"The Light" - Transfiguration = Revelation & Transformation

Sunday, February 22, 2009 – Transfiguration Sunday 2 Corinthians 4:3-6; Mark 9:2-9 “The Light” Let’s talk about Peter and Judas for a minute. Both are among the apostles. The one absolutely stunning success was Judas, and the one thoroughly groveling failure was Peter. Judas was a success in the ways that most impress us: he was successful both financially and politically. He cleverly arranged to control the money of the apostolic band; he skillfully manipulated the political forces of the day to accomplish his goal. And then there is Peter. A failure in ways that we most dread: he was impotent in a crisis and socially inept. At the arrest of Jesus he collapsed, a hapless, blustering coward; in the most critical situations of his life with Jesus, the confession on the road to Caesarea Philippi and the vision on the Mount of transfiguration, he said the most embarrassingly inappropriate things. He was not the companion we would want with us in time of danger, and he was not the kind of person we would feel comfortable with at a social occasion. Time, of course, has reversed our judgments on the two men. Judas is now a byword for betrayal, and Peter is one of the most honored names in the church and in the world. Judas is a villain; Peter is a saint. Yet the world continues to chase after the successes of Judas, financial wealth and political power, and to defend itself against the failures of Peter, impotence and ineptness. by Eugene Petersen (quoted in: Tim Kimmel, Little House on the Freeway, Page 191-192). What will it take for people today – including you and me, to experience the mega watts of the light, and transform our thinking, our actions and our judgements? *** Let’s start at the beginning. The main subject is: The Light! How many of you are tired of the long cold days of winter, and miss seeing the sunshine? … Raise your hand. Interesting….after all, none of us welcomed the light with open arms initially. In fact, the first and biggest light-to-dark "hurt" we all experience none of us remember. Think about it for a moment….After nine comfy, warm, liquid months in the dark womb, we are all born by "coming into the light." In Spanish "to give birth" is "dar a luz," literally means “to give to the light”. As those who have once been blind, and then receive sight, will testify, whenever we come into the light after getting accustomed to darkness, it hurts. This hurt is not an evil hurt, or a vicious hurt. It is a hurt that reminds us that things are changing, that we need to adapt, that something new is going on. *** There is no doubt that process of birth is painful. It is rightly named "birth-pangs." The light that floods each newborn's new eyes is harsh, unknown, and frightening. Just as it hurts to be born, to come into the light of this world, it also hurts to grow up. Ask any teenager whose body is extending to the sky at a rate faster than gravity could pull it down! Young bodies stretch, extend, lengthen, and realign, and there is real "ouch-that-hurts" pain called “growing pains,” and yet the most painful growing pains don't even involve muscle, bones, and sinews. The most painful growth we experience involves a lot more than body mass. One author explains it like this:”When vegetables grow, they sprout from seed with all they need to develop their "vegetableness." Just add water, and vegetables grow. Cabbages become cabbages. Carrots become carrots. Beets become beets. Broccoli becomes broccoli. Just add water and a potato becomes what a potato was made to be: a potato. But people don't "grow" like vegetables. People mature. To get a human being, you need to do more than add water, and bread.” He’s right. Ask any parent here this morning, and they will tell you: it takes a whole lot of "bread." (What is the cost of raising one child nowadays? Something close to a couple hundred thousand dollars?) Just because you get taller, heavier, bigger, doesn't mean you are "growing" as a human being. A human being is less a condition than a task. Becoming "human" is not a position. Becoming “human” is a mission. Wouldn’t you agree that "Maturing" is accomplished only through a genuinely painful series of learnings, and even these learnings could be described as "deaths" and "resurrections." Dying to the old and entering the new stage in life….we are faced with the challenge of: Infancy to toddlerhood? - Painful. Toddler to Kindergarten School? - Painful. Lumpy little kid to bully big kid? - Painful. Middle school? - Nothing but pain. High school? - We should put Novocain in the water. Separation from parents, from friends, from home, from the way you've done "life" for 18 years, aka "going to college?" - Painful. Sociologists now forecast that "26 is the new 18" among boys. For parents, that is painful to hear! And "official adulthood" does not lessen "growth pains" one bit. Falling in love. Falling out of love. Marriage. Children. Divorce. Death. Jobs. Unemployment. Mortgages. Not being able to afford a mortgage. All those maturing processes are painful. They are all a series of "deaths" and "resurrections." *** Once upon a time a group of disciples asked an elder, "Does your God work miracles?" The elder said, "Well, it all depends on what you mean by a miracle. Some people say it's a miracle that God does the will of the people. We say, “It's a miracle when people do the will of God." *** One of the best examples of God’s miracles in the Bible is Paul – the apostle and the writer of letters to the different churches of different cities. Remember his story? Saul was a nasty man, he despised Jesus and any teaching about Jesus. One day while the man named Saul was walking along the Damascus Road, suddenly, he experienced a blinding, painful light – a light that transformed and transfigured his entire being. It was such a powerful moment in his life that everything he had believed; everything he had walked, everything he taught, everything he breathed, was suddenly – painfully, jerked into a new brilliant light. That is the light we read about in Mark’s gospel today. In that very light – everything was revealed to Paul’s heart; Paul’s mind and Paul’s soul. In that light Paul saw perfectly the glory of God as it was contained in the image, the being, the face of Jesus Christ. The sudden brilliance and clarity of that new light temporarily blinded Paul. Saul of Taursus “died” that day. AND the old life had gone, and a new life had begun. Paul the apostle was “resurrected” from that corpse. Paul, once again, wrote a second letter to his cantankerous church in Corinth. Yet, he loves this church and he sees the potential of these people, and so he tries to shine the light of the great truth he had experienced on the Damascus Road into the darkened hearts of these would-be disciples of Jesus. Paul’s mission had matured. He had gone through a series of personal “deaths” and personal “resurrections.” But does anyone doubt that