Transfiguration Sunday
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my Redeemer, amen.
This Sunday is the last Sunday during the Christian season of Epiphany. The word epiphany means a ‘sudden or unexpected insight or revelation.’ We traditionally begin the season of Christmas with the lighting of the Christ candle, symbolizing Christ coming into our dark world and our role of reflecting the light of Christ today. We lost some of this symbolism by not being able to gather together and experience this as a community. Part of what I love about being Episcopal is that there is meaning and reason behind why we do things that speak to us -in deep symbolic ways without the use of words.
During the season of Epiphany we read texts from the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry and the unveiling of His purposes for why He came to earth.
Our Gospel text this morning is referred to as the transfiguration text – it happened on a mountain known in Scripture as the Mount of Transfiguration, little else is known or said of this mountain.
Mountains were favorite places to meet God in Old Testament theology. People lived on the plains or on the side of the hills, but the mountains couldn’t support many people. Few people lived there year round - it was a good place to get away from people and experience time alone with God.
The two people who appear with Jesus in this text today are Moses and Elijah. There has been much said about why these two, but one reason is that Moses was a respected leader who had been with God. He had seen God.
There is a story of how Moses went up to Mt. Sinai to receive the Law and the tablets of Testimony. When he came down there was a change in his appearance. It is a story that shares of a change in appearance that came from Moses spending time with God on the mountain. Moses had immediate credibility with the people. They listened to what he had to say because they knew that he had been with God. Elijah has credibility because he ascended in a whirlwind and it was predicted that Elijah would return.
Credibility is always important for the messenger to have. Credibility is something that the listener gives to the messenger. Is the message credible or not? Do I trust that the messenger has been with God? What kind of weight do I give to his or her words? It would be so much simpler if Moses’ experience was typical. If we had been with God and our face shown. Or if we had a leader who had been taken to heaven in a chariot of fire. We would know these leaders had instant credibilityBut that’s not the world that we live in. Instead, we have to listen and make our own judgments about credibility. I guess we all develop our own strategies for evaluating the credibility and reliability of messengers.
We do this whether we are conscious of it or not. From childhood, we begin the process of figuring out who to trust and who not to trust. We learn to be wary of people who are unreliable; we learn to be a little skeptical of what people tell us. And as we get older, we learn to use our minds to think about what we are told. This natural skepticism sometimes keeps us from being seduced. Some of us have more natural skepticism than others; I may fall into that category.
Of course, the downside of our skepticism is that sometimes we miss out on sound advice and wisdom; and we suffer because of it. The question of how we decide who to lend credibility to is particularly important when we are talking about spiritual messengers like pastors and priests. While I don’t have a fool proof plan for deciding who to trust, I can tell you where I am. I don’t automatically accept what someone says just because they say that God told them. I don’t doubt their sincerity, but I am still responsible for evaluating what they are saying on the basis of the message itself.
I also don’t automatically accept what someone says just because they say it with conviction or confidence.
I don’t automatically accept what someone says on the basis of how much emotion they express or how loud they deliver the message. That may be important to some people, but volume is not an important measure of truthfulness or trustworthiness for me. Instead, I tend to
give credence to a messenger who allows her ideas to stand on their own without needing to resort to bullying or manipulation. I tend to give credence to a messenger who trusts that God is at work in our world and doesn’t feel the need to resort to gimmicks or games. I tend to judge the message on the basis of how well it conforms to the image of God revealed in His son, Jesus Christ.
I know this doesn’t sound nearly as clear and definitive as the confirmation that the Israelites had when Moses came down from meeting with God. His face was radiant; it was obvious that he was mediating between the people and a holy God. But that was a one-time occurrence; it was the exception to the rule. The world that we live in does not have that kind of certainty and security. We live in a world where I do not have instant authority and automatic credibility when I speak.
