It Is Good For Us to Be Here
Our Diocesan Convention this weekend had as its theme, the great
admonition from Paul to the church ion Rome: “Do not be conformed to
this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that
you may discern what is the will of God -- what is good and acceptable
and perfect.” How fitting that idea as we come to the last Sunday
of Epiphany, the Sunday on which we focus our attention of the
Transfiguration of Christ and the transforming power of God at work in
our lives.
First, a little Bible study: Consider verses 1-13 from the 9th chapter of Mark’s Gospel but WITH TODAY’S PERICOPE OMITTED:
1 And he said to them, ‘Truly I tell you,
there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see
that the kingdom of God has come with* power.’
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,
3 and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one* on earth could bleach them.
4 And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus.
5 Then 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.’
6 He did not know what to say, for they were terrified.
7 Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved;* listen to him!’
8 Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them any more, but only Jesus.
9 As 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.
10 So they kept the matter to themselves, questioning what this rising from the dead could mean.
11 Then they asked him, ‘Why do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?’
12 He said to them, ‘Elijah is indeed coming first to restore all
things. How then is it written about the Son of Man, that he is to go
through many sufferings and be treated with contempt?
13 But I tell you that Elijah has come, and they did to him whatever they pleased, as it is written about him.’
(NRSV)
One
of the big, really big, first century challenges to the Christian
belief that Jesus of Nazareth fulfilled the promise of God’s Messiah to
Israel was the non-believers’ insistence that if Jesus was the Messiah,
more people would have followed him, would have seen him as fulfilling
that role. Mark devotes his account of the Gospel, pretty much
beginning to end, to showing how even those closest to him seemed to
struggle to see, to catch on.
The other big challenge was the prophecy found in Malachi that Elijah
would appear as the forerunner of the Lord. From a literary point
of view, it surely seems as if Mark has introduced the story of
Transfiguration to support an argument that waiting on Elijah to
foreshadow the Messiah is a fool’s errand. But I think Mark also
wants to demonstrate that there is worth, transforming worth, in being
present when God reveals the kingdom, even when there is lack of
understanding.
Aside from apologetics and literary methods, that message—“It is good
to be here…”—is found in today’s readings and speaks to us here in the
21st century. I was walking the trails of Leatherwood last week
and images of Jesus and the disciples climbing up the mountain began to
form, followed by mental pictures of Moses on the desert mountain
before a burning bush, then on a burning mountain before God… I
want to share some of these images of transformation and perhaps we can
catch our own reflections among them.
The story of transfiguration and transformation, the revealing what is
over against what appears to be evolves from the earliest stories of
Jewish formation to the revelation of the Messiah on the Mount of
Transfiguration. Remember, these stories are not “just” history;
these stories are out stories. Adam and Eve, Noah and the Ark,
Abraham, Sarah and Hagar, Jacob, Leah and Rachel… all tales of
what was and what is and what is to be, living history which invites us
in to become a part of its substance—anamnesis in its richest
form. No more nor less than our proclamation at Eucharist: Chris
has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again. God’s time is
always what was, and is, and is yet to be.
First there is Moses: Moses’ life is conveniently divided into three
40-year periods. The first is lived in relative luxury as a
Prince of Egypt, brother to the pharaoh-to-be. Raised an
Egyptian, he is aware of his Hebrew blood but not necessarily
recognized as such by the Hebrews. Then one day he reacts in
righteous anger against an Egyptian taskmaster abusing a Hebrew slave
by committing an unrighteous act—he murders the Egyptian. He
suddenly becomes pariah to both Egyptian and Hebrew and flees to the
Midianite desert to escape.
There he spends forty years in relative isolation, tending goats in a
remote and barren place where there is plenty of time to contemplate
and meditate and reflect on life and purpose. He encounters the
burning bush, the flame that consumes but does not destroy, the place
where he encounters the Voice of I AM. The Hebrew term is HAYAH –
the power and energy of God. Here on the mountain, prefiguring
the Transfiguration of God’s Christ, Moses meets God and is sent back
to Egypt to lead the Hebrew captives to freedom. The Rod in
Moses’ hand becomes the vehicle, not only for convincing Moses, but for
delivering God’s children. Later it will bring water from the
rock, it will be a stumbling block for Moses, it will become salvation
for the Jew when the desert snakes begin to kill, it will ultimately be
raised on Golgotha and become a vehicle for the salvation of us all.
Moses’ final forty years is spent in the desert again. And he
again goes up the mountain to meet God. He is transformed by being in
God’s presence so that he has to veil his face to protect the people
from the light of God, from the HAYAH that shakes the mountain and
covers it with a cloud. Moses will not cross over the Jordan to
see the end of the journey, but he will meet the end of the journey,
the One who can say, “It is finished.” And he can say, “It is
good to be here” for having been in the presence of God.
Next, we meet Elijah, a prophet in the Northern Kingdom, Israel, during
the reign of Ahab and Jezebel. His story opens by the banks
of a wadi, the Brook Cherith where he is fed by ravens and sustained
until the water runs out in the midst of the drought and famine sent as
judgment on Ahab’s kingdom. He then meets a widow who is
gathering sticks and asks for a cake of bread. She explains her
and her son’s dire circumstances—she is about to make the last of their
oil and meal into a morsel of food which they will eat then die.
But Elijah instructs her to follow his orders and she and the boy will
be provided for as long as the famine lasts. This Elijah will
ultimately raise the boy from the dead, he will confront the prophets
of Baal in a contest to see whose god will consume an offering placed
on an altar by sending down fire—transfiguring, transforming
fire. Recall, Elijah has twelve barrels of water poured on the
altar—twelve barrels of the most precious substance in Israel and then
calls the fire of God down to consume the offering. And yet, he
is resisted and comes to the conclusion that he alone in all Israel is
left to honor God. He decides to lay down and die himself.
God lifts him and ultimately he leads his disciple, Elisha from Gilgal
to Bethel to Jericho to Jordan, he strikes the water with his mantle
and they part, the two cross over on dry ground where they are
separated by chariot of fire and horses of fire (TRANSFIGURED
EXTERNALLY). Elijah ascends in whirlwind; Elisha receives double
blessings – transformed into a prophet like Elijah with greater power;
it was good that Elisha should have been with Elijah when he was taken
up
And then we come to Jesus as he takes Peter, James, & John up the
mount of transfiguration where Moses & Elijah appear. As they
exchange their stories, Moses and Elijah seeing the fulfillment of what
they must have seen but dimly in their own age, Jesus reveals the HAYAH
of God (TRANSFIGURED INTERNALLY). Burning bush and babbling brook
meet THE VOICE. And these three disciples who are witnesses are
transformed, receiving a power of which they are not yet aware—a power
to lead God’s children, to deliver them in time of famine and struggle,
to challenge them when they stray, to show the love of God for all
creation, bearing the TRUTH to deaf ears and hard hearts. But
transformation takes time and caution sometimes allows that which we do
not understand to grow within, to form roots and energize us when we
are ready to give up.
As we meet here, week after week, to celebrate Christ’s Body and Blood,
we are ascending a spiritual mountain where bread and wine are
transfigured and we are offered the transforming power of Christ in us.
Let us say with Peter: “It is good to be here,” and enter into the
transforming life of Christ, carrying the love of God out our doors
into the world.
Amen.
The Rev. John Dryden Burton
St. James
Eureka Springs
Feb 22, 2009