Transfiguration of Our Lord 2010                                             Christ Church , York

Sometimes, just sometimes, when I am reading one of those long novels embedded with countless plot lines, twists and turns and pages that never seem to end, I will sometimes skip ahead to read the final chapter. By doing so I know what’s coming and knowing that I can return to my reading, even as the plot takes it numerous twists and turns along the way. The Festival of the Transfiguration which we celebrate today is a bit like my reading one of those books. For while there are many twists and turns and plots yet to come in the story of Jesus, all of it leading up to His death and resurrection, today we jump ahead and get a sneak preview, a glimpse of what is yet to come as we look beyond all of what is about to happen to that end point when we get a glimpse of the resurrected Christ in all His glory.

And what a wonderful ending this is! Here we see the white robed Jesus in prayer on a mountaintop with the light from heaven playing on His face, accompanied by two of the greatest heroes of the faith, Moses and Elijah. Then in a scene reminiscent of that earlier manifestation at His baptism, a cloud appears over their heads and the voice of God speaks to the disciples. Such a setting is surely divine with its brilliant radiance, the heroic figures and its heavenly voices. So we can understand Peter’s impulse to stop the action, to freeze this moment of glorious vision and to sustain it permanently in a tableau of three tents so that the disciples can forever be bathed in the brilliant reflected glory of Christ. But once again Peter has jumped the gun. For while we have moved to the last chapter of the story, while we have found out just how this will all end, that end has not yet come. Peter cannot freeze frame this moment in order to preserve it for all time and indeed this glimpse of divine glory in the world lasts only for a short period of time and when it ends, Jesus does not linger on the mountain but rather brings His disciples down and back into the world. In this world there is still disease, hunger, conflict, those who are sick and dying and there is even a cross, for in this world sin and evil, suffering and death remain because the complete fulfillment of that glory seen on the mountain has not yet come into its fullness. That’s why we have this extra piece added to our Gospel lesson this morning, the story of Jesus healing this boy possessed by demons. Jesus may have appeared in glory to His disciples and they may have had a glimpse of the resurrected Christ and how He will appear at the end of time; but now, in this world, the battle with the powers of evil continues and will continue until that point in time when Jesus will come again and only then reign forever in divine glory.

But that end has not yet come and Jesus has not yet returned. Until He does we continue to walk by faith and not by sight, living in this world in a journey that is not always easy for it continues to be filled with sin and suffering, pain and death. In the midst of this world we cannot ignore these realities, pretending like Peter, that we can hide in the glory seen on the mountain, protected from the brutal realities of life. Instead, like those disciples of old, we journey down from that mountain and that glory, entering into this world yet more fully. What then will sustain us in this journey? It is the voice of God telling us as it did the disciples long ago that we are to listen to Jesus. At His baptism the voice of God come over Jesus and declared that this was His Son in whom He was well pleased. Now in this Transfiguration there is this additional command, to “listen to Him.” Listening is the way our faith comes to us, as St. Paul reminds us in his letter to the Romans “So faith comes from what is heard and what is heard comes through the word of Christ.” Blessed Martin Luther emphasizes that point when he speaks of the sacrament of Holy Communion saying that the “benefit of this sacrament is pointed out by the words you hear – given and shed for you.” But listening implies that, unlike Peter, we first learn to keep quiet, to relish the pause that comes between the invitation to pray and the beginning of the prayer itself, a pause this is designed so that we might have the opportunity to unplug the noise from our lives and tune into God, listening for His voice rather than the cacophony of sound that normally assails us.  

The disciples who were attending Jesus at this Transfiguration had not listened to Him, for if they had been listening they would have heard Him speak a number of times before and after this event about His coming suffering and death. The Transfiguration is indeed a glorious and wonderful preview of that which is to come. But there is yet a journey of suffering leading to death which faces them and the glory of the Transfiguration cannot be seen apart from that suffering and the suffering cannot be seen or understood apart from the glory. The disciples didn’t want to listen to these words from Jesus for they called for them to enter into a costly form of discipleship, in which they would come to deny themselves, take up their crosses and follow Him unto death. Faced with that reality, who can blame those disciples for wanting to continue living in the reflected glory of a mighty messiah where Jesus is surrounded by the light of His glory?  With such an image in front of us we could be confident that He is God’s Son. But when we see Him hanging on the cross, when we are enveloped by the silence of Good Friday, when we see His dark red blood streaming down His face and flowing from His pierced side, we may not be so sure. On the mountain it’s easy to believe. Faced with the cross, believing becomes so much more difficult.

The Church places this Festival of the Transfiguration immediately before Lent to remind us that the glory and the suffering are joined together in Christ. This Festival day serves as a bridge, linking the divine manifestation of Jesus which we call Epiphany to that suffering and death soon to come upon us which we call Lent. The glory and suffering are joined in Christ for He is the One who will suffer, die and on the third day be raised again. And beyond that, in a time known only to the Father, that same resurrected Christ will come again in all His glory, a glory which will then shine forever. Meanwhile listen, listen, listen, for Jesus is telling us that if we share in His suffering then we can be assured that we will share in His glory. For we have seen the end of the story, we have glimpsed His coming glory. But the end is not yet and meanwhile we will continue to live in this world with all its pain, its sorrow and its grief. But having seen that ending we are given the strength to walk that journey. Listen for Lent is upon us. Listen for now the journey to the cross begins as it did for Jesus so many centuries ago. But listen also for His voice, for His words, for the promise of His life and for His resurrection. For the journey will end and there will be a glory, a greater glory, which is yet to come. Amen