Instead, we live in a world where I teach and preach the scripture; I try to give you my clearest thinking and insights, and then you have to decide the amount of credibility you give to my words. That is the world that we live in. I trust that you will listen to what I have to say and that you will judge my insights by your clearest thinking. And I trust that you will listen to the Scripture even when it may challenge your deeply held beliefs, and allow God to be at work in your lives.
We trust that you will be open to new insights and will be willing to learn and grow.
I also have to admit to a weakness in being human; I don’t always know what you need to do, I don’t always have the right answers. And because of this, I do not take it personally when you see something differently than I do.
On this Transfiguration Sunday, Elijah appears in our Gospel reading as well in as our Old Testament text. In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus takes Peter, James, and John upon the mountain to pray. In Matthew’s account of the transfiguration it says he took them to “get away from the crowds”. I think that Jesus went up on the mountain to spend time with God. In the previous chapter, Jesus had begun to tell the disciples about his upcoming trip to Jerusalem and shared with them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering and and would be rejected, killed and in three days would rise again. I suspect that the time spent in prayer was probably focused on the cross that lay ahead. While they were on the mountain, his face is changed
and his clothes become “dazzling white” Matthew’s account says “white like a flash of lightening.”
And during that time of transformation, Moses and Elijah appear with him. Those two Old Testament characters, who both had mysterious departures from this world and who were expected to appear again at the end of the world, appear with Jesus. Moses and Elijah were two Old Testament figures who each had a mountaintop experience with God during their lives. And now they return to appear in another one.
According to Luke’s account of this event, their conversation is about Jesus’ impending departure from this world. They talked about his exodus, his departure. The three Disciples see Jesus, Moses, and Elijah talking. Peter, probably assuming that the Messianic Age was already there, wanted to build three dwellings and stay there on the mountain. Before he could get started, a cloud descended on the group, a voice came from the cloud.
It is reminiscent of the voice that came at Jesus’ baptism. This time the voice says, “this is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him.” At Jesus’ baptism, the voice had said, “You are my Son in whom I am well-pleased.
Listen to the words of Jesus, read these stories about his life. One way that we do this is through reading a Gospel text every Sunday morning.
This experience on the mountain is followed by the journey back down to the plains. Mountaintop experiences are normally temporary; they seldom last very long.
It is not in our text this morning, but when they left the mountain they immediately began to deal with the needs of the people. On the mountain, God said, “This is my son, listen to him.” Jesus often went to mountaintops, or to spend time alone, but He didn’t stay there very long. His work was done among the people, trying to meet their needs.
While Christians through the ages have often tried to escape the challenges of society by retreating to monasteries or by living in compounds isolated from the world, they are not following the model of Jesus. He retreated in order to rest, to find clarity, but he quickly re- engaged with the needs of the people around him. I think that is a good metaphor for the role of the church in the believer’s life. We gather to find rest, draw strength from each other, get clarity about how we will live our lives, and how we will engage our world. We enter to worship and then depart to serve. We are the church gathered, and as we leave, we become the church scattered.
When the season of Christmas began, we talked about the incarnation—the idea that God came down from heaven and took on human flesh. And now as we come to the end of Epiphany, we read this story of where Jesus in human form ascended the mountain and was transfigured into some kind of heavenly being.
This gives us hints about the transformation that is coming on Easter morning. But before we get to Easter, we will travel through the season of Lent, we will experience once again the ordeal of Holy Week. As much as we might like to, we can’t just skip the cross and get to the resurrection. These next 40 days will be a time for reflection and thinking about this journey that is headed toward the cross, and the tomb. We will wonder at the marvelous love of our Savior. And we will follow the directions of the voice from heaven. We will listen to his son. Each Sunday, we will read Gospel lessons that reveal his life and teachings. We will pray that God’s Spirit will speak to us and guide our reflections on the ways we are living our lives.
