February 11, 2024
Transfiguration Year B
Epiphany, Winnipeg
Mark 9:2-9
This is probably about the twenty-fifth time that I’ve preached on Transfiguration; this story about Jesus on the mountaintop with Moses and Elijah and three disciples who don’t know what to make of it all. Twenty five times. Now if you’re saying to yourself, “Well, I hope he gets it right this time,” that’s OK, because that’s what I’m thinking too. Here’s what I’ve done twenty five times: I’ve gone on about how Jesus doesn’t want us up on a mountaintop high while the world struggles down below. But we all know that already. And I’ve always criticized Peter and the disciples for wanting to stay up there and build tents. But Jesus doesn’t give them a hard time about that. They just don’t know what they’re talking about. When some of us don’t understand something we stay quiet. Or when some of us don’t understand we start saying stuff anyway. That’s what Peter does. And the voice from the cloud never says, “You’re wrong.” If anything the voice from the cloud says, “Stop talking. This is my son here. Listen to him.”
I’ve always tried to get Jesus and the sermon off the mountain as quickly as possible, as though the whole point of going up the mountain was to prove to the disciples that being up on the mountain isn’t the point. In that case it might have been easier just not to go up the mountain in the first place.
I’ve always wanted to get Jesus down off the mountain as soon as possible. But this week I wondered why I’m so afraid of staying up on the mountain? Why won’t I just stay there and try to hear what’s going on? To see what’s going on?
Today let’s try to stay on the mountain for awhile.
Jesus takes Peter and James and John on a walk to a mountaintop. Just the four of them. Once they get there Jesus suddenly changes, and his clothes shine bright white – a nice contrast with his face and hands which are most assuredly not white - and suddenly Moses and Elijah are there, and those two and Jesus are just talking together. Your guess is as good as mine what they’re talking about.
Now Moses and Elijah are huge figures in the memory and imagination of the Jewish tradition that shaped Jesus and those three disciples. I guess that today, in Black History Month we might say they’re a bit like Martin Luther King Jr. in the U.S., or Viola Desmond in Canada – she’s the Nova Scotia woman on our ten dollar bills who wouldn’t leave the whites-only section of a theatre in Halifax. They’re people who stood up to power when it was dangerous to do so, and whose resistance and faithfulness would help prepare the way for freedom to come closer and a new era to begin.
We’re probably most familiar with Moses, who led the people Israel out of four hundred years of being slaves, and led them towards freedom in a new land. That story, from slavery to freedom, is still at the centre of Jewish faith and life today; it will be retold and relived again at Passover this year, later on in April.
We might be less familiar with Elijah. Elijah came along centuries after Moses, but Elijah’s story is one of standing up to power as well. When a new king and queen led the people to worship local Gods of fertility and agriculture instead of the God who had led them to freedom, Elijah stood up and spoke out, and almost paid with his life. And when the king and queen used their power to steal land from locals, even if they had to kill to get that land, Elijah stood up and spoke out, and almost paid with his life.
Here’s the thing about Elijah: there’s no story about him dying. He’s just taken up into the heavens in that reading we heard earlier. And over time Jewish tradition began to see Elijah as someone who would return, and when he did return it would be a sign that the Messiah was coming to begin a new era of God’s reign, with faithfulness and justice.
So when Peter and James and John see Jesus with Moses and Elijah, they are seeing Jesus with two giant figures in their own history. They’re seeing the history of the people, and they’re getting hints that a new future is coming. Elijah has come; the Messiah is on the way.
And then a cloud comes down, and a voice from the cloud says, “This one is my beloved child.” And for that moment Peter and James and John see that this Jesus who they are just getting to know might just be that one who will bring freedom and bring justice and bring faithfulness and new life, and a new world into being.
The voice from the cloud also says, “Listen to him.” “Stop talking. Listen.” And Jesus says, “Don’t tell anyone about what you’ve seen until you see me risen from the dead.”
