Exodus 24:12-18
Psalm 2
2 Peter 1:16-21
Matthew 17:1-9
“Dazzled by the Reign”
What’s the holiest place you can imagine? Where have you experienced the most sacred moments in your life? When have the insignificant details been swept away and you’ve been left with the kernel of hope that is everything to you? Each one of us probably has a different picture in mind as we imagine, remember and re-experience those moments of rapture, crisis, serenity, fear, hope, anxiety, love or whatever those moments brought us.
Each text read this morning describes the experiences of our ancestors in faith as they encountered holiness and God’s presence—and they, too, experienced a broad spectrum of responses through those encounters.
When Moses was called up on the mountain by God to receive God’s law and experience God’s presence intimately, he prepared himself and the Hebrew people for his absence. He took his assistant Joshua—and he told the elders what to do in while he was gone. And he entrusted the people to his brother Aaron. Only when he was prepared, did he go to encounter God’s presence and receive God’s word of law. This story is one of the crucial stories of the Jewish people—this story of Moses’ encounter with God’s holy presence. Not only did Moses receive the law from God’s own hand, but he experienced God’s presence and an unprecedented way and he lived to survive it.
Knowing the story of Moses on the mountain—experiencing God in the fire and cloud that covered the mountaintop—we can then listen to the story of Jesus and his disciples more clearly and hear it in the way that Matthew intends for us to hear it.
We also need to set this story within its own set of circumstances. Matthew 17:1-9 follows Peter's declaration of Jesus as the Messiah (16:13-20); Jesus' prediction of his death in 16:21-23; and Jesus telling the disciples that those who wanted to follow him would need to deny themselves. Following this, the text says Jesus took Peter, John, and James up to the mountain where Divine encounter and Divine revelation ensue. The text does not say why Jesus decided to go to the mountain on that occasion, nor does it speak to why those three disciples were asked to accompany him. There are no stated expectations for the trip to what was considered a holy place where God was encountered. Instead, we learn that Jesus took the disciples up to the mountain.[1]
So we are meant to know that Jesus has been proclaimed as Messiah or Christ, the anointed one of God, even as we are told that he will be rejected and killed for that identity and that his disciples would have to deny themselves to follow him. God’s chosen one was following a road that led to death for himself and denial of those who would follow. Could that be right?
But Jesus led some notable disciples up some mountain in the area where they were. Peter, James and John (presumably the two brothers and the sons of Zebedee) were prominent in the gospel story of Jesus’ life—though they were not the most prominent preachers after the resurrection. For some reason, Jesus chose them to see this moment in his life, what we’ve come to call Jesus’ transfiguration.
“He was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him.”[2] The word used to describe Jesus’ change of appearance, his transfiguration is metamorphosis in the Greek—he is changed before their eyes. One commentary argued that this was not change, but a revelation of what was already there, but the word used implies that he was changed—this was a moment where his life turned a corner and he, perhaps, embraced the next phase of his life where he turned toward the events that would occur in Jerusalem. And in that moment, his companions—the first disciples Jesus called in Matthew—saw him differently, perhaps saw him as he would appear to them after his crucifixion. Whatever it was, it was different than ever before.
Sister Joan Chittister notes that "Mountains…in Greek, Hebrew, Roman and Asian religious literature, were always places where the human could touch the divine"[3]. The mountaintop experience was known to first century followers of Jesus and the significance of this mountaintop experience would be evident to all who heard the story. The Synoptic Gospels connect with this ancient understanding of the importance of the mountaintop as a place where the Divine could be seen and encountered in tangible life-changing ways. As soon as Jesus and the three disciples arrive on the high unnamed mountain, Jesus is transformed before them.
The mountaintop as the location for the events to come sets the stage for the possibilities of the moment. The mountain or high places were understood by the ancients as places where Divine encounter took place. [4] When would Jesus need the light of the divine more—the comfort of God’s call, presence and encouragement—than at this moment when his life took the irrevocable turn toward the cross? This is one of the reasons why we visit this text of transfiguration is read the Sunday before we begin our 40 day Lenten journey toward the cross.
This encounter with God, as our encounters with God often do, is meant to carry us forward into times when we wonder where it is that God has gone—when we feel abandoned or as Jesus said on the cross, forsaken.
In the transfiguration, we see a glimpse of where Jesus is headed, though the disciples at the time didn’t know where that was, exactly and how Jesus’ rejection and death would lead them there. But in the light and bedazzlement of the moment they could continue on. Just as we are intended to do, carrying with us a vision of where we are meant to be, acting toward those godly intentions for us.
The reign of God is a dazzling vision—sometimes seen only as an existence beyond death—but in this vision of the first of Jesus’ disciples, as an ever-present reality in Jesus’ being and life.
The temptation of a mountaintop experience, however, is to remain there—as Peter’s excited exclamation revealed. “Let’s build a tabernacle, a shrine, for each of you to show others what we have seen and we will stay here with all of you in glory!” But God put a stop to that, “This is my beloved, Son, hear what he has to say!” and when they were through cowering in fear, Jesus called them to continue in their discipleship—without fear. Jesus’ appearance with the iconic, Moses and Elijah, sign and symbol of the Jewish faith, the law and the prophets set him firmly within their expectations of God’s presence. Yet because he told them he would be rejected, I imagine they still wondered where this journey to Jerusalem could possibly lead.
And Jesus continued to lead them into the dazzling reign of God—even though he led them down the mountain, away from that vision of holiness and into the needy crowds of people. Because that’s where the reign of God dwells—not in a building that tries to preserve a moment of time, but in the lives of all the people that God has touched and moved as they move together toward the world that God has envisioned in all of us together.
Our responses to God’s vision for us are as varied as we are—we are dazzled and inspired and we are anxious and fearful—sometimes all at the same time. Sometimes we have to sit with God’s vision for us before we can follow it and sometimes we can step out immediately from the dazzling moment we experience. Fred Craddock states, "There is value in referring to this story as one about Jesus' mountaintop experience, which is followed by his return to the valley where he ministered to human need. To such a presentation we can add recitations of mountaintop experiences we have known, followed by exhortations to return to the valley ready to serve.[5]
The moment of transformation is one that invites us to new and meaningful encounters with God, places where we serve and welcome all those we meet to a life of faith and worship. We can live and move into God’s reign—knowing that it’s not all done, but that we get to help in its fulfillment every day.
To God’s glory, on the mountain, in the valley and in every place and time. Amen.
[2] Matthew 17:3-4
[3]("The Role of Religion in Today's Society,") http://www.csec.org/csec/sermon/chittister_3508.htm
[4] http://www.ucc.org/worship/samuel/march-6-2011-last-sunday-1-1-1.html
[5] (The Christian Century, February 21, 1990).
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