I trust that the journey through Lent will be a productive time for us as individuals and for us collectively as a congregation. Today we are once again celebrating Christ’ entrance into our world. He came to reveal God to us; He came to redeem us from sin; He came to reconcile us to God. Thanks be to God. AMEN
This Sunday is the last Sunday during the Christian season of Epiphany. The word epiphany means a ‘sudden or unexpected insight or revelation.’ We traditionally begin the season of Christmas with the lighting of the Christ candle, symbolizing Christ coming into our dark world and our role of reflecting the light of Christ today. We lost some of this symbolism by not being able to gather together and experience this as a community. Part of what I love about being Episcopal is that there is meaning and reason behind why we do things that speak to us -in deep symbolic ways without the use of words.
During the season of Epiphany we read texts from the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry and the unveiling of His purposes for why He came to earth.
Our Gospel text this morning is referred to as the transfiguration text – it happened on a mountain known in Scripture as the Mount of Transfiguration, little else is known or said of this mountain.
Mountains were favorite places to meet God in Old Testament theology. People lived on the plains or on the side of the hills, but the mountains couldn’t support many people. Few people lived there year round - it was a good place to get away from people and experience time alone with God.
The two people who appear with Jesus in this text today are Moses and Elijah. There has been much said about why these two, but one reason is that Moses was a respected leader who had been with God. He had seen God.
There is a story of how Moses went up to Mt. Sinai to receive the Law and the tablets of Testimony. When he came down there was a change in his appearance. It is a story that shares of a change in appearance that came from Moses spending time with God on the mountain. Moses had immediate credibility with the people. They listened to what he had to say because they knew that he had been with God. Elijah has credibility because he ascended in a whirlwind and it was predicted that Elijah would return.
Credibility is always important for the messenger to have. Credibility is something that the listener gives to the messenger. Is the message credible or not? Do I trust that the messenger has been with God? What kind of weight do I give to his or her words? It would be so much simpler if Moses’ experience was typical. If we had been with God and our face shown. Or if we had a leader who had been taken to heaven in a chariot of fire. We would know these leaders had instant credibilityBut that’s not the world that we live in. Instead, we have to listen and make our own judgments about credibility. I guess we all develop our own strategies for evaluating the credibility and reliability of messengers.
We do this whether we are conscious of it or not. From childhood, we begin the process of figuring out who to trust and who not to trust. We learn to be wary of people who are unreliable; we learn to be a little skeptical of what people tell us. And as we get older, we learn to use our minds to think about what we are told. This natural skepticism sometimes keeps us from being seduced. Some of us have more natural skepticism than others; I may fall into that category.
Of course, the downside of our skepticism is that sometimes we miss out on sound advice and wisdom; and we suffer because of it. The question of how we decide who to lend credibility to is particularly important when we are talking about spiritual messengers like pastors and priests. While I don’t have a fool proof plan for deciding who to trust, I can tell you where I am. I don’t automatically accept what someone says just because they say that God told them. I don’t doubt their sincerity, but I am still responsible for evaluating what they are saying on the basis of the message itself.
I also don’t automatically accept what someone says just because they say it with conviction or confidence.
I don’t automatically accept what someone says on the basis of how much emotion they express or how loud they deliver the message. That may be important to some people, but volume is not an important measure of truthfulness or trustworthiness for me. Instead, I tend to
give credence to a messenger who allows her ideas to stand on their own without needing to resort to bullying or manipulation. I tend to give credence to a messenger who trusts that God is at work in our world and doesn’t feel the need to resort to gimmicks or games. I tend to judge the message on the basis of how well it conforms to the image of God revealed in His son, Jesus Christ.
I know this doesn’t sound nearly as clear and definitive as the confirmation that the Israelites had when Moses came down from meeting with God. His face was radiant; it was obvious that he was mediating between the people and a holy God. But that was a one-time occurrence; it was the exception to the rule. The world that we live in does not have that kind of certainty and security. We live in a world where I do not have instant authority and automatic credibility when I speak.
