Scripture
readings: Psalm 27; Matthew 17:1-13
Today we sang “Shine, Jesus, Shine.” I like that song
a lot. There is one funny thing about it though. That is the fact that Jesus
never shines in any of the gospels, except for here; in what we call the
transfiguration, as Matthew, Mark, and Luke repeat it in their gospels.
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| Saddle Mountain North of Desert Aire/Mattawa WA: February 2015 |
The gospels call Jesus light, but he only shines for
the disciples (and for us) right here; in the transfiguration. He didn’t shine
during what the gospels tell us about his birth. He didn’t shine when he rose
from the dead on Easter Dawn. He didn’t shine when he rose into heaven.
(There are times, after that, when Jesus shines, but
that is another story.)
I’ve just taken the long way around of saying that
what we read here is truly exceptional, even for Jesus. And this is simply more
evidence of how common the gospels are; how down to earth and unexcitable they
are.
The gospels are full of miracles, but they never go
wild and crazy about them. They are very reserved in the way they report them.
The gospels are calm and careful in the way they lead
us to Jesus. And that is a lesson for us, in the way we come to Jesus, in our
own lives, and in the way we bring others to him. It’s important to be calm and
careful.
We do have a miracle here: a miracle of seeing or a
miracle of showing. We call it the transfiguration, and that is an awfully
fancy word. The Greek word for what happened is the root of our word
“metamorphosis”. That is another very fancy word.
Metamorphosis means transformation. Metamorphosis is
what happens when a caterpillar spins a cocoon around itself and changes into a
butterfly. It’s the normal thing to say that the caterpillar and the butterfly
are stages of development. Yet it may be a more wonderful thing to say that the
caterpillar and the butterfly are really the same. Maybe the butterfly lives in
the caterpillar and the caterpillar lives in the butterfly.
What the disciples saw on the mountain was not Jesus
moving into a later and more advanced stage of his development. For one thing
he changed right back again into the normal Jesus, as his friends had always
known him.
The voice from the cloud of light should tell us if
this is a new Jesus, but it doesn’t. The voice says, “This is my Son, whom I
love; with him I am well pleased.” (17:5)
These are basically the same words that came from
heaven the moment Jesus was baptized, at the beginning of his ministry.
(Matthew 3:17) The Jesus who was shining bright as the sun was the same old
Jesus his disciples had always known. In fact the Jesus who was bright as the
sun was the same Jesus who was the baby in Bethlehem ,
and the boy asking questions in the Temple
The light they had never seen before drew attention
to what was always right there in front of them, all the time.
The voice from the cloud of light said a few more
words, “Listen to him.” It said “listen to him” because sometimes they didn’t,
and they needed to know who it was that they were not listening to. They were
not listening to someone whose face was really brighter than the sun, even when
they didn’t see the light.
The miracle of seeing, which lasted no more than a
few minutes, helped them know how to live in the presence of the unseen. The
presence of the unseen is about faith. Paul says, “For we walk by faith, not by
sight.” (2 Corinthians 5:7) And the Letter to the Hebrews says (in the King
James Version), “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence
of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1)
The New International Version says, “Now faith is
being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” Most modern
translations have something similar to that; making faith a matter of inner
assurance and confidence instead of something substantial and objective. This
is because modern people, who make the modern translations, have trouble with
the concept of faith being more than an attitude and more than a way of
thinking.
Faith is not an attitude. Faith is not a way of
thinking or even of seeing things. Faith is a strange way of knowing something
even when you cannot properly do justice to it in words. Peter and the other
two disciples saw Jesus clearly and either they didn’t know what to say or else
(in Peter’s case) they could only think of very silly things to say.
Faith is a form of belonging. Faith is being
connected to a reality that is beyond you, a reality that you cannot see with
your eyes.
Faith is the rule of the unseen. When you trust
Jesus, what you say and do (and even what you think) changes, because the
invisible rules you. The world around you doesn’t see Jesus, but they see and
experience, through you, the Jesus to whom you are connected. When faith is at
work in you, it produces the substance and the evidence of Jesus.
The voice from the cloud said, “Listen to him.” When
you listen to Jesus you make the invisible visible.
The church is a group of people who are learning to
make their connection with Jesus visible. They do this by learning to change
the way they connect with others.
We practice this connection on each other (like
mutual guinea pigs) because we trust that we all understand that we are
involved in the same experiment. We trust that we are all committed to that
experiment. We need other people in order to practice our connection with
Jesus. So the church makes perfect sense, even when the church is sinful and
foolish.
In the sixteenth Chapter of Matthew, Jesus asked the
disciples to describe his identity in their own words, and in their own voice.
Peter said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus said,
“Blessed are you Simon Bar Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to
you, but my Father in heaven.”
(Matthew 16:15-17)
By “flesh and blood” Jesus meant that Peter’s
understanding of who Jesus really was didn’t come from his own figuring it out.
It didn’t even come from some place in Peter’s heart. It came from God. There
is a leap of inspiration that is not our own leap.
