They saw and we behold His glory and promise . . .

      Uh. Oh.  Something special is happening.  No more green altar hangings.  Brian is wearing a different stole.  What’s happening?  In case you have been distracted by world events, we are about to change seasons.  We are leaving the season of Epiphany, where we rightly focus on the manifestation of God’s love and mercy in our lives and through our faithful obedience, and entering the season of Lent, where we remind ourselves, as a former professor and now retired Bishop of Ethiopia loved to remind us, we are miserable sinners in need of God’s grace.  That’s right!  Ash Wednesday is this Wednesday.  I will call us all to the observance of a Holy Lent and remind us all that we are dust.

     Before we get to Wednesday, though, we have this wonderful story we call the Transfiguration.  Some years we read about it twice, which is to say we are well steeped in what happens.  Maybe we are a bit too familiar with it.  Jesus goes up the mountain to pray.  While there, Peter and the others witness the change in appearance and clothing of Jesus.  Then, Moses and Elijah appear and speak with Jesus about His soon-to-be-accomplished departure.  Peter makes the offer to build a tent for all of them, though he does not know what he is saying.  The cloud descends, terrifying the Apostles with Jesus, and the voice commands them to listen to Jesus, His Son, His Chosen.  Once the voice finishes speaking, everything is back to normal.  Why is this scene important to us?

     Part of the reason for its importance is its place in our Gospel lesson today.  Jesus has already told His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem and there be killed and raised on the third day.  His disciples clearly do not understand His teaching.  We might wonder how they can be so dense, but His teaching would make little sense to us in the 21^st Century, if we did not have the Resurrection in our history.  Rome excelled at killing people.  One did not rise from the dead.  It was beyond the experience of the disciples, just like it is beyond the experience of most of us.  It seems a fantastical claim to make.  It seems delusional.  I mean, we have all been watching the war in Ukraine on our televisions.  How would we respond if a soldier got up after three days of death?  We’d be shocked!  And we have the Easter story to help us understand.  They do not have that, yet.  So why do we read the story and what is its purpose in our lives today, some 2000 years later and 9000 miles distant?

     First, we need to understand that the lesson is intended for us, every bit as much as it was for our spiritual ancestors who experienced the event and told followers about it.  You and I are Episcopalians, which means we are Anglicans.  We approach Scripture as God-breathed.  That means we think God is involved in the writing, editing, and collecting of the works we recognize as Scripture.  There is an interesting word choice by Luke and an translation decision made on our behalf that diminishes the story, I think, in our modern eyes.  The Greek word Luke chose was idou.  No, it is not the vow at a marriage.  It is a Greek irregular verb which has two meanings.  It can literally mean “they saw,” as our translators rendered it in the version we read today.  In this case, the passage is simply a recount of what the Apostles saw.

     We can well-imagine how this came to be recorded.  Luke spent years, according to those in the early Church and, later, the Tradition of the Church, interviewing the major players in the formation of Christianity.  Luke served as a secretary for Paul, where he learned a great deal about the torah, no doubt, but gained admittance and acceptance into the circle of Jesus’ friends and family.  I have shared before how, according to Orthodox tradition, Luke interviewed Mary the Mother of Jesus and drew His likeness.  Luke was able to interview the bulk of the major players in the gathering of the early Church, and he recorded it for all who love God, Theophilus, and wanted to know about those events.

     Interestingly, though, out of all the words he could have chosen to express merely “they saw,” he chose an irregular verb.  I will not bore you with your constant use of irregular verbs, but we have regular and irregular verbs in English.  They are easy for native speakers to pick up, for the most part, but they drive those learning English as a second or third language nuts.  You see the nods.  Ask those born outside this country to share their efforts to learn English.  Luke chose a word that can mean either “they saw” or “Behold.”  Is the Transfiguration a history lesson?  Is it an experience which we simply take on faith because we trust the Apostles?  Or is it something else?  If we are reading the story as if “ they saw this then they saw that then they heard that and they saw that,” it is a simple history lesson or experience.  But Luke, inspired by the Holy Spirit, chose a word that has two meanings.  One meaning allows the history and experience, but the other demands our attention.  It is as if the Holy Spirit nudged Luke to write to all who love God “Pay attention!”  Why?

     I think this year there are a couple teachings about the Transfiguration we would do well to remember.  They are obvious in Luke, but a bit too obvious for us to really pay attention.  Paul, though, really hammers it home for us on this day.  Where do we see the manifestation of God’s grace in our lives?  If I asked you where you saw the manifestation of God’s grace in Luke’s narrative today, everyone would say Jesus, right?  But is that the only place we see God’s glory?

     That’s right!  We see God’s glory in both Elijah and Moses.  Both Moses and Elijah are participating in the economy of the Trinity.  They are conversing with Jesus about His upcoming torture, death, Resurrection, and Ascension.  Never mind the fact that both have been dead for centuries!  The really cool part of this story is that they are conversing with God about His plan of salvation history!  It is an intimate discussion which the Apostles witness, but cannot participate in . . . yet.  They are observers and do not yet understand the words they hear.  But we witness Moses and Elijah in an intimate relationship with God.  We behold the glory of God emanating from them!

