Feast of the Transfiguration
Last Sunday of Epiphany
February 27, 2022
Luke 9: 28b - 36
It is the Feast of the Transfiguration
And isn’t this just a weird episode?
Weird…Unexplainable…Mysterious…Evocative!
As it stands alone
It’s difficult to know what to do with it
Except maybe
Just let it be
But if we look at where it sits in the liturgical year
and where it sits in the masterful storytelling of Luke’s Gospel
The Transfiguration is
PIVOTAL
Today’s Feast always ends the Season of Epiphany
[Epiphany…meaning the manifestation of the Messiah to the whole world]
The End of Epiphany and
Leaning into Lent
Up to this point in the Gospel
We have the incarnation and Jesus’ public ministry
We have had signs and wonders and healings
Its at this point that the pivot says:
“Yes! But there is more to it than that.”
Leaning into Lent
Which begins Wednesday
We pivot and look ahead for a fuller picture of glory
The fullness of glory
Which will be revealed by the cross and resurrection.
There are a couple of pivot-hints in the story
1) There is that line (that one line) in the strange conversation between Moses, Elijah and Jesus:
“They appeared in Glory and were speaking of his departure”
…his departure
The word translated ‘departure’ is EXODUS
Luke is pointing the hearers…us…to the cross and resurrection
He is foreshadowing.
And we can dig a bit deeper and notice the urgency of this pivot
Moses: the law giver
Yes…But there is more to it
Elijah:
The most famous story about Elijah
From 1 Kings
Is about the time he showed up the priests of Baal
at the Mt Carmel God competition
Both sides set up altars
And the one spontaneously consumed by fire
Well that would be a clear indication that the true God
Is on their side
Elijah even throws a bucket of water on his altar
That is how confident he was in Yahweh
And Yahweh came out on top…no surprise there
We usually stop right there when we recall this story
But Peter surely remembered
the climax of the story in the next line
Elijah commanded
“Seize the prophets of Baal; do not let one of them escape.”
Then they seized them; and Elijah brought them down to the River,
And killed them there… (all 450 of them).
I know…gruesome
A quick ASIDE:
No doubt Elijah THOUGHT that he was pleasing God
And this is so honest of the biblical authors
These ancient stories are the honest working out
of just who God is
and who we are as a people of God.
2) Besides the foreshadowing In the today’s storytelling
There are echoes back
Back to the only other time God speaks from the heavens
At the Baptism God says
“You are my beloved son in whom I am well pleased”
And today God says
“This is my Son, my chosen, Listen to him”
I can see it
God…a sort Michelangelo God
With that long arm and finger stretched out
He says LISTEN
And he slowly moves that finger
Finds Moses
“Not him”
Finds Elijah
“not him”
Then his finger rests on Jesus…
HIM…listen to HIM
And the others disappear
Jesus is calling Peter, James and John to sttend to their deep-seeded notions of God
SO THAT
They might make a 90 degree pivot.
Jesus, Peter, James and John come down from the mountain
They don’t pitch tents and bask in the glory-dazzle
Jesus leads them as he turns his face resolutely to Jerusalem
Where in 10 chapters
There will be another mountain
Golgotha
And Jesus will face crowds of people
Just like Elijah did
But instead of Evil for Evil
Jesus lets them kill him
As he pronounces mercy from the Cross
“Father forgive them…
SO WHAT does this strange story have to say to us?
Its still a tough pivot to make
Its hard to keep God grounded in love and forgiveness
I know that I lapse
I presume we are all lapsers from time to time
The clue…the nudge for me
Comes when I realize that
God has become a very easy and convenient conversation partner
He…helps me justify my decisions
He…agrees that I ought to hold on to that grudge a bit longer
Which will certainly benefit the other;)
He…understands that I NEED a tight hold on my security
And when I worry about war, violence, and global upheaval
He allows me to focus on my own pocketbook and potential inconveniences
And then
On Friday afternoon
While I fell into a little catnap on the sofa
“weighed down with sleep” like Peter
I was able to be aware of my sleepy but vivid daydream
I was dreaming that I was me
With everything the same about my life and my family
Only…I lived in Kiev
I think this dream was a kind of glimpse of glory
One that asks me to pivot
…to examine my convenient notion of God that I’ve let creep in
Glimpses of glory
Can be both dazzling and challenging
I imagine we need both
Where DO we… glimpse God’s glory?
In mountains, rivers, forests, skies?
In the Love of God that shines when we care for neighbor, friend, earth and all her creatures?
Are we glimpsing God’s glory right now…here in each other’s company?
Whenever we offer or receive loving forgiveness?
Are we glimpsing God’s glory in his relentless invitation to be transfigured?
I’d like to...Id like us to...enter Lent
with this heightened sense of pivoting toward the fullness of God’s Glory
Which always includes the cross
But never lets go of the hope of the resurrection
Happy Ash Wednesday
Happy Lent
No comments:
Post a Comment