Transfiguration of Our Lord, Mark 9:2-9
February 11, 2024
Faith-La Fe Lutheran Church, Pastor Jonathan Linman
Today’s readings give us pretty wild ride, full of drama, full of mystery. Here again are some of the key features of what we have heard this morning. Pay attention to how the elements of the narratives make you feel.
In the story from 2 Kings, Elijah is about to be taken up to heaven in a whirlwind.
A chariot of fire and fiery horses appear amidst the whirlwind as Elijah is taken up in the vortex. And Elisha calls out after his master, “Father, Father!” Then Elijah disappeared from sight and Elisha “grasped his own clothes and tore them in two pieces.” Do you feel the drama? Imagine if you were there witnessing what was in effect a tornado ripping open the separation between heaven and earth. If you’ve ever been in a tornado or even seen video footage, you can get a sense of wildness of what was going on.
This holy spectacle from the Hebrew scriptures sets the stage for us to consider the drama of the Transfiguration of Jesus on the mountaintop. Here again are the highlights: Jesus’ appearance changed dramatically, his clothes becoming dazzling bright, whiter than snow, the brightest thing on earth. Then Moses and Elijah show up to talk with Jesus. Peter and his companions were terrified, out of their minds with fear. Then there’s the overshadowing cloud and the voice: “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!” Then it all ended as quickly as it began and it was only Jesus standing there.
Again, imagine the scene. Someone you know and experience largely as an ordinary person, your teacher, suddenly shines like the sun. And then long-dead sacred celebrities appear out of nowhere. Next, a voice from heaven speaks directly to you. Wouldn’t you be out of your mind with terror? Both of these stories would make great scenes in an adventure movie inviting the best special effects in surround sound.
In the heat of these holy moments, it was impossible to make sense of it all. That was true for the prophets accompanying Elijah and Elisha who kept nervously reminding Elisha that Elijah would soon go away, and Elisha had to tell them to shut up. And confusion is evident in the response of the terrified Peter who said, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us set up three tents: one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” Where would they get material to make tents on that mountaintop? Peter’s reply was nonsense, for “he did not know what to say” amidst being out of his mind with fear.
Dramatic, cataclysmic events can leave us speechless, not knowing what is going on. That was certainly my reaction to the terrorist attacks in New York City on September 11, 2001. It was impossible on that day to get accurate information of any kind about anything that was going on. The unfolding drama was too close at hand for there to be any real perspective. Again, for me this was first-hand. I was there in person.
And there’s a lot of drama going on in the world today, lots of intersecting crises that seem beyond our control and imaginations, a lot of it horrific and worthy of being terrified out of one’s mind. Think of the floods and mudslides and more in California this week. Or the terror raining down on the people in Gaza right now, or in Ukraine. Think of the victims of wildfires and tornadoes and earthquakes and on and on.
Then there’s the slow-motion drama of climate change. And the dramatic shifts in the world order in this post-post-cold war era as we lurch into new configurations of international power relations. And don’t forget how the global pandemic literally turned our world upside down, dramatically affecting each and every one of us.
We are living with and enduring a lot of drama right now. Some of it is coming home to roost in our own congregation with our recent struggle to get property insurance because of all the catastrophic natural disasters going on in this country such that insurance companies cannot pay all the property damage claims and thus are cutting off clients like us.
The mood provoked by dramatic change is captured well by today’s readings. There’s dazzling light, to be sure, but with a brightness that is blinding. There’s the overshadowing cloud that obscures sight, and then the voice that speaks a word of mystery that was impossible to fully understand at that moment. Peter utters nonsense provoked by his fear. And even Jesus told Peter, James and John to keep quiet about everything that transpired: “As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen…” To say anything would only confuse the situation more.
So, where is God in all of this? God is kind of everywhere in these events, but what’s the divine meaning of it all? Paul sums up this reality of obscurity that confounds mortal understanding in today’s second reading: “Even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing clearly the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ.” (2 Corinthians 4:3-4a)
It can be quite the burden to endure such obscurity and lack of clarity. That’s the human condition of mortality, our finitude, our sin.
