It’s Transfiguration Sunday.
A mythical incident in the life of Jesus called the ‘Transfiguration’. Jesus and some of his friends climb to the top of a mountain. They enjoy the magnificent views; they breathe deeply the fresh air; they are engulfed by a cloud. They allow the experience to recharge their flagging spirits and re-sensitise their imaginations.
And they want the experience to last for ever. ‘Let’s build our own chapel and you, Jesus, can be our private chaplain’.
But, says the storyteller, a booming voice to an end to their idea. We are forever changed up on the mountain, but we are useless to the world if we do not return and share what we have experienced.
We go up the mountain so that we can come back down.
Now, we can approach this story with different lenses. A historical lens, saying: ‘How did this happen?’ ‘Where did it happen?’
Or a theological lens, saying: ‘What connections can we make to this story?’ ‘What is this story saying about Jesus, or even God?’ ‘How is this story relevant to me?’ We can approach with imagination.
Marcus Borg offers some of his comments:
“Jesus… was a Jewish mystic. …I think he was a ‘religious quester’, which seems the best explanation of his going to the wilderness to John the Baptizer. I think he had visions, though I don’t know whether we have an account of any of them. I have a hunch that he had experiences of nature mysticism… this would be consistent with his sense of the immediate presence of God… I suspect [he] had an experiential sense of the reality of God in his prayer life, which I assume included some form of meditation”. (Borg 2002:132).
And the good news is also, the presentness of God is:
in the beauty of the universe around us, and our ability to apprehend it,
in the close encounters with new life and death,
in a special way during a period of suffering,
in praying and meditation,
in church liturgies.
As a minister, I have had the privilege of being present with all sorts of people as they support their loved ones at home or in hospital. Over the years, I have learned the value of a quiet, gentle, presence to accompany us in the darkest of journeys. In my head, I knew that whatever the situation, all that was really necessary was for me to do was to be present. So, I went to visit a child in hospital being treated for leukaemia, undergoing chemo. I went not as a minister, not as someone who has been trained to be a non-anxious presence in the midst of a crisis, not as a professional who has accompanied many people on this kind of journey. No, on this journey I was simply, like a little girl, terrified of what lay in front of me. When I was a little girl, I used to be afraid of the dark. I was that terrified girl walking to the hospital.
Dear God, please don’t let anything happen to her, I have just made connection with the family. And when I get there, please, give me the strength, the wisdom to say and do the right thing. I remember feeling so very inadequate. I remember wondering why I couldn’t do more or be better at this. But when I got there something happened that transformed me things that I cannot explain. As I touched the little girl, her gentle presence transformed me. The walls and the barriers came tumbling down. Everything that I had carefully constructed to shield me from what was actually happening around me, dissolved.
She was the epitome of the non-anxious presence that I have been trained to be. She was the embodiment of the Love that is God that I longed to experience. It was as if the veil had been lifted as my words and thoughts slipped away and all that mattered was this child.
Love has the power to transform us. God is Love. It is so simple and yet it is so difficult to comprehend.
Love is the Ground of our being, the One who nurtures us, sustains us, and holds us in an embrace in which ‘All will be well’. Love is God, God is Love. It is as simple and as complex as that. God comes to us in Love, Love dressed in a person.
On a mountaintop, centuries ago, our ancestors recognized Love in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. Love dressed up in a person. In a hospital room I recognized God, Love dressed up in a little girl.
Sometimes our images of what we want to be, get in the way. The idols we create can function like a veil that hides the light. Sometimes we cling to the veil because we are afraid that without our carefully constructed images, theologies, or idols, the ground will disappear from underneath our feet and we will be helpless to continue. But sometimes all we need to do is to trust the glimpses beyond the veil to give us the courage to let the veil fall away so that we can see what lies beyond the veil, trusting that the Love that we call God will come to us in, with, through, and beyond those who embody the Love that is God.
Once again, as I have experienced, there are moments when I know for myself, I have understood and experienced afresh that where there is suffering, there is Holy Ground. even if the language of such is hard to come by. There is a sense in the air that this is what is – an epiphany of time and event transfigured – moments when there is the realization that a transcendent presence, more than ourselves – which for me I name as God – is present in suffering, just as God is present in the promise and potential of our lives. This presence will provide all the strength that is needed to both stay present in the moment and face what one most fears – being alone in the midst of darkness.
I have learnt and am still learning not to ignore or throw away these imaginative and mysterious experiences. Not to let go of those things that I don’t understand or cannot explain. Rather, to meditate on them, delight in them, use them in all their exciting particularity… As imaginative ‘energy’ or Creativity that vitalises your faith. As a source of strength for living (and ministry) in the valleys below.
The challenge to the disciples is to live in the world without Jesus’ bodily presence.
C.S. Lewis writing in The Silver Chair, the fourth volume of his Narnia Chronicles – writes a final word from Aslan: Here on the mountain I have spoken to you clearly. I will not often do so down in Narnia. Here on the mountain, the air is clear and your mind is clear; as you drop down into Narnia, the air will thicken. Take great care that it does not confuse your mind. And the signs which you have learned here will not look at all as you expect them to look, when you meet them there. That is why it is so important to know them by heart and pay no attention to appearance. Remember the signs and believe the signs. Nothing else matters.
The Transfiguration offers the disciples, offers us, the paradox that while there is nothing they can do to save themselves from suffering, there is also no way they can shield themselves from the light of God that sheds hope in their and our darkest moments.
The mountain was the way for God to prepare a human band of companions for the sacred journey, to offer something to hold onto when they descend as for us also to the crushing reality of the world below.
The moment of transfiguration is that point at which God says to the world and to each of us that there is nothing we can do to prepare for or stand in the way of joy or sorrow.
We cannot build God a monument, and we cannot keep God safe.
We also cannot escape the light that God will shed on our path. We cannot escape God, Immanuel among us.
God will find us when our hearts are broken and when we discover joy. God will find us when we run away from God and where we are sitting in the middle of what seems like hell.
So “get up and do not be afraid.” (v7).
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Borg, M. ‘Jesus: A Sketch’ in R. W. Hoover (ed) Profiles of Jesus. Santa Rosa. Polebridge Press, 2002.
Peters, K. E. Spiritual Transformations. Science, Religion, and Human Becoming. Minneapolis. Fortress/FACETS Books, 2008.
C.S.Lewis, The Silver Chair (New York: HarperCollins, 1981), 25-26