for Paul there were not daily re-enactments of that death and resurrection drama? Every time Paul the Pharisee was denied access to a synagogue. Every time Paul the rabbi was accused of debasing the Torah. Every time Paul the Roman citizen was treated like a common criminal, clapped into jail, refused his rights. Paul the Jew, ostracized, rejected, cursed, vilified, beaten, humiliated, abandoned by his own people, by people who had their own history of being ostracized, rejected, cursed, vivified, beaten, humiliated, and abandoned. But Paul’s experience of the “light,” of its transforming, transfusing power and grace, made all these painful processes not just bearable, but life and light affirming. The light that stung Paul’s eyes on the Damascus Road, the light casting shadows on the synagogues and Sanhedrin of the first century, was the same light that illumined his heart and soul and mind. It was a light that put all God’s creation into a new light. The light we read about this week, offers us a personal challenge: a personal transfiguration of each and every disciple who grasps and gulps that Jesus Christ is Lord. That Jesus is the image of God. This is the truth. This is the transforming event to which Paul testifies and of which Paul embraces. This transformation, this infusion of life and light, is not a self-contained event. The mega-watt power of this transformation is such that it can reproduce, refract, and rebound over all creation - as long as those who have experienced this power – like Paul, like me, like YOU - keep on reflecting the light. Paul’s claim to his Corinthian congregation is that his entire ministry and his entire life is devoted to reflecting, refracting, re-introducing the light of God as he experienced it in the presence of the risen Christ on the Damascus road. At that moment Saul of Taursus became roadkill. (good imagery, I read that in a commentary) Paul the Apostle was born. That was the resurrecting, rebirthing power of the divine light. That is the kind of transfiguration we are challenged to experience everyday in our own discipleship. Transfiguration Sunday is not just about a story of Jesus and a few of his disciples up on a mountaintop. Transfiguration Sunday is about the Christ mandate to see the world, to see our lives, in a new light. And in order for that light to transform, the light will hurt before it heals. *** The Transfiguration represents a special attempt of God to cure the spiritual blindness of the chief disciples, Peter, James, and John. Dr. Jaroslav Pelikan of Yale University wrote a remarkable study of the significance of the person and work of Jesus Christ, Jesus Through the Centuries. Dr. Pelikan demonstrates how Jesus has been the dominant figure in the history of Western culture. Each age has made Jesus relevant to its own needs. Jesus has furnished each new age with answers to fundamental questions as every generation has had to address new social problems that tested the more fundamental questions of human existence. The world had to take note of Jesus as a rabbi, as the Cosmic Christ, the Ruler of the World, the King of Kings, the Prince of Peace, the Son of Man, the True Image of Man, the Great Liberator. In many other ways Jesus furnished the answers and the images that affected society in positive ways.Dr. Pelikan's thesis is that Jesus did not and does not belong to the churches and the theologians alone, but that he belongs to the world. None of this is to say that we can make Jesus what we want Jesus to be. Quite the opposite. It is to say that the Christ is adequate for all our needs and that Jesus transcends culture in such a way that he is able to belong to each age and to address the issues of all time. To understand that, we can do no better than to look to the Holy Gospel for today, which celebrates the transfiguration of our Lord. In that momentous event we learn how and why Jesus belongs to the centuries.*** Our HopeHowever, in spite of our struggles like those of the disciples, Jesus did accomplish what he said he would. The transfiguration event was not what Peter wanted to make of it. This was God's special moment for the strengthening of this unique Son to prepare Jesus for the cross and the resurrection. Our Lord's moment of glory in the mountain was to prepare him for the hours of agony and suffering in his passion that he might win eternity for us. From him we gain the strength to work, to suffer, and to die in the sure and certain hope of eternity. *** Changing in Preparation: Forty Days of Love Have you ever been confronted with a message that changed your perspective? One church chose as its Lenten theme, "Forty Days of Love." Each week members of the congregation were encouraged to show their love and appreciation in different ways. The first week they were encouraged to send notes to people who had made positive contributions to their lives. After the first service a man in the congregation wanted to speak to his pastor. The pastor describes the man as "kind of macho, a former football player who loved to hunt and fish, a strong self-made man." The man told his pastor, "I love you and I love this church, but I'm not going to participate in this Forty Days of Love stuff. It's OK for some folks," he said, "but it's a little too sentimental and syrupy for me." A week went by. The next Sunday this man waited after church to see his pastor again. "I want to apologize for what I said last Sunday," he told him, "about the Forty Days of Love. I realized on Wednesday that I was wrong." "Wednesday?" his pastor repeated. "What happened on Wednesday?" "I got one of those letters!" the man said. The letter came as a total surprise. It was from a person the man never expected to hear from. It touched him so deeply he now carries it around in his pocket all the time. "Every time I read it," he said, "I get tears in my eyes." It was a transforming moment in this man's life. Suddenly he realized he was loved by others in the church. This changed his entire outlook. "I was so moved by that letter," he said, "I sat down and wrote ten letters myself."Receiving that letter was a transforming experience for Mr. Macho. It came from a mailbox rather than a mountaintop, but the effect was the same - his perspective was changed. God breaks into our lives and we are changed. *** The experience of Peter, James and John reminds me of the concluding remarks of a sermon. Listen, and see if you recognize them: "I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountain top. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people will get to the promised land. And I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord." Do you recognize them? These words were delivered on April 3, 1968, by Martin Luther King, on the eve of his assassination. Are you up for the challenge? The LIGHT IS SHINING – are you willing to live in the shadows of darkness or according to the Truth of Christ for which he promises to come again? Amen.