Instead, we live in a world where I teach and preach the scripture; I try to give you my clearest thinking and insights, and then you have to decide the amount of credibility you give to my words. That is the world that we live in. I trust that you will listen to what I have to say and that you will judge my insights by your clearest thinking. And I trust that you will listen to the Scripture even when it may challenge your deeply held beliefs, and allow God to be at work in your lives.
We trust that you will be open to new insights and will be willing to learn and grow.
I also have to admit to a weakness in being human; I don’t always know what you need to do, I don’t always have the right answers. And because of this, I do not take it personally when you see something differently than I do.
On this Transfiguration Sunday, Elijah appears in our Gospel reading as well in as our Old Testament text. In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus takes Peter, James, and John upon the mountain to pray. In Matthew’s account of the transfiguration it says he took them to “get away from the crowds”. I think that Jesus went up on the mountain to spend time with God. In the previous chapter, Jesus had begun to tell the disciples about his upcoming trip to Jerusalem and shared with them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering and and would be rejected, killed and in three days would rise again. I suspect that the time spent in prayer was probably focused on the cross that lay ahead. While they were on the mountain, his face is changed
and his clothes become “dazzling white” Matthew’s account says “white like a flash of lightening.”
And during that time of transformation, Moses and Elijah appear with him. Those two Old Testament characters, who both had mysterious departures from this world and who were expected to appear again at the end of the world, appear with Jesus. Moses and Elijah were two Old Testament figures who each had a mountaintop experience with God during their lives. And now they return to appear in another one.
According to Luke’s account of this event, their conversation is about Jesus’ impending departure from this world. They talked about his exodus, his departure. The three Disciples see Jesus, Moses, and Elijah talking. Peter, probably assuming that the Messianic Age was already there, wanted to build three dwellings and stay there on the mountain. Before he could get started, a cloud descended on the group, a voice came from the cloud.
It is reminiscent of the voice that came at Jesus’ baptism. This time the voice says, “this is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him.” At Jesus’ baptism, the voice had said, “You are my Son in whom I am well-pleased.
Listen to the words of Jesus, read these stories about his life. One way that we do this is through reading a Gospel text every Sunday morning.
This experience on the mountain is followed by the journey back down to the plains. Mountaintop experiences are normally temporary; they seldom last very long.
It is not in our text this morning, but when they left the mountain they immediately began to deal with the needs of the people. On the mountain, God said, “This is my son, listen to him.” Jesus often went to mountaintops, or to spend time alone, but He didn’t stay there very long. His work was done among the people, trying to meet their needs.
While Christians through the ages have often tried to escape the challenges of society by retreating to monasteries or by living in compounds isolated from the world, they are not following the model of Jesus. He retreated in order to rest, to find clarity, but he quickly re- engaged with the needs of the people around him. I think that is a good metaphor for the role of the church in the believer’s life. We gather to find rest, draw strength from each other, get clarity about how we will live our lives, and how we will engage our world. We enter to worship and then depart to serve. We are the church gathered, and as we leave, we become the church scattered.
When the season of Christmas began, we talked about the incarnation—the idea that God came down from heaven and took on human flesh. And now as we come to the end of Epiphany, we read this story of where Jesus in human form ascended the mountain and was transfigured into some kind of heavenly being.
This gives us hints about the transformation that is coming on Easter morning. But before we get to Easter, we will travel through the season of Lent, we will experience once again the ordeal of Holy Week. As much as we might like to, we can’t just skip the cross and get to the resurrection. These next 40 days will be a time for reflection and thinking about this journey that is headed toward the cross, and the tomb. We will wonder at the marvelous love of our Savior. And we will follow the directions of the voice from heaven. We will listen to his son. Each Sunday, we will read Gospel lessons that reveal his life and teachings. We will pray that God’s Spirit will speak to us and guide our reflections on the ways we are living our lives.
I trust that the journey through Lent will be a productive time for us as individuals and for us collectively as a congregation. Today we are once again celebrating Christ’ entrance into our world. He came to reveal God to us; He came to redeem us from sin; He came to reconcile us to God. Thanks be to God. AMEN