Promises, Promises: Time to Go

When I was in elementary school, I remember my teacher showing us a black and white instrument – it was basically a tube with a knob on the side, with a basket of slides. She seemed excited that we would be able to see plant cells and the wings of a fly up close. I was eager for my turn at the microscope. I turned the knob. I turned it some more. I still didn’t see much.

When I got to middle school science, our teacher told us we were going to make slides. We would take a pipette and place a drop of tap water on the slide and look through the microscope at the life that teamed inside that droplet, she said. I was skeptical. But, when it was my turn, I was amazed to see flagella propelling microorganisms in a world I had not realized existed before.

When I got to college, I was mesmerized by the detail we could see through an electron microscope, finally able to count the hairs on the legs of wolf spiders to study their genetics.

Peter, James, and John were similarly mesmerized by what they saw as Jesus was transfigured before them. It was incredible. They had seen who Jesus was much like I saw the sings of a housefly through the elementary school microscope. Just a week earlier, Jesus asked them who people said he was. He was a prophet, a rabbi, a teacher, a healer, a miracle worker, …finally, Jesus had asked Peter, “You are the Christ.” For a moment, his identity came almost into focus, but then he began to tell about how he must suffer and be rejected by the teachers of the law and killed and after three days rise again. They just couldn’t see it.

Now, all of a sudden, as they reached the top of the mountain, he was gleaming – it was like looking into the rays of the sun. And then they saw two more (Hadn’t they been alone just a moment before?). There, standing before them was the whole of their story – Moses represented all of the Law and Elijah, all of the Prophets. The deaths of both were shrouded in mystery. After 40 years of wandering the wilderness, leading Israel out of Egypt to the Promised Land, Moses climbed alone to the top of Mt. Nebo and as he looks over into the promised land, God says to him, This is the land of which I swore to give Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, ‘I will give it to your descendants.’ I have caused you to see it with your eyes, but you shall not cross over there.” And he dies alone and is buried by God. The story of Elijah’s departure from this life we heard in our first Scripture reading this morning. He is taken up to heaven by a chariot of fire in a whirlwind. They could see so much more now than they could before about who he was! He was the one to come, the promised one of God, …the words of Ezekiel from the valley where bones were dry and hope lost was surely rang in their ears, “Can these bones live? Behold, O My people, I will open your graves and cause you to come up from your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel. I will cut an everlasting covenant with them; I will establish them and multiply them, and I will set My sanctuary in their midst forevermore. 27 My tent also shall be with them; indeed I will be their God, and they shall be My people.” Peter tries to read the moment, “Let us put up three tents.” God had promised to dwell with God’s people with Elijah returned and prepared the way for the Christ.

Then, they saw a whole new dimension. A cloud appeared and encircled them, and a voice came from the cloud, “This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!”

And then it was over. The cloud was gone. Elijah and Moses were gone. The radiating light was no longer emanating from Jesus, and they were going back down the mountain. Jesus tells them not to speak of what happened on the mountain as they return – back to reality. And they reach the other disciples, who have tried unsuccessfully to heal a child who has lost his ability to hear or to speak. Notice the parallel – Peter, James and John are commanded by God to listen to Jesus and commanded by Jesus to tell no one. They return to reality and are met by a child who cannot hear or speak and the disciples have been unable to heal him.

Jesus heals the child. Then the disciples start arguing over who is the greatest. And then they push the women with children to the back of the crowd so that the men can hear better and Jesus has to stop what he is saying, so disappointed, and invite the children to the front, then he invites the rich young man to be a disciple, but the man just can’t see how to let go of all he possesses, or is it that so much possesses him….anyway, back to reality.

What an incredible insight for us! When we experience a mountain top moment: the last night at camp with our candles lit, singing together; the quiet of the snow, untouched, as the sun rises; hearing the first draw of breath and the wail of the first exhale. When we catch a glimpse of God’s glory, we don’t want it to end. Even Jesus returns to reality, and calls us to follow him.

I love that we have this story on the Sunday before Ash Wednesday. As we enter the season of examining ourselves and following our Lord in humility to find life in serving, we remember this mountaintop moment with God, this moment of clarity, this moment of transformation. But, Transformation Sunday has not always been on the Sunday before Lent begins. In fact, it is still celebrated by Roman Catholics on August 6th, by Eastern Orthodox on August 19th. Protestants used to celebrate it on the second Sunday of Lent. Here’s what I find significant about this celebration moving around the church year and being in no fixed place – it is the same with our experiences of God’s presence.

We can go to the mountaintop. We can kneel physically on our knees every night before bed. We can sit in the Sanctuary or worship from our den, but we cannot control where and when we will be transformed. But we can be assured of this, God is transforming those who are disciples of Christ. Paul says it this way to the church at Corinth, “All of us, our unveiled faces are revealing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, we are being transformed into the same image, the image of Christ, with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Spirit of the Lord.” (2 Corinthians 3:18).

I invite you to look in the mirror and consider how you are revealing the glory of the Lord. Is it like the microscope in my elementary school classroom? Can the movement of the Spirit be seen in your life, like the microorganisms on the slide in my middle school science class? Or can others see God at work in you as clearly as we could count the hairs on the legs of the wolf spiders?

And as we gaze, may we know when it is time to go – back down the mountain, back to show compassion, back to suffer, and back to bring glory to God.