“This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased…”
We end the season of Epiphany where we began it back at Jesus’ baptism. All the same elements: big cloud, booming voice; all the same words: my Son, beloved, well pleased. It’s like bookends to the miracles, stories and revelations that happened in between these two episodes.
But this time, you’ll notice, there’s more. God follows up this time with a command: “Listen to him!”
Listen to him.
In today’s Gospel passage, Matthew takes us up the mountain with Jesus, Peter, James and John. Jesus is transfigured into this dazzling epiphanic vision. Also making a brief but critical appearance are Moses and Elijah, the lawgiver and the prophet from the Old Testament. Moses and Elijah have been the main players in the Jewish religion up to this point. They appear with Jesus, and Peter is basically convinced, and who can blame him, that this is the “Son of Man coming into his kingdom.” Jesus had told the disciples about this, and here it was. Peter wants to preserve it forever.
Enter the bright cloud and booming voice, and the big pronouncement: “This is my Son, the Beloved.” This is the Messiah, this is me, God, in human form, just like was foretold.
And then the Voice includes a kind of passing of the torch: “Listen to him.”
Actually, given what happens next in the narrative, the emphasis was probably more like this: listen to HIM. When Peter, James and John stop trembling in fear and finally look up, there is no one standing there but Jesus. Moses and Elijah are gone. We’re left with one authority, and this one comes directly from God. Jesus is the way now, listen to HIM.
I would be dishonest if I did not confess to you today that I have struggled with this Gospel and with this sermon. I am looking forward to the rest of you entering into the wilderness journey next week, because I’ve been here for a while.
My first reaction to this narrative was, “Really? Did this really happen? And does it matter?”
All of the theological commentary I came across is emphatic: this happened, and it is critical to the Christian faith. It is in all three synoptic Gospels. The transfiguration establishes the divinity of Jesus, establishes his authority, and points the way to his death and resurrection: it ends with Jesus saying (in his usual style), “Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.”
But there’s a rational side of me that can’t help but view this with a bit of skepticism. Peter was obviously dealing with this same skepticism in his letter to early followers that we read from today. He is adamant that he and others were there to see Jesus in all his glory on that mountain and to hear the affirming words from the bright cloud. He says to them, “We did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we had been eyewitnesses of his majesty.”
It was also obvious in my research that this was one of the stories, along with the Virgin Birth, the miracles and the Resurrection, that provides the most fodder for atheists and skeptics – Christianity’s detractors. It is the kind of fantastic supernatural tale that makes non-believers roll their eyes, or even sympathetic people dismiss as mere theological metaphor. That’s a very comfortable take on it for many of us. Yet Peter wants us to believe him that this really happened.
So where do we sympathetic skeptics go from here? What do we need to believe, and does it matter? I fear it matters immensely. As C.S. Lewis wrote, “Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important.”
And Peter warns us, “You will do well to be attentive to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts
Those words: “be attentive to this”. In other words, “listen.”
As we enter into the Lenten season, we should be praying for the day to dawn and the morning star to rise in our hearts as Peter promises it will. And I think what today’s readings are telling us is that to have a prayer of that happening, we must acknowledge, as Peter did, that Jesus is who he says he is, who God told us he is. We must choose to believe. At the beginning of the Gospel reading today, we are told that the events on the mountain took place six days AFTER Peter acknowledged Jesus as Christ. The revelations on that mountain top were not news, you see, they were a confirmation of what the disciples already believed or thought they believed, and of course, so much more. But they started with that acknowledgement that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God. Belief, or faith, first – revelation followed.
I will tell you what I believe this day. I believe with all my heart that the grace of God and the peace that we all seek is there for us. I have witnessed it in the lives of many people, many of you, and in the good works and faithful service of the people in this congregation and others. We just have to be open to receiving it. We have to believe it is there for us.
We have to be attentive. We have to listen. As we enter our Lenten wilderness journey together this week, may we heed the first imperative the newly transfigured Christ gives to his disciples on the mountain:
Get up and do not be afraid.
Listen to him.
In today’s Gospel passage, Matthew takes us up the mountain with Jesus, Peter, James and John. Jesus is transfigured into this dazzling epiphanic vision. Also making a brief but critical appearance are Moses and Elijah, the lawgiver and the prophet from the Old Testament. Moses and Elijah have been the main players in the Jewish religion up to this point. They appear with Jesus, and Peter is basically convinced, and who can blame him, that this is the “Son of Man coming into his kingdom.” Jesus had told the disciples about this, and here it was. Peter wants to preserve it forever.
Enter the bright cloud and booming voice, and the big pronouncement: “This is my Son, the Beloved.” This is the Messiah, this is me, God, in human form, just like was foretold.
And then the Voice includes a kind of passing of the torch: “Listen to him.”
Actually, given what happens next in the narrative, the emphasis was probably more like this: listen to HIM. When Peter, James and John stop trembling in fear and finally look up, there is no one standing there but Jesus. Moses and Elijah are gone. We’re left with one authority, and this one comes directly from God. Jesus is the way now, listen to HIM.
I would be dishonest if I did not confess to you today that I have struggled with this Gospel and with this sermon. I am looking forward to the rest of you entering into the wilderness journey next week, because I’ve been here for a while.
My first reaction to this narrative was, “Really? Did this really happen? And does it matter?”
All of the theological commentary I came across is emphatic: this happened, and it is critical to the Christian faith. It is in all three synoptic Gospels. The transfiguration establishes the divinity of Jesus, establishes his authority, and points the way to his death and resurrection: it ends with Jesus saying (in his usual style), “Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.”
But there’s a rational side of me that can’t help but view this with a bit of skepticism. Peter was obviously dealing with this same skepticism in his letter to early followers that we read from today. He is adamant that he and others were there to see Jesus in all his glory on that mountain and to hear the affirming words from the bright cloud. He says to them, “We did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we had been eyewitnesses of his majesty.”
It was also obvious in my research that this was one of the stories, along with the Virgin Birth, the miracles and the Resurrection, that provides the most fodder for atheists and skeptics – Christianity’s detractors. It is the kind of fantastic supernatural tale that makes non-believers roll their eyes, or even sympathetic people dismiss as mere theological metaphor. That’s a very comfortable take on it for many of us. Yet Peter wants us to believe him that this really happened.
So where do we sympathetic skeptics go from here? What do we need to believe, and does it matter? I fear it matters immensely. As C.S. Lewis wrote, “Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important.”
And Peter warns us, “You will do well to be attentive to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts
Those words: “be attentive to this”. In other words, “listen.”
As we enter into the Lenten season, we should be praying for the day to dawn and the morning star to rise in our hearts as Peter promises it will. And I think what today’s readings are telling us is that to have a prayer of that happening, we must acknowledge, as Peter did, that Jesus is who he says he is, who God told us he is. We must choose to believe. At the beginning of the Gospel reading today, we are told that the events on the mountain took place six days AFTER Peter acknowledged Jesus as Christ. The revelations on that mountain top were not news, you see, they were a confirmation of what the disciples already believed or thought they believed, and of course, so much more. But they started with that acknowledgement that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God. Belief, or faith, first – revelation followed.
I will tell you what I believe this day. I believe with all my heart that the grace of God and the peace that we all seek is there for us. I have witnessed it in the lives of many people, many of you, and in the good works and faithful service of the people in this congregation and others. We just have to be open to receiving it. We have to believe it is there for us.
We have to be attentive. We have to listen. As we enter our Lenten wilderness journey together this week, may we heed the first imperative the newly transfigured Christ gives to his disciples on the mountain:
Get up and do not be afraid.
May we all be eyewitnesses to his glory.
No comments:
Post a Comment