.