Only Jesus
Sunday, February 22nd, 2009
Last Epiphany / Transfiguration B
Mark 9:2-10
Theme: The centrality of Jesus – his Lordship
“2 Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, 3and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them. 4And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus. 5Then Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” 6He did not know what to say, for they were terrified. 7Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!”8Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them any more, but only Jesus.
9As they were coming down the mountain, he ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead. 10So they kept the matter to themselves, questioning what this rising from the dead could mean.”
The transfiguration
Even the naming of it has an otherworldly feel to it. It is in the same league as the resurrection and the ascension. It is one of the events in the life of Jesus that we struggle with, not necessarily on the level of faith, but as an event that speaks to that element of the Gospel story with which we naturally – and I mean that in the fullest sense of the word – struggle to come to terms with.
Seeing someone transformed like Jesus was that day is not something we can associate with as an everyday occurrence. We don’t commonly run into people whose face shines like the sun and whose robe turns to a white such as no one on earth could bleach, despite the claims of any number of daytime television show sponsors.
Whether it was an actual physical occurrence, supported by details in the telling, such as the six days specified at the beginning, the names of the disciples involved, and the emphasis on solitude and the place, or whether it was a vision, suggested by the use of the verb ‘appeared’, scholars will tell us that the transfiguration served many purposes: to underscore the divine nature of Christ, to foreshadow his resurrection and ascension, to prepare his disciples to understand – in retrospect, perhaps – just who Jesus was. To, through the appearance of Moses and Elijah beside him, along with the voice of God from the cloud in the sky, establish a clear continuity between the prophets of old, represented by Elijah; and the Law, represented by Moses, and the present Messiah – to link the Hebrew Scriptures with the current reality being lived in that day – and by his followers, who were reading and receiving this Gospel.
They may all be valid and accurate assessments of what the transfiguration was – why and how it happened, and what purpose it served. But ultimately, we have to bring the events of scripture in to a point where we can wrap our heads around them.
So we quickly arrive at the question: How does the transfiguration affect me, here, now, today? Put another way, and this may be the preferable one, since the focus is shifted away from US – after all, WE are not the focus of the message, though we DO receive it, we are simply here to CONVEY it… the FOCUS of the message is and always will be CHRIST: the question is better stated: How do WE respond to the transfiguration? It is a slight difference, but I believe a critical one, which makes Jesus the focus of our thought.
The gospel writer helps us in that sense through how the passage says the disciples who were with Jesus responded in the immediate aftermath: Peter blurts out what seems to be the first thing that came to mind (that’s SO unlike him, isn’t it??): “Here’s an idea! We’ve just experienced this incredible thing, let’s put up three buildings – one for each of you three – Elijah over here, Moses over there, and Jesus, who, by the way >>I<<>This is great!” Mark adds a fairly rare editorial comment here: “he did not know what to say, for they were terrified.”
How familiar is that? We get into a situation where we are scared, or uncomfortable, uneasy, or unsure of how to proceed. What is generally our first response? We fill the emptiness with words, regardless of whether or not those words add anything of value to the experience. It would seem to be an ingrained response. We find refuge in words. Words can provide comfort in their familiar sounds when we are surrounded by an unfamiliar and discomforting event or experience, when we are confronted with a situation with which we are at a total loss as to how to “best” respond.
Peter’s response is one with which we can all identify. We’ve all been in those situations. Even going beyond the ‘nervous, knee-jerk reaction’ of saying something, ANYTHING just to fill the void, and going to the place where we examine his suggestion on it’s merit, and understand that it COULD be putting words to his – and our – deepest yearnings – to be in the presence of Christ – in the presence of the divine one and to just simply ABSORB that in and of itself… that longing to simply BE … speaks beyond our need for action and TO our need for substance.
We can be comforted by the fact that in his suggestion, we can see that Peter and those disciples who were closest to Jesus, his ‘inner circle’ of friends, who spent the most quality time with him, were, even at this late date, still learning who Jesus was. So we don’t lose heart. We are reminded that it can take us a lifetime to get to know someone fully. It is no different with getting to know Jesus.
What does this mean for
It is a fairly simple proposition. Here we read where the disciples caught a glimpse of the fullness of Christ – his divine nature combined with his earthly perfect nature. And after that walked back down off the mountain with Jesus again telling them to tell no one about what they saw until they understood what it MEANT.
The call of Christ is not to dwell on those mountaintops where we may well BE able to commune with the Holy Spirit and great figures of our faith history, but to come back down off the mountain, back among the dwelling places of men and women just like us, people who struggle every day with the same issues and worries that we do, who share the same joys and sorrows, who have some of the same hopes and dreams, and to point them to the one who would transform their lives, their hopes, their dreams into an existence of abundant life … one where, even though we DO struggle with similar issues, we know on a much deeper level, in a much more profound way, that we serve a risen, glorious Lord, who is more than able to transfigure us daily into HIS presence in the world.
Let’s pray.
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