We may talk about a leap of faith, but usually we are
pushed. It is like being a child who is afraid of the water and who has a
father or mother who will not accept your fear. They put you in the water, and
they make you do things you are afraid to do because you don’t really believe
that your body can float on top of the water. Swimming is something you simply
have to do. At least you have to try.
Even though faith has to be a kind of decision we
make and stick to; even though faith may be the hardest choice we make; even if
we make it kicking and screaming; faith usually comes down to being a kind of
necessity. Faith may be a choice; but real faith, in the end, turns out to be
the only choice.
Faith always comes from some action, or from the
memories of some action, like of the time your father or mother taught you to
swim. Faith is being connected to something or someone beside yourself.
One way or another, for better or for worse, that
connection has shaped you. It shaped, and may continue to shape, the person you
are. It is the work of the connection, the work of the unseen. The connection
has transfigured you, and made the caterpillar into a butterfly. The connection
has made the invisible visible.
Another example of being ruled by the unseen is one
that I know nothing about, personally. It is how a mother-to-be is ruled and
shaped by the unseen life within her. When things are the way they should be, a
personal relationship begins with that baby within. It is not entirely unseen,
of course, but it is a relationship that goes far beyond what you can see.
I imagine that faith, hope, and love go into it. I
imagine that a woman’s emotions and personality adapt to accept this coming new
person before that person becomes visible.
The first funeral I ever performed was for a
premature, stillborn baby. I could see the depth of the loss of an invisible
but real connection. I could see that the mother, the father, the brother, and
the sister didn’t know how to understand their loss or put it into words,
because that relationship had been mostly invisible.
Love itself is an unseen thing. You have to choose to
make love seen, and visible, and felt, and heard. Love, in many ways, is an
unseen thing that changes your priorities, and your direction in life. It
changes who you are, even though it goes unseen. It is the rule under which you
live. It’s true that love, like faith, is also a leap, but it is also a push.
The transfiguration only lasted for a few moments,
and that is all that was needed. But it was needed. It was given to the
disciples because they would need the experience of a shining Jesus to hold
them steady and hold them together when they began to experience terrible
things.
Jesus had begun to show disturbing changes in what he
told them about his mission. Jesus had begun to hammer his disciples with the
thought that they were going to Jerusalem
The disciples were beginning to be afraid. And then
this moment or two of Jesus (as they had never seen him before) made a strange
statement to their fear. For a brief moment they saw that Jesus was truly
someone who could talk about being crucified, and dying, and rising from the
dead. The moment quickly passed, but the memory of seeing the un-seeable glory
of Jesus did not leave them.
The memory of this stayed with them all their lives.
It was part of the wonder of seeing Jesus again, when he had risen from the
dead with the wounds of the nails in his hands and feet. As they held Jesus in
their arms, they also saw, in their memory, the glory of who Jesus is.
Of course he had been able to rise from the dead. Of
course he was able to die as a ransom for their sins. They saw how everything
that Jesus promised was able to come true. They saw how Jesus was the one who
could meet the evil, and violence, and injustice of this world and overcome it.
He could offer them a new world and a new life.
The transfiguration was a gift to help his friends
through their own way to the cross, and to the risen Jesus, and beyond. The
transfiguration was the gift of what we sometimes call a “mountaintop
experience”. (I do believe that this is where the phrase comes from.) The
friends of Jesus saw something that is normally unseen, and for the rest of
their lives they were ruled by it.
We have to know that being a Christian, being a
follower of Jesus, means living under the rule and influence of the unseen.
Sometimes it makes us do things that seem silly to
everyone else. We do some funny things together in this place. We talk to
someone with our eyes closed, and with our hands folded or raised. We sing odd
songs together.
We do even sillier things. We stop what we are doing
to help other people. We forgive those who do us wrong. We are patient, and
hopeful, and surprisingly peaceful.
Aren’t we? Aren’t we Christians famous for not
judging others? Aren’t we famous for praying for all people, even in the
government?
All of this is related to a reality that we have
experienced: or we are supposed to have experienced it. All our strange words
and actions are related to a reality that we cannot make others see, but we are
called to make that reality known, with the help of the unseen. Our prayer is
to make the invisible into something visible to others.
We know the Jesus who shines. We are the work
projects of the Holy Spirit of God.
There is some mountain top in our lives where we have
met this Jesus and received this Spirit and heard the voice of this
There are doubts on this road. There are fears. There
is injustice and evil. There is weakness, and pain, and loss, and grief. There
are people who need us, and they need to know Jesus through us. There is hard
work to do. There are crosses to carry.
There is fellowship and partnership with others.
There is oneness, and there are wonders. There is singing and joy. There is fun
and play. There is hope and life. There is love. And there is heaven and the
resurrection. And Jesus will take us there.
Faith is not truly blind. The transfiguration tells
us about the power and rule of the unseen. It tells us about a reality that is
hard to put into words, but it is a reality that we can experience for
ourselves. It’s a reality that changes us. It connects us to the living God in
Christ. Faith teaches us to live for the purpose of making the invisible
visible to the world.
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