Again, how do we make sense of it all? As always for us in the church, there is good news. It’s the good news that we have been given the gift of “hindsight is 20/20.” That is to say, we have the advantage, by faith, of knowing how the story ultimately turns out. And knowing the end of the story helps us sort out and gain clarity about our current perplexing experiences and conundrums.
One of my seminary professors, my mentor and friend, the late Walter Bouman, told us that whenever he read a mystery novel, he would always read the ending first, so that he could know the “who dunnit.” Knowing the end of the story shed an entirely different light on how he would read the novel. That perspective changes everything.
And that’s really the whole point of Jesus telling his disciples to keep quiet – there’s no sense in trying to talk about all of this drama until after Jesus’ death and resurrection. Again, Mark reports that “Jesus ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead.”
Which is to say, everything becomes clear and intelligible only in the light of Jesus’ death and resurrection. Because Christ has been raised from the dead, we know how the story ends. And we know that the story has a happy ending. That changes everything for us, as it did for the Apostle Paul who concludes today’s second reading in this way: “For we do not proclaim ourselves; we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord…. For it is the God who said, ‘Light will shine out of darkness,’ who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.” (2 Corinthians 4:5-6) The light of that proclamation comes only from the good news of the resurrection of Christ from the dead.
We thus bring this good news and insight with us to all of life’s dramas, those thin spaces between things mortal and things divine. In fact, we not infrequently find ourselves amidst such threshold moments, in the thin spaces between heaven and earth, things temporal and things eternal. We enter such reality, for example, whenever someone close to us dies, as has been the case for us at Faith-La Fe as we mourn the death of Madaline Hansen, one of our congregation’s stalwart, active members. You can name your own dramatic, threshold moments which beg for clarity of understanding….
And, in fact, the truth is that every Sunday is for us such a threshold moment of things heavenly blending with things earthly. Whenever we hear the scriptural word of God, we witness conversation among all the religious greats of our heritage – the priests, the prophets, Moses and Elijah, holding converse with Jesus. Ordinary words break open the wisdom of God in the power of the Spirit for resurrection light and life to shine on us.
And whenever we celebrate a baptism, we share in the life and mystery and dance of the Trinity such that our gathering at the font becomes a mountaintop experience of transfiguration when the heavens open up and we hear the voice of the almighty Word proclaiming that we are beloved children of God, the status of which gives us a share in Christ’s resurrected life.
Moreover, heaven and earth blend together on the heights of this altar table when we lift up our hearts as bread and wine are transfigured, transformed, into the true body and blood of Jesus Christ for us to eat and drink for our salvation – another participation in the living, resurrected Christ.
All of this gives us resurrection perspective to help us live creatively and hopefully with the uncertainties of our various unfolding dramas at home and abroad. Knowing the ultimate outcomes helps us endure the present confusion courageously with faith, trust, that in Christ, because he has been raised from the dead, all shall be well when it’s all said and done.
Today’s story of the Transfiguration is the last epiphany of this season, the final revelation on this last Sunday after Epiphany, concluding a season of weekly epiphanies, each of which has revealed more about Jesus. But now what we see is Jerusalem and the coming of the cross and the empty tomb which are the ultimate of all epiphanies.
Soon we begin our Lenten journey to Jerusalem starting on Ash Wednesday and culminating in the Three Days which make all things clear even amidst our ongoing penultimate mysteries of life.
And here’s still more good news: the silver lining in the cloud that took Elijah from Elisha is that Elisha was given a double portion of Elijah’s spirit to carry on the prophetic work of Elijah.
And we are given gifts, too, amidst holy cataclysms to do the work that God has entrusted to us. In short, we’re given the gift of the Spirit of the living Christ to advocate for us and to give us the words we need and the courage required to love and serve our neighbors.
Which is to say, the work that God gives to us to do is to let other folk know how the story ends, that there’s a happy ending. In our loving words and deeds, we bring the clarity of Christ’s transfiguring resurrection light amidst all the drama, all the sturm und drang, of this crazy world of seemingly unending cataclysms. And our word about a happy ending is a great gift to our unhappy world. Thanks be to God. Amen.
