One of the readings that we seem to have quite a lot in the Church is the account of the Transfiguration that we have heard today (Matt.17:1-9). It’s a remarkable account, but as with so many other accounts we have from the Bible we can only really appreciate it best when we allow ourselves to be immersed in the story – and to put ourselves in the positions of the main characters.
When Jesus took Peter, James, and John along on a trip up the mountain (Matt 17:1-9), they probably felt very honoured. They must have felt that they were the chosen among the chosen. Or perhaps not, maybe they thought: "what does he want us to do now? Do I always have to do the work? Why couldn't he pick Andrew or Judas, or someone else ?"
But whatever they thought, I wonder what they really expected… Some kind of special meeting, a picnic or a prayer meeting perhaps… We don’t really know. But one thing that they almost certainly didn’t expect though was what actually happened. Jesus was transformed before their very eyes, and then to add to the picture, Moses and Elijah appeared right there in front of them.
There are lots of questions that are not answered about the Transfiguration, and we don’t really know exactly how this incredible revelation took place. The theologian Karl Barth described a divine revelation as that moment when God lifts a veil from our eyes, and perhaps, just for a few moments, God lifted the veil from Peter, John and James' eyes so they could see him for what and who he really was.
And just when Peter seemed to be getting comfortable with this incredible sight, came another surprise: a bright cloud covered them and the voice of God was heard affirming the divinity of Jesus, God's own son – ‘This is my beloved Son, with him I am well pleased.’ And at that point, not surprisingly, the disciples were scared.
They handled all the other surprises pretty well, maybe they were used to surprises after travelling around with Jesus for so long - they saw a lot of miracles and unusual signs. But hearing God speaking was too much to handle – they fell to the ground, terrified. They were not ready to hear God’s voice.
And whatever else we learn from the Transfiguration it challenges us to ask ourselves if we are ready to listen to God’s voice speaking to us today… It may not always be in such a dramatic fashion, but God is still speaking today.
Peter, James and John were quite rightly amazed at what they saw. In spite of all the failings that they would still have in their lives, there is little doubt that this was a moment of transformation for them, and the great challenge of the Transfiguration is to put ourselves up on that mountain top and allow ourselves to feel God transforming us.
Mountain top experiences come in all kinds of different ways. Moses was invited to the mountain top where he was given the stones with the 10 commandments. Paul, though not up on a mountain top received a mountain top experience as he walked along the Damascus Road, where he had a clearer vision of God and his purpose. Martin Luther King, speaking the night before he was killed, spoke about God taking him to the mountain top and enabling him to see the promised land…
The experience of the mountain top is one that so many people, even those who have been in the darkest valleys in their lives, have experienced, and it is one that God constantly wants us to share. It is all about allowing ourselves to move closer to God’s presence. It is about expecting the unexpected from God as he guides us and supports us.
Celtic teaching talks of ‘Thin places’ where the distance between heaven and earth seems small – and that is a position that God wants to achieve with every one of us.
But the sad reality is for many of us that we want to experience spirituality on our own terms and in our own way. We want to worship and serve God and other people when we want to and in the ways we want to, we become stressed about Church issues, not even the bigger picture, but very often just preserving our own place… We need to move up to the mountain top so we can get a bigger picture… We need to move to a place where we can share God’s vision for his world – a vision that’s not restricted to Churches, or communities, or countries, but a vision that extends over the whole of creation.
As we retrace the history of the Church, we find that people are most powerfully used when they submit themselves to the will of God, whatever that will may be, and a message of the transfiguration is that when we say yes to following Jesus, we need to do so on God's terms - not on our own.
If we give our life to God, we give control over our lives to God. God wants to talk to us, God wants to use us every day in different ways, in different places, not just during the hour of worship on a Sunday.
The question is: Are we willing to follow Jesus on God's terms? Are we saying yes to God, even though we get no guarantees or promises of a comfortable, secure life? Are we willing to let God be God over our lives no matter where it takes us? Christ calls us, as he did Peter, John and James, to follow him; to follow him up the mountain - into unknown territory, into God's territory. A territory of revelation and divine mystery, and a territory that's beyond our control.
Today many people strive to be something or someone else – people have all kinds of treatments for their bodies, some change names, some pretend to be people they’re not – people seek to transform themselves into all kinds of different people in all kinds of different ways, and yet there is only one transformation that will ever make an eternal difference, and that is allowing ourselves to be transformed by God more closely into his image. AMEN
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