Last Sunday after the Epiphany
February 22, 2009
The Gospel: Mark 9:2-9
Sermon: "Last Sunday after the Epiphany"
The Rev. Dr. Vicki L. Smith, Rector
The Gospel: Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them. And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus. Then Peter said to Jesus, "Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah." He did not know what to say, for they were terrified. Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, "This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!" Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them any more, but only Jesus.
As they were coming down the mountain, he ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead.Mark 9:2-9
February 22, 2009: Last Sunday after the Epiphany I don’t know if they are still there, but a number of years ago, if you drove anywhere in the southern Midwest of this country, you would see billboards for the Big Texan Restaurant in Amarillo, Texas. Along I-40, the signs begin somewhere in Arkansas: It’s worth the wait. Eat at the Big Texan. I don’t know if it is worth the hundreds of miles of wait, but I do know that the signs are huge, and they become larger the closer you get to Amarillo. The Big Texan uses big, big, unmistakable, un-missable signs.
We might call today the Sunday of the Big Sign—not a billboard of course, but the Transfiguration—the biggest of signs until the resurrection. Today we recount the story of Jesus taking Peter, James and John with him up on the mountaintop. Jesus was transfigured before them, transfused with blazing light, as he stood between Moses and Elijah. It was a spectacular, stunning experience.
Jesus had already fed 5000 people with a few loaves and fish; he had healed the sick, cast out demons and taught with authority. He’d already offered many signs, some of them quite powerful, and still he heard, “Isn’t that Joseph’s son? Don’t we know his mother and his sisters? What’s up with this? Who does he think he is?”
And so, THE BIG SIGN—the transfiguration, so that all might know, definitively, who Jesus is.
The transfiguration was strictly for our benefit. Jesus didn’t need that flashy demonstration and he didn’t need to have a conversation with Moses and Elijah. Peter, James and John need that spectacular demonstration and they needed to see Jesus having that conversation. They needed to be shown, in no uncertain terms, as we do, that Jesus is the messiah; that his the culmination of the law and the prophets; that he is the Son of God, come into the world.
If Jesus is not the Messiah, if he is not the son of God, then he is just another talented teacher, the beneficiary of some great coincidences and another unfortunate victim of Roman aggression. And that is not enough.
If we are to give our hearts and souls to Jesus; if we are to follow him in faith, especially to the cross, we must know who it is that we follow. Jesus asks for our life-long allegiance and to give it we must know who we are committed to and why. Becoming a Christian is not like deciding to become a republican or a democrat or joining the Elks; we commit everything we are and everything we have to Jesus our Savior. To do that, we have to be sure. We have to know that when we see Jesus we are seeing God; when we hear Jesus speak we are hearing God’s words, and when we follow Jesus, we are walking in God’s way.
The transfiguration, that miraculous appearance on the mountaintop, is given to the disciples and to us as an assurance that Jesus is who we think he is—he is the Son of God, the messiah, and therefore most worthy of our devotion and commitment.
It is worthwhile asking then, why now? Why did the transfiguration happen in the middle of Christ’s ministry? And incidentally, why do we always read this story on the Sunday before Ash Wednesday?
The transfiguration happened only partly because the disciples, like us, sometimes weren’t very tuned in and weren’t getting the message from the small signs. Most importantly, the transfiguration took place when it did because following Jesus was about to get much more complicated and much more difficult. Jesus was on his way down off that mountain and up onto the cross. Jesus had begun to walk the road to Jerusalem, the road that led to the events of Good Friday and Easter, when we see Jesus at his most human and his most divine. Jesus had begun to walk that road, and asked us to follow him, and that road cannot be undertaken lightly or uninformed. As one of the commentaries says: “faithfulness will require following Jesus to the cross, not commemorating the place of the transfiguration.”
That’s what the charmingly literal Peter was trying to do when he suggested building three shelters—one for Jesus, one for Moses and one for Elijah. He was attempting to commemorate that holy event, to stay on that mountain and bask in the glow of that day. And he was wrong- because following Jesus includes coming down off that mountain and walking with him on the road of love, service and sacrifice.
The road to Jerusalem, the road of following Jesus, is not an easy path; it has rough spots, hard times and difficult struggles. We cannot walk it on our own strength or by our own will. We, like generations of disciples before us, have committed ourselves to this road of following our Savior, and the transfiguration is the assurance we need, in the middle of this journey, that the one we follow is God. We carry in our hearts that glorious vision of Christ in light and it empowers us to walk the rest of the way; it empowers us to follow Jesus over rough places and smooth, and ultimately, to stand both at the foot of the cross and before the empty tomb.
We need that assurance each day as we embark anew on following Christ, but I think we need it especially today, as we stand on the cusp of Lent with its repentance and self-denial, with its painful reminders and renewed commitments. Especially as we walk through the days and weeks of Lent, we need the big sign of the Transfiguration; we need to carry it in our hearts not as a glitzy memento but as our assurance that our commitment is to God himself, as we know and serve him in Jesus Christ.