“Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John,
And led them up a high mountain apart by themselves.
And he was transfigured before them,
and his clothes became a dazzling white,
such as no one on earth could bleach them.
And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking to Jesus.”
Mark 9:2-4
This morning, this last Sunday morning I am with you as your pastor, is designated on the liturgical calendar as the day commemorating the transfiguration of the Lord. The day comes just before Ash Wednesday which begins the season of Lent. We get a hint of Jesus’ glory and divinity just before we move into the season where we focus on his humanity and humiliation.
The thing I love most about the story of Jesus’ transfiguration has to do with what it says about us. And it is Peter, as usual, who mirrors this characteristic. Never at a loss for words, Peter responds to this invitation to silence and wonder with a commentary: “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses and one of Elijah.” In other words: “Wow, this is really cool, Teacher! Look how shiney you are. We need to do something to commemorate this moment. Let’s build three shrines up here and turn it into a pilgrimage site. Maybe we could even sell tickets.”
Yet when it was all over, and they were coming down off the mountain, Jesus invites them to a different response. In fact he orders that response. He essentially says, “Let’s keep quiet about this for now. The time will come for the celebration of my glory. For now just keep this to yourselves; be still and savor it.”
As religious people we love to build shrines. It’s not necessarily a bad thing. Afterall, it grows out of an experience of God’s presence, it points to an encounter with the Holy, a moment when eternity has broken into time and in which we feel confirmed in our faith. So of course we quite naturally want to hold onto it, share it with others, do something to make concrete and permanent what is a momentary, almost subliminal, flash.
Yet we should take heed of Jesus’s advice to his disciples. Often the best response to these visions is to plant them deep in our hearts and let them be part of what empowers us to take the next faithful step on the journey of faith. These hints of glory are not ultimately given to draw attention to themselves and therefore something to be enshrined and celebrated, they are given to move us forward.
One of the things I deeply appreciate about my 11 years at Emmanuel as your pastor is that you were not a people who spent much time trying to draw my attention to and join you in a celebration of your past. In fact I arrived shortly after you had torn down a couple of your shrines. I arrived at a place where I rarely heard what is an all too familiar and unfortunate death knell in many congregations: “We’ve never done it this way before.” By tearing down your building and rebuilding it you effectively pushed a reset button. I suppose that most of you had little energy to call my attention to how things had always been done, instead you were primed to do something new in a new place.
Thank you for that. And if I have a last word for you, it is: “Keep doing this!” Give your new pastor the same gift. Keep your eyes focused forward, looking for how Jesus is out in front guiding you into an awareness of what is yet to be. Your foundation is not all the glorious things that have happened, it is the ever- growing relationship you have with the One in Whom all things cohere (Colossians 1:17). In short, continue to strive to simply be the Church. From this location at the intersection of 104th and 195th in Bothell, seek to do nothing more and nothing less than look for the ways that God is at work in you and around you and then reflect the light of God’s love to your neighbors.
“Put these words in your heart and soul, and bind them as a sign on your hand and fix them as an emblem on your forehead”; take Hebrews 10:19-25 to heart:
Therefore, my brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary
by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us
through the curtain (that is, through his flesh),
and since we have a great priest over the house of God,
let us approach with a true heart in full assurance of faith,
with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience
and our bodies washed with pure water.
Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering,
for he who has promised is faithful.
And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds,
not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some,
but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.
David Rohrer
The Transfiguration of the Lord
2/11/2024