Transfiguration and bad things

Sunday 6th august evening

This evening we continue to reflect on the transfiguration as Peter, James and John went up to the mountain top with Jesus and were greeted there by Moses and Elijah – It was an incredible display of God’s power, and also a statement that the time had come for Jesus’ ministry to move forward – forward to Jerusalem, to his trial, to death and ultimately of course to victory through his resurrection.

Jesus had a painful ministry – there was no comfort and no riches for him. And as I was thinking about this and watching yet another news story with many more people killed in wars, it became clear again of how much the world today is in need of transfiguration.

I have no doubt that Jesus continues to live in the middle of misery and that he feels pain every time one of his children suffers, and every time one of his children does something wrong. So where is God in the middle of conflict ? It’s an age old question – why does God allow evil ? and it’s one that is often far too hastily and carelessly answered.

One answer is clearly God allows freewill and therefore wars are an inevitable conflict of selfish and greedy desires. Some would add to this idea that good will come out of suffering... There is little doubt that suffering and hardships do often bring the best out of people – relationships can be repaired, people can perhaps get some kind of idea of what is really important in their lives and what is not.

At the memorial service for the September 11^th attacks in New York, Billy Graham said the tragic events had brought “a new spirit in the nation...a spiritual revival...a return to God.” Pointing to the future and the hope that emerges after death is central to preaching the great mystery of God.

It is right to remember that the gospel can be tough – Jesus didn’t preach an easy message, he preached a message of revolution, a revolution overthrowing corruption and hate, and replacing those things with a fellowship built on love. So there is an inevitable truth in the statement that good can come from bad things. But this week if you were one of the family members of someone killed in Iraq or Afghanistan, or in Lebanon or Israel, good would seem a long, long way away.

Another suggestion may be that God is sending us a message through war and conflict. Perhaps within conflict we are being given a wake up call – a call from God to sort out injustice in the world, to sort out poverty, to preach a little more passionately the good news that Jesus brought into the world… Churches in this country and in much of the Western World are so often complacent and comfortable. Somebody recently asked the question ‘Who are We’ in one of those philosophical discussions on the radio – and then asked whether the answer lay in what we profess and sing or in what we do – clearly the largest part of the answer must be revealed in what we actually do, not in what we say.

Belief in the resurrection of Jesus is central to our faith – St. Augustine is reported to have said, We are Easter people and Alleluia is our song. In other words we have no need to worry about death or fear death, because it is in death that we are brought closest to God. But again it would be wrong to merely dismiss death… The mystery of God is not just about resurrection. We also affirm in the Creed that Jesus suffered, was crucified, was buried, descended to the dead, before he rose again and ascended into heaven. To bypass the suffering, the crucifixion, and the burial is to try and ignore the truth, and try and just give a nice glossy touch to an account that was filled with pain.

And then of course as an extension to the freewill discussion we can blame certain people for wars. History is littered with evil people and continues to be so – judgements about which side in a conflict is evil are often difficult to make – but we all have our ideas. Someone started it… The Israelis now say that Hezbollah started the current conflict by kidnapping some of their soldiers – Israel say Hezbollah had it all coming to them because of their constant battering of Israeli towns and cities.

America and our own government would hold Saddam Hussein responsible for the problems in Iraq at the moment whilst many Arabs would say it is the evil westerners that have caused such suffering.

So what is our response to suffering and to conflict. I don’t think it can ever be just to wash it away, pretend its someone else’s problem, and that God has nothing to do with it. God is there in the middle of it, but that is not to suggest that he wants it to happen… Also in his address at that memorial service for September 11^th Billy Graham said, “I am an old man now...but I hold on to the hope with which I first began to preach.” A few days later, Pope John Paul II, trembling and shaken, told people, “I pray that the Virgin Mary might help the Americans not to fall into temptation of hatred and violence, but rather to commit themselves to justice and peace.”

Both messages offer us a wonderful example - God hates war, he hates conflict of any kind – and what he teaches his people is to stand up in the middle of any crisis and preach a message of hope – a message that God can conquer death, and God can conquer evil in the world today We mustn’t try and offer glib explanations for suffering but rather remind people that even in the midst of tragedy and suffering God is showing compassion – God is showing love.

Jesus suffers with those who suffer. The Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel wrote, “The S.S. hanged two Jewish men and a youth in front of the whole camp. The men died quickly, but the death throes of the youth lasted for half an hour. “Where is God? Where is he?” someone asked behind me. As the youth still hung in torment in a noose after a long time, I heard a voice within myself answer, “Where is he? He is here, he is hanging on the gallow....”

The world as we know it contains suffering. It contains misery and hurt and conflict, and I think we need sometimes to be honest enough to say ‘I don’t know why’, because sometimes we just don’t, but that does not stop us from reminding people that this bleak and often dark world is nothing like the glorious kingdom God has built and is building.

We must not be afraid to preach mystery. We do not have the power to end all evil, suffering and death, although we must speak out and do what we can. But one thing that every one of us has is the grace that comes from the mystery of God which invites us to pick up the shattered pieces of our world and make something holy and new out of them.

We do that by pointing people to Jesus who has won the victory over all of those bad things, to Jesus who is glorified on that transfiguration mountain top even today, but also to the Jesus who is right here in the valley alongside us as we work for him. AMEN