February 15, the last Sunday after Epiphany, the Transfiguration

         This is the end of one season and the beginning of another. We are ending the season of Epiphany, when we think about how Jesus is revealed to the world. We speak about this as if it were and open secret. To those of us who know him, we rejoice and proclaim alleluia. To those who do not know him, the meaning and truth about Jesus remains a mystery – and we seem strange and foolish to believe.

         We begin today remembering the story of Elijah and Elisha. There are emotional and touching details to the story. Elijah is leaving (dying? Ascending?) Elisha is caught in the knowledge of what must be and the desire of what he wants. We all recognize the struggle of loss. We don’t want to say goodbye. We don’t want a loved one to die. We don’t want to move away for a new job. IN a wider context, we don’t like the way the world is changing. We are losing things that are very important to us and it seems as if no one cares. We want to hold onto the best of our past and we have to step into an unknown future where we have no idea what will remain.

         Elisha asks Elijah for a double portion of his spirit – that is, he asks to inherit the work of Elijah. He sees Elijah carried up into heaven by chariots and horses and fire. He tears his own clothes in grief and picks up Elijah’s cloak. Elisha’s work begins by letting go of Elijah. It is necessary and it is difficult. We recognize our own passages in this story.

         Today we also remember the transfiguration on the mountaintop. Jesus takes Peter, James and John up a high mountain. Jesus is transfigured. His clothes become white. He is talking with Moses and Elijah. (Because both were taken up by God? Because they represent the first prophet and the next greatest prophet of Israel?) Peter sputters something about setting up tents. A cloud, much like the cloud of mount Sinai, covers them and they hear a voice. “This is my Son, the Beloved, listen to him!” Then they are alone with Jesus on the mountaintop.

         They walk down the mountain. Jesus tells them to say nothing until after he rises from the dead. What we miss from the story is what happens next. Jesus begins to teach the disciples that he must suffer and die and rise again. After this, Jesus faces Jerusalem and his purpose there. Peter doesn’t like it. “God forbid!” he says. Jesus rebukes Peter and tells them that if anyone wants to follow him they must take up their own cross and follow.

         The mountaintop is great. We have all had wonderful experiences in our lives. We discover some great insight. We fall in love. We achieve some wonderful success. Then we come down the mountain. We can’t live in the realm of insight and achievement. We have to live in a world where we apply what we’ve gained. We have to live out the truth of it. We are moving from epiphany to lent.

         Falling in love is easy – even a little fun. Living a life of love is difficult. The people around us are not lovable characters in a Hollywood romantic comedy. We live with real people with faults and wounds and blind spots (as we know the truth about ourselves.) We live in a world of great inequality and injustice. We are surrounded by suffering and loss. We can ignore it and keep our heads in the clouds. Or we can face it and take up the work that is left to us.

         At first, we are burdened by what we have lost and by what our work will cost. As we live into the truth that we know, we find a different feeling. We are on our way to something that has meaning and purpose. We recognize friends along the way. We see the face of Christ in the people we meet  - in their hands and in their words. We are not alone and what we are doing is worth the work.

         I have always felt that a way of understanding the transfiguration is not in the miraculous signs and wonders. It’s not in the cloud or the voice or the prophets talking with Jesus. It is the disciples who are transfigured. They see Jesus for who he is. They see him glorified. They see him in conversation with great prophets who have come before. They hear the approval of God in the cloud. They see him standing with them - dressed as they know him. The disciples are changed.

         We are also witnesses. We have been given this vision so that we know Jesus as he is; glorified, beloved, and standing with us, walking with us down the mountain. We say that we are an incarnational church, that is, we believe in a real, flesh and blood God who is among us. We are an incarnational people. Our faith only makes sense as it is seen and known out in the world wherever we find ourselves.

         We no longer live in a time when people seek out a church and a share of them will always come to us. This is a hard loss for us. It is also an opportunity for us to take on a new responsibility. We can be witnesses wherever we are. We can take our vision down the mountain. We can tell the story about our dying and rising God who changes us. We can be the change our neighbors need to see.