Sunday, February 10, 2013

Transfiguration Sunday :: Feb 10, 2013


In the name of Jesus. Amen.

            Today is Transfiguration Sunday in the church calendar. It is also the final Sunday of the season of Epiphany. So far this season, we have been hearing about the ways in which God reveals God’s self to us in Jesus.  Today is no different. Today’s Gospel lesson is a remarkable, and a nearly unbelievable, act of God revealing God’s self in Jesus Christ. The scene takes place on an unnamed mountaintop where, together with the three apostles Peter, John and James, Jesus goes up to pray. I can imagine the setting of a mountaintop to be a good one to pray; a majestic place somehow seeming to be closer to God than anywhere else in the world.
            At the top of the mountain, the scene comes alive with a breathtaking experience for the apostles. In the middle of his prayer, Jesus’ face changed appearance and his clothes became dazzling white. Along with this Transfiguration, Moses and Elijah appeared, together with Jesus in glory. This scene is probably the most misunderstood gospel scene in all four of the gospels. It’s a strange scene, one that you can hardly make heads or tails of. But even if it is strange, it is pretty dazzling.
            This is a mountain top experience if ever there was one. I’m reminded of a friend from high school and college, this was a friend who had never really been financially well off. He couldn’t afford much of anything, really. I remember inviting him over to my house everyday after school to do homework and share a meal with our family. He almost always accepted because he knew that at home, he would have to eat the frozen, 50-cent tacos from Taco Bell that his parents stocked up in the freezer. He didn’t have much and while he was never looking for handouts he almost always accepted a full meal. As he and I were preparing for college we were both looking at Augustana College right there in Sioux Falls. Augie is a private college and tuition, at that time, was about $19,000 a year. This friend of mine had dreamed of going to Augie, but was sure he’d never have a shot at such a school. He applied to Augie, wishing me the best on my application and thinking he’d never even see the inside of an Augie classroom.
            The day letters were sent out he refused dinner and chose to race to the mailbox at home. Sure enough, he’d been accepted. We both had; but I can still picture his face as he proudly announced to me that not only had his dream school accepted him, he’d been given enough in scholarships to make his way through without hardly owing them anything. That image of his face was incredible; it was though he’d been given a second shot at life. The acceptance to Augie meant a lot to me, but to my friend who’d struggled for everything his entire life I could tell it meant a new life. He’d tell me after school in the months following what a blessing it would be to have the chance to reinvent himself. “You can be anyone you want to be, Chris. You can reinvent yourself and become the person you were intended. Nothing is holding us back.”
            This, too, is a mountaintop experience, a moment of transfiguration. I’m sure that many of us can relate to a mountaintop experience in our lives, and if not we know someone whose had one. And so we know all too well that eventually mountaintop experiences must come to an end. We cannot stay up on the mountain forever; we must eventually come down.
            When Jesus and his disciples came down from the mountain the very next day, Jesus was back to the old grindstone. Healing, casting out demons, preaching and teaching. In fact, it was straight from the mountaintop to the valley, deep in the muck and mess of human life again.
            With all of this dazzling stuff, its hard to think that on Wednesday night we will gather again for worship with our Ash Wednesday service, receiving the mark of the bleak cross on our foreheads. We’ll hear the words, “you are dust and to dust you shall return.” With these words, we begin the season of Lent, a season of repentance for sin.
            This is probably the most beautiful part of the church calendar to me. With Transfiguration Sunday and the move into Ash Wednesday, we step into a steady flowing stream of liturgy, a stream running from the beginning of the Christian church until today. The liturgy moves us from this mountain top experience of Jesus, Moses and Elijah to the depths of the valley of sin.
            Psalm 23 says it best, “even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death.” The move from mountaintop to the shadowy valley is part and parcel of this Christian life. Our mountaintop experiences are rare, if they ever do happen to us, and then immediately following we are sent straight into those dark valleys.
            Many commonly mistake the Christian life to be somehow easier and less complicated. In fact, the Christian life is almost always lived in the valley. This is the nature of this broken, crucified body of Christ in the world. Christian life and faith are lived here, with real people, with real problems, and real brokenness.
            Baptism is that one mountaintop experience we can count on in the Christian life. The rest of Christian life is lived in the valley, with God’s beloved people, people with real struggles. This is not to sound bleak and depressing about the life we live as Christians. In fact, you’ll discover that if you actually allow yourself to enter in to life in this valley, you will be blessed by it.
            As we move from the mountaintop experience of this Transfiguration Sunday into the valley of Lent, I encourage you to think about your own life, your own mountaintop experiences and your own valleys. And then really enter into life with the people God has made, all of the real people, with their real problems. Live there, pray there. You will no doubt be blessed by God in Christ in this valley of life. This Christian life is a true blessing.

In the name of Jesus. Amen.

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