"Pausing on the Mountain" - Sermon for Transfiguration Sunday

Sermon:

Text:

Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ who calls us to pause in his glory.

I spent the first part of this last week at my Parents house up in the Twin Cities because my sister was visiting with my two baby nieces, and as you can tell I had a pretty fun time with them! It was a lot of fun, they can now look around more moving their heads on their own, when I was there in Oct they still didn’t have much control of their neck muscles and you had to always really brace and support their necks as you held them. They also seem to be at least twice as big as they were then, they’re starting to discover that they have control of their hands grabbing toys on purpose, they’re “talking” all the time, by that I mean they like to make sounds for us. They like to smile and laugh, especially when their mom plays peek-a-boo with them. It was an amazing trip, and I was totally ok with getting snowed in up there and missing an evening of confirmation class.

But, I don’t just bring that up because it happened to happen, today is probably the 5th most important feast day in the church Calendar, we have Christmas, Easter, Pentecost, Ascension, and Transfiguration. We read lessons about this transfiguration text every year, Matthew, Mark, and Luke all include it. But it always feels strange to me. It’s an odd story that’s hard to relate to. Usually we just relate it to transfiguration meaning changed, like my nieces have changed from the last time I saw them, they’ve grown, and begun to have personalities. And yes, Transfiguration means changed, but that is of course not the entire meaning behind this text, and this Sunday. We could just say, well, it’s change Sunday, time to really make an effort to change our ways before Lent.

And well, that does have some part in how this text works. We are at the last Sunday of the time after Epiphany. Epiphany means to be revealed, Epiphany is the time where we see who Jesus is being truly revealed to the nations. We began with the Wise Men coming and showing who Jesus is in through Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh, we continued with Jesus’ Baptism by John in the Jordan, where God the Holy Spirit comes down in the form of a dove and God the Father speaks from the clouds saying, “You are my Son, the Beloved, with you I am well pleased.” We read stories of Jesus’ early ministry, the wedding at Cana and his preaching in his hometown of Nazareth where he declares that his ministry is for more than just his hometown. It’s all things that reveal more and more about who Jesus is, and what it is he came here to do. And here we read another moment of Epiphany, echoing the one found in Jesus’ baptism. “Then from the cloud came a voice that said, “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!”” But, this is not just a text about looking behind, at who Jesus is, but a text about what Jesus will do.

Let’s look at the first verses of our text.  “Now about eight days after these sayings Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray. 29 And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white. 30 Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Elijah, talking to him. 31 They appeared in glory and were speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.” Luke’s the only gospel that adds in this one part at the end, what Jesus was talking to Moses and Elijah about, they were speaking of his departure. In the Greek it’s his exodus, his leaving, and not just his leaving from Jerusalem one day, but his death and resurrection and ascension. They are talking about what Jesus is really here to do, to die, and to be raised, and then to return to heaven to welcome us, our death having been overcome through his own death, our resurrection assured through his.

That’s what Transfiguration Sunday is all about, it’s foreshadowing what Jesus will do for us, and the impact that will have on the world. But as I said, it’s sort of a weird story, what did he actually look like when transfigured, what are Moses and Elijah doing there, where did they come from, and where did they go, how is God speaking to them in a cloud, what’s going on with that whole thing of Peter wanting to build huts for them. So, what we do when we see a strange text like this is we often just read it and then move on. I’ve seen lots of sermons that spend their time looking at the passage that rounds out our Gospel today, “On the next day, when they had come down from the mountain.” The interpretation being, that’s great to stand on the mountain, but the real work starts down in the valley. I’ve probably done that myself, I didn’t go back to look at old sermons to find out. And well, it does, we can’t just stand on mountains all the time waiting or watching for God, but sometimes we do in fact have to do so.

And this is the perfect time to do so. We begin Lent this week, Ash Wednesday is just 3 days away, we will hear that we are dust and to dust you shall return. We will enter Lent which asks us to be introspective, to look within ourselves and see the ways that we turn from God and sin against each other, we will dwell on how small we are. But, it’s all because of what happens at Easter, and what is foreshadowed today. We go through Lent, looking inwardly on ourselves, but we start it and end it by looking to what Christ has done. Like Peter, James and John, we spend a moment today looking at Christ’s glory. We seek to overcome our want to be like Peter and make huts for Jesus, to seek to look down the mountain right away. But, we take a moment here to see what Jesus means for us.

Jesus is the one who saves us, so that death has no sting, the grave no victory.

Jesus is the one who tells us to not be afraid when we are trapped in our fear. 

Jesus is the one who walks beside us on the difficult roads of life as we cry of pain and grief. When all seems lost and we long for loved ones.

Jesus is the one who sees us when we feel worthless, and gives us meaning, who knows who we are, who gives us identity as beloved children of God, who washes us clean, who overcomes our doubts, who tells us that we matter.

Take a moment and look to the cross. That was a device of torture and execution, one of the cruelest method to kill someone that anyone has ever devised. It didn’t just kill people, it killed them slowly and agonizingly, and always in locations where all could see and ridicule. And yet we gladly install them in and on our churches, we put them on rings and necklaces, we hang them around our houses, I have ten different versions in my office alone. And why? Because to us it is a symbol of life everlasting. That is the greatest transfiguration. Jesus took the ultimate instrument of death and made it one of life, it seems fitting that we should take a day every year to pause, look to the heavens at God’s wonder and dwell on all that Christ has done for us.

Let us pause for a moment, reflecting with Peter, James, and John on the Glory of Christ and his transfiguration.

Let us pray,

God of Transfiguration, we always ask you to work in us, we ask you to change us, to help us to see where we fail and to reveal to us how to see you. But, today, we ask you to simply be with us, to allow us to pause in our hectic schedules to see your Glory in and around us. To see you at work in all that we do, to see your hands holding us, comforting us, working through us. Help us to spend a moment on the mountain in your presence. Amen.