Peter, James and John get a clear view of who Jesus is that day. I mean it sounds like it’s clear, but really, it’s a crazy and confusing and I’m pretty sure I at least wouldn’t have known what to say or do. But as the story unfolds, and we’ll see it take shape in the next seven or eight weeks, they and we will see what happens to Jesus when he, like Moses and Elijah, stands up to power. They’ll soon see events unfolding that they cannot control. They won’t be able to fix the tragedy they see taking place, they won’t be able to change what will happen to Jesus, and they will run and hide even when he stands up and does not hide. But even when they have run away there will be this memory they have, of Jesus and Moses and Elijah talking together. And they might just recall that voice that said “This is my beloved child; listen to him.” And they might know deep inside that all those age old promises of freedom and new hope and even that weird thing that Jesus said about being raised from the dead are true.
I wondered aloud a few minutes ago why I’m so afraid to stay up on the mountain. I don’t really think I’ve answered my own question. But I do know that it’s hard to sit still in the face of things I don’t understand. This vision of Jesus on the mountain has a supernatural kind of feel about it, and I for one am too logical and rational and realistic and modern to know what to do with visions and mysteries and clouds and voices from the sky. It’s hard to stay on the mountain when that’s what’s going on.
But life in the world down here where we belong is no easier to understand. I don’t understand why Benjamin Netanyahu and his loyal minions seem not to care if Gaza is wiped out on the way to defeating Hamas. It just makes no sense. At all. And I don’t understand why Hamas and Hezbollah just want Israel and its people wiped off the map. It just makes no sense at all. No more sense than visions on a mountaintop. I don’t understand why we still seem to think it’s OK that hundreds of people in Winnipeg have no homes and people in Canada have no clean water. I don’t understand why some people just live with crushing depression, or why those two can’t make their relationship work, or how come I can just make my own weird habits and self-criticism stop.
There’s this world we live in, but it’s really hard to make sense of it sometimes. A lot of the time. Most of the time?
Back to the mountaintop with Jesus and the rest. Did you notice that Jesus never tells the disciples what this whole thing means. Actually, I’m not sure that anything in scripture tells us what it means when Jesus and Moses and Elijah are on the mountain together. Maybe that’s why I want to get off the mountain as soon as possible because I’d rather not be in the middle of what I can’t understand, whether that’s something fabulous (is this fabulous?) or something tragic. But maybe that's OK. It’s OK if we just don’t get it sometimes. If we can’t understand what’s going on, in a story about a mountaintop or in stories about Gaza being destroyed or Ukraine being forgotten, or in stories about a world heating up or something in our own lives breaking down, we don’t need to blurt something out or explain what’s going on because sometimes we just can’t. And when we just don’t understand what’s going on, that voice from the cloud becomes a simple one good thing: Just an assurance of something in the midst of what we can’t understand; an assurance that all that goodness and hope and life and those words about freedom or something new or the kingdom of God or the love of God are true.
And then Jesus tells the disciples to tell no one. Just keep quiet. Keep quiet until after the resurrection. It’s like he’s saying “Keep quiet about this until after you’ve seen that the story is not about healings and wonders but is about living and suffering and dying. And being raised back to life again. But keep quiet until after you’ve seen that.”
Just don’t tell anyone.
And then we hide the Alleluia for awhile.
Today is the last time that we’ll sing or say Alleluia until March 31st. Starting this Wednesday we once again have permission to be quiet. We don’t need to try to force enthusiasm, and we don’t have to try to show that we understand it all. It’s OK to be quiet. It’s OK to sit with things that we don’t understand and to wait to see how it starts to make sense. We might have to wait a long time, but Jesus is waiting with us there…on the mountain or down here on the prairie. It’s OK to have seen that light and to have heard that voice and to keep still about it for awhile, maybe until the larger picture starts to make sense, or maybe just until we’ve had a chance to catch our breath and head out again – down the mountain, out the door.
It's OK to keep quiet and to be still…until we’ve seen the one who shines on the mountain today…who will not shine but still be there on a cross outside the city…and who will one day greet us outside an empty tomb.