     Of course, most of us think of them as superheroes of the faith, right?  They are special.  Moses led Israel out of Egypt and did great miracles.  Elijah did some pretty incredible miracles, too, and even raised a dead boy.  They are not like us ordinary mortals, right?  Read Paul again this morning.  All of us gathered here today, who have turned to the Lord, have had the veil lifted.  We are able to see, yes, very dimly most of the time, the glory of the Lord in one another.  When I look at you or you look at one another, Paul reminds us, we are beginning to see the glory of the Lord in everyone who is redeemed by Christ Jesus.  Now, admittedly, that glory is not yet complete, as it was for Moses and Elijah.  You and I are not dead and returned to our Father.  But we testify to His redemptive grace in our lives!  As we gather for worship and fellowship, we begin to hear one another’s stories.  We begin to inwardly digest the fact that each of us has a wonderfully unique and God-glorifying story to tell.

     Looking around the room, of course, I may know the very most.  But I push back against that assumption a bit.  I have only watched you, known you, for seven years.  Y’all can make up stories or forget details, and I have no way of knowing, unless another Adventer tells me.  And so much of God’s work is in the little details.  Some of you have known each other for decades.  Decades.  You have stories to tell how you ended up in these pews, grabbed by another Adventer or God and not allowed to leave.  You have witnessed each other dealing with the problems of being a parent, a spouse, a worker, an owner.  You have watched one another deal with disease and death.  You have done your best to support one another, to encourage one another, to love one another.  And, so, some of you know those stories far better than I.  And you each know the mercy and power of God’s love.  You see it radiated in the brother or sister in Christ who sits besides you, behind you, or in front of you.

     Is this all that there is?  Of course not!  Paul remind us we see this dimly through a mirror.  One day, either we will die or our Lord will return.  On that day, we will see Him face to face.  And our hearts, our minds, our everything will be re-created in the way that He intended from the beginning, before our sins distorted everything.  And then, like Moses and Elijah and the throng that has gone before us, we will truly share in His glory!  We will bask in His love and protection and wisdom and all those “things” for which our souls and bodies and minds and hearts long!  We will behold Him as He is, and rejoice what He did for each one us, despite ourselves.  And then we will party like the most amazing Wedding Feast that none of us can imagine!

     Of course, there is a second lesson upon which I need to focus this morning.  We have recounted the glory to which we are all called.  We have reminded ourselves of its cost to Jesus.  But there is more, so long as we draw breath.  Continue reading Luke.  Behold.  In the midst of this event which confirms Jesus role as God’s Chosen, in the midst of this instruction where the voice of God tells us to listen to Him, in the midst of this event which represents a pivot in Jesus’ ministry on earth an unwavering commitment to God plan of salvation history, what happens next? 

     The next day, Jesus and the three are down the mountain.  A crowd approaches, and a man begs Jesus to heal at his son.  Modern commentators argue whether this is demonic control, epilepsy, or some other issue.  In reality, the father does not care.  He believes it a demonic spirit and asks Jesus to have mercy on him and heal his son.  We are given one more detail.  The father has asked the disciples to do this, and they failed.  What does Jesus do?  He rebukes the demon in the midst of a series of convulsions, healed the boy, and restored him to his father.

     Think about this story with the events of cosmic and salvation history in the background.  Jesus has instructed His disciples what has to happen.  He has gone up the mountain to pray and be with His Father.  Moses and Elijah have appeared and conversed with Him about what is about to happen.  To accomplish God’s plan His Will will need to be focused on God’s Will as He is tortured, ridiculed, mocked and rejected by the crowd He came to save, and killed.  And in the midst of all that, the weight which you and I cannot even begin to fathom, what do we see?  We behold Jesus stopping, healing a boy, and restoring the boy to a father.  In the grand scheme of salvation history, in the grand scheme of the redemption of the cosmos, Jesus is focused on the one in need before Him.  Behold!

     Is it the Will of the Father that Jesus go to the Cross and die?  Yes.  Yet it is equally the Will of the Father that all might turn, that none should die!  And in the midst of the great cosmic event, we see His attention on the need of the individual.  You see, far better than we, He understands the glory for which every single human being was created and the glory to which it is called.  So, even as He sets His eyes on Jerusalem, He is ever alert to those in need in His midst.

     The lesson for us, of course, is a reminder of our responsibility to those we meet in our daily life, work, entertainment, service, and wherever else we meet them.  Yes, we have an incredible hope in the Gospel.  Yes, we are promised glory.  But with that hope comes incredible responsibility!  Like our Lord, whose life is a pattern for holy living, you and I are called to see the potential glory in every human being we encounter.  We are called to serve them in His Name, minister to them in His Name, love them in His Name.  To be sure, many are prickly; many will argue they are unlovable.  But we serve and minister and love them repeatedly, because we know what we were.  We were like they are now.  But we remember what God did for each one of us.  We look around and see the other prickly pears in our lives, the others who thought themselves forgotten and unloved, and we bear those little crosses trusting He will use us to reach them, certain that all who accept His invitation will begin to radiate that same glory we see in each other who have been saved by His grace and experienced His forgiveness.

     Brothers and sister, make no mistake; hear me clearly.  This is not an easy life we are called to live.  We bear crosses for the One who bore the Cross for us, not because we owe Him, not because we can ever pay Him back, but because we are thankful and amazed at the love and mercy He first showed us.  Like the crowds who witnessed this event, we are astounded at the greatness of God, and want others to experience for themselves.  In some ways, my friends, we have been to the mountaintop yet again today.  We have beheld the Transfiguration of our Lord, just as Luke, inspired by the Holy Spirit, encouraged and instructed us.  But now, reminded of that promise, reminded of that hope that we will all one day share in that glory and those intimate conversations as His friend, we go forth into the shadows of the world inviting others to join us and Him.  For all eternity!

 

In Christ’s Peace,

Brian†