What Pastor Jon Preached on Sunday, March 6th, 2011

Transfiguration of Our Lord
Exodus 24:12-18 • Psalm 2 • 2 Peter 1:16-21 • Matthew 17:1-9

Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. Then Peter said to Jesus, "Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah." While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, "This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!" When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear. But Jesus came and touched them, saying, "Get up and do not be afraid." And when they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone. As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus ordered them, "Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead."

“Hello, this is your captain for today’s flight speaking. Today we will be departing from the area called Epiphany, after which we will fly at an altitude of about 30,000 feet, and then reach our destination in the wilderness area called Lent. I’ve been made aware that all our passengers today have been in this area called Epiphany, listening to stories about a Messiah inviting you to ‘come and see’ him as his disciples, hearing him tell you that you are salt and light, and hearing his sermon from a mountain. Now I invite you to sit back, relax and enjoy your flight.”

Airplane rides can give us a rare gift of being able to gain perspective on our lives and even on our faith. There’s something about looking out at the softness of the clouds up close—or seeing the horizon on a clear day—that gives us a rare chance to perceive what it is that is truly most important to us in the tiny little world that lies below us. Time has a way of standing still when we are up in the air. The painter Georgia O’Keefe, after her first airplane trip, was so inspired by what she saw that she painted an enormous canvas that depicts billowing white clouds and a crystal clear horizon—a canvas that now is part of the permanent collection at the Art Institute of Chicago.

At some moments in our life of faith and discipleship, there are times when we experience God with this kind of clarity. God breaks through and we have an inexplicably profound sense of who we are and why God loves us so deeply. Our faith soars to great heights, as we have never known they could soar. Maybe this moment has happened for you on an airplane, or a mountaintop. Or perhaps it happened on a service trip like the one that this church took to Montana several years ago, or the ELCA Youth Gathering with 30,000 other youth praising God in New Orleans back in 2009. Or perhaps your mountaintop experiences of faith have come in more subtly ordinary ways, like an unexpected conversation about faith with a friend, or hearing a Bible story that spoke directly to your own life story.

For the Jewish people of Jesus’ day, high mountain vistas were counted on to be places where God reached through, pulled back the veil, and offered such an experience of faith, just as God had done to Moses on Mount Sinai. So it’s no surprise that when the disciples have a holy vision that inspires their faith it’s on top of a mountain that Jesus has taken them up to.

The thing about these “mountaintop” experiences, as amazing as they are, and as much as they do sustain us with hope when they fade away, is that we always want to find a way to grasp them and hold on to them. It’s so hard for us to just be…to let the gravity God’s crystal clear presence really speak to us! In addition there are cultural pressures that try and turn these kinds of moments into Godly “sound-bytes.” Technology, for example, can invade these kind of experiences and rob them of their mystery. Overly scheduled lives can also become so inflexible that they manage to rob us of time just to be open to listen for what God is trying to tell us.

So it’s no wonder then, that Peter—who is the top, #1, “numero uno” disciple par exellance—even he manages to fumble up his profound vision of God on the mountaintop when he sees Jesus, Moses and Elijah. Peter sees these three holiest of saints and is so filled with faith…that he immediately is compelled to start doing something about it, rationalizing it, making sense of it. So he blurts out, “Lord it is good for us to be here! Let us build something to commemorate this moment! Let’s contain and preserve what God is doing here today!” (Mt. 17:4)

But God takes Peter’s impulse to hold on to this Godly revelation with a tight fist, and interrupts him, to say, “This is my beloved Son, Jesus! Listen to HIM!” And just as quickly as Jesus had declared Peter “the rock on which I will build my church” only a few verses ago (16:18), how quickly God takes Peter’s impulse to build something permanent that represents God and that impulse crumbles to pieces. Peter himself crumbles to the ground, falling with James and John, cowering in fear, and taking the same sinking posture he took when he failed to walk to Jesus on the water.

But Jesus does not leave Peter crushed on the ground. Jesus does not let our falls keep us down when we fail in our walk of following Jesus. Jesus reaches out and touches the disciples, reaching out to them to give them life. As the disciples look up Jesus speaks words that he also speaks to us: “Be resurrected, and do not be afraid.” (17:7) Jesus reaches out and offers life to us, we who stumble and fall each and every day in our walk as the broken disciples we are too.

It turns out that it isn’t that God’s presence only peaks on the mountaintops, or even that we only find God in the valleys of our life’s journey. God isn’t even found in how well we preserve our experiences of faith that will fade. God is found in the world, where Jesus reveals his healing grace and his merciful justice to those who fall down. Whether we have faith to move mountains, or faith only the size of a mustard seed (Mt. 17:20), Jesus remains with us, forming us into his disciples by taking our lives of crumbled stones and making them whole. Today it is not just Jesus who is transfigured; Jesus transfigures us into the children of God, giving us a vision of his healing hands that will sustain us as we must make our way down the mountain into the world to follow Jesus to the foot of the cross. The falls will still happen on that way, but Jesus will never stop reaching out to pick us up with his hands, and calling us to go down the mountain and follow his way of vulnerable love in the world.

“This is your captain speaking, I’d like your attention. We’re about to make our descent into the wilderness area called Lent. Before we land there will be a free complimentary meal of bread and wine. Take advantage of these because you will need them to sustain one another in the land of Lent. As you go to through this wilderness land, my heavenly Father tells me you all as United Lutherans will be discussing and praying for 40 days and nights about God’s purpose for the church. Blessings to you all on that journey. My name is Jesus, and on behalf of the whole body of Christ, it’s been my pleasure to serve as your captain today. When you leave this plane, I may not be flying you to soaring heights again for a while, but remember: I will be with you. Always.” Amen.