There’s
a very good reason why the Reformed Church celebrates Jesus’ Transfiguration on
this Sunday at the end of Epiphany and before the beginning of Lent. Over these past weeks since Christmas, we’ve
been dwelling in the season of Epiphany – during which we have been reminded of
how Love breaks into our lives, transforming us into a people of hope, joy and
peace. During Lent, which commences
this Wednesday, we turn our faces towards Jerusalem, walking a journey with
Jesus – daring to face all our doubts, our fears and our sufferings; walking
with the one who shows us how Love transforms even the deepest pain of the
world. Transfiguration Sunday provides a hinge holding together these two
aspects of what it means to be fully alive human-beings. Today we are invited up the mountain to take
a longer view of the past and future; to consider – at a time when roads run
out and signposts end – where and how we might be alive to the presence and
purpose of God. Transfiguration is a
time in the Church calendar, when we might catch a glimpse of Love’s glorious
possibilities, which emerge from our mountain-top experiences – and also
provide strength in those hard and difficult times, when all hope seems lost.
As
the Gospel writers tell it, the disciples thought the road was running out and
the signposts ending. They had heard him
say he was going to die. They’d listened
to his teaching about losing their life in a way that brought new life. They struggled to understand. And then, up there on the mountain, they were
granted one of those amazing moments of insight – and they saw him as he truly
was ... a human being carrying the star-dust of his ancestors, embracing past
traditions and shining with the transforming light of God ... and although they
were tired “weighed down with sleep”, they kept their eyes open long enough to
catch a glimpse of this glory of a human being pulsing with all the
possibility, light and love of the cosmos. And, naturally, they wanted to hold
on to it all; to nail it down... they wanted to build shrines, dwellings in
which to hold the vision safe and keep it protected for all time; they wanted
to stay at the top of the mountain confining the vision to the safety of
glorious certainty.
But that wasn’t to be; mountain-top
experiences are only that, because the mountain has been climbed. If we’ve never been down in the valley, the
mountain-top experience doesn’t make much sense. And even more important, if the shrines get
built, then what has happened on the mountain remains there – it’s of no use
for the ongoing journey – it won’t be of any help when the going gets
tough. If the shrines are built, the
vision is confined and even destroyed.
And
so, the well-meaning disciples are coaxed away from their plans. If we’d heard the longer reading set down for
today, we would have gone down the mountain with them – into the pain and
suffering, where healing hands and loving words were so desperately
needed. Wanting to remain on the
mountain-top, the disciples were abdicating their responsibility. They were afraid, they misunderstood and they
kept silent (at least, until, just a few verses later they find their voices to
squabble over which of them is more important)....They’d forgotten they too
carried the tradition of their ancestors, they too could shine with the light and
glory of God. They too could fully alive
human beings. They too could be the Light and Love of the world.[1]
Jan
Philips[2]
tells a story about the victim of a car accident – one whose experience was
very much one of transfiguration as the signposts ended. One moment, he was standing by his car,
taking photographs – caught up in the beauty of birds in flight; the next
moment he was slammed into, by a passing car.
“When
he came to, he was underneath his car, lying prostrate and facing the rear
wheel. He lifted his head enough to see
his outstretched arms and feared immediately that he was paralyzed. He tried to wiggle his fingers and was amazed
when they moved. Then he tried his feet
and his toes. They moved too. “I can get out of here” he thought. He tried to drag his body forward, but he
couldn’t move, he was under the exhaust, pinned to the ground ... [he thought
he was going to die]... it was time then to let go ...but he wanted to live and
he started to fear not so much the unknown, but the end of the known... gradually, he closed his eyes, took one last
deep conscious breath, and began to slip backwards, into silence, he felt
myself leaving through the soles of his feet, and was almost out when heard the
shouts. “Is anybody there? Is anybody alive?” He zipped right back into his body and
suddenly he was back under the car again.
The frantic voices continued to call “Is anybody there? Is anyone alive?” And in a voice barely audible, he called out
“I’m here”.. He looked up and saw four legs – two men – “Oh my God! They cried
out. Wait there! We’ll go for help!” “Don’t go”, he pleaded, “you are the
help. Just lift up the car.” There was a terrible silence, then they
yelled back, “we can’t! We need
help!” “Yes you can”, he cried. “You can, you’re the help. Just lift it up ... now.”
And
in one miraculous moment, they became the gods we are capable of being. They put their hands under the bumper and on
the count of three, lifted the car as if it were a feather.
In
later times, he reflected - I never knew it like I know it now – that we are
the help and we need reminding. When
those men approached the wreckage, the first thing they experienced was their
helplessness. They did not believe in
their own powers and wanted to run off in search of help. They were caught in the story we’ve been told
all our lives – that help is somewhere else, power and strength are somewhere
else, the solutions are somewhere else, beyond us, outside of us. But when they heard that voice “You are the
help”, some shift happened. In the place of doubt rushed a huge and mighty
force, a new belief that rippled through every cell in their bodies and infused
their beings with whatever strength was called for.
Whatever
is needed at this time in history to right this world, to right our own
personal and precious lives, we have these things within us. We do not need science and technology to save
us. ... We do not need more information
and faster computers to save us. What we
need is to abandon our notions that solutions exist [up mountains, in shrines]
some [place] else.
Coming
to grips with the power we are is a necessary step on the evolutionary
journey. It means being the ones we came
here to be, [believing, even in the midst of our deep unknowing that it is Love-in-action, which holds the
world together] believing in the words of the Master Teacher, “Anything I have
done in the name of the Creator, you can do, too ... and even more. ”[3]
On
this Transfiguration-hinge Sunday, we are invited to open our eyes to see
Jesus, transformed, transfigured to a beam of light – the light of the world –
God’s light, which continues to shine through us, the ongoing Body of Christ.
We
open our eyes to see Moses and Elijah (and perhaps John Knox, Dr Stuart and
Sister Gladys) – representing the
traditions and stories of our ancestors, providing words which speak to us and
now speak through us in a new, transfigured way.
We
open our eyes and we see a misty cloud –the cloud of God’s presence, the cloud
of unknowing –which assures us we do not know everything and that we do not
need to fear that.
We
open our eyes and we see Peter and his friends with their plans – like our best
plans – often missing the point, losing the way - forgetting the invitation to
join Jesus down the mountain, being the Christ to others.
We
open our ears and we hear the voice of Spirit – reminding us that the whole
point of being church is to be alive to the presence of God in all times and in
all places; Spirit, announcing Jesus as God’s beloved – one to whom we are to
attune our hearts and minds – and whose life we must emulate.[4]
And,
that is enough, more than enough for the journey ... even when the sign posts
end, even when we come to the edge of today, walking a lonesome valley to
Jerusalem ... For we know that we have what is needed for the journey – we are
not alone. Thanks be to God.
[1]
“The glory of God is a
human being fully alive; and to be alive consists in beholding God.” (Irenaeus
2nd century Christian bishop)
[2] Jan Phillips, No Ordinary Time: The rise of Spiritual
Intelligence and Evolutionary Creativity. 2011
[3] Jan Phillips, No Ordinary Time: The rise of Spiritual
Intelligence and Evolutionary Creativity. 2011
[4]
Shaped by William Loader, “Transfiguration Prayer”
http://wwwstaff.murdoch.edu.au/~loader/TransfigurationPrayer.htm
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