Mark 9:2-9
Guest Speaker: Nancy Harris
When Glenn first called me and asked me if I would preach this Sunday in his absence, I was really tickled, and then he told me it was Transfiguration Sunday, and my heart sort of went down into my shoes. Because I couldn’t for the life of me remember what was significant about Transfiguration Sunday. I knew that I had preached on it before. I knew that I’d been in church a lot of Transfiguration Sundays, but I couldn’t remember.
Now, Glenn did give me an out. “You don’t have to follow the lectionary. I’m not going to be following the lectionary through Lent and if you want to preach on something else, that’s fine; go ahead and do that.”
Well, the more I thought about it,
the more I realized if I couldn’t remember, maybe this was what I was supposed
to be preaching on. So I started. Well, I thought the best start would be to
actually read the text. So I pulled out
my preaching Bible, the one that I used while I was in
Now, this truly is an amazing story. Jesus took Peter and James and John to a high mountain and suddenly, before their very eyes, he turned into a fluorescent light bulb. And then on top of that, Elijah and Moses appeared and spoke with Jesus. And then this cloud closed over them. It sort of sounds like one of those parking lot velvet painting types of art, doesn’t it?
But what does it mean? Then I thought, I’m going to pull out my dictionary. This should help. So I looked up transfiguration. First definition: A radical transformation of figure or appearance. That wasn’t very helpful. Second definition: With a capital T, the sudden emanation of radiance from Jesus’ person that occurred on the mountain. All right, I got that from reading the text. Well, maybe there’ll be something different about transfigure. No, not really. First definition was almost exactly the same. The second definition did help a little bit: to exalt or glorify. But I still didn’t really have any idea what to say about this story.
So then I went to my Bible commentary. And then I read some other people’s Transfiguration Sunday sermons. And, you know, I have to admit, I took a great deal of comfort that it seems I’m really not alone in not really knowing what to say about this story.
In the text, it says the disciples were terrified and didn’t know what to say. So I guess we’re in good company, at least, I thought so. And you’ve got to love Peter. He says, “Rabbi, it’s good for us to be here. Let’s make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, one for Elijah.” Peter wanted to hang onto that mountaintop experience. He didn’t want to let go of that great moment.
But I have to admit that I can’t be that tough on Peter because I’m the same way. Don’t we all want to preserve our peak experiences. When I travel, the one thing I always take along is a camera. Over the past few years, I’ve moved several times. In the process of that, I have either tossed out, sold or given away a whole lot of stuff. But I still have boxes of photo albums and loose pictures. And I still have knicky-knacky souvenir things and gifts from special people around my house to help me remember my peak experiences.
However, the story of transfiguration suggests something more. This grand and high moment is set in the context of other moments of suffering and of pain. Mark actually gives us the context for the transfiguration of Jesus.
In the verses that precede the ones I read, Mark records the first time Jesus spoke of this forthcoming suffering. Well, when he predicted his death and suffering, Peter – good old Peter – was scandalized. And what did Jesus do? Jesus rebuked him. Jesus even went so far as to call Peter “Satan” for refusing to believe. And the transfiguration story follows on the heels of that discussion of Jesus’ suffering. Then after the experience of the transfiguration itself, Mark again reminds us of Christ’s forthcoming suffering, and Jesus insists that the disciples not speak of this experience until after the resurrection. So the suggestion here is that the disciples just cannot understand this moment of glory until they have experienced Jesus’ suffering. The transfiguration is understandable only in the context of suffering.
Its meaning is only clear in the sober light of the crucifixion, and I think it’s the same for us. Our peak experiences in life are always set in the context of our low moments. Of course, most of us want life to be high and exciting all the time. Many of us have been taught that life should consist of joy and success, always and only joy and success. So, why does life have to have its downtime? Why can’t we be on a joyful, thrilling holiday all the time?
I’d like for you to listen to the verses from II Corinthians that follow the ones that Brent read earlier. “But we have this treasure in clay jars so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us. We are afflicted in every way but not crushed; perplexed but not driven to despair; persecuted but not forsaken; struck down but not destroyed. Always carrying in the body the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies.”
Our moutaintop experiences are set within the context of the hard times of life. And that’s what Peter and the other disciples had to learn about Jesus’ life. It was not all experiences of transfiguration. God’s purpose for Jesus involved the agony of the cross. Mountaintop experiences often only occur in relationship with the valleys of life.
As a matter of fact, I think it’s in life’s valleys that most of us grow. We grow as a result of having to struggle with what’s wrong and what’s evil. We grow as a result of having to claw and fight our way out of life’s valleys.
Not too long ago, my own personal therapist said to me, “The opportunities we are presented with for growth in life are never the ones we would choose, but they are the ones we get.” The difficult periods of our lives may be where we learn to grow the most. If we’re ever to fly to one of the soaring peaks of life, it’s because of the strength we gained crawling out of other valleys. The highest experiences of life may be found in the circumstances we would never seek ourselves. But they’re thrust upon us. It’s amid those circumstances that we can listen to the beloved Son and learn something we might not see from the vantage point of the mountaintops.
The struggles through the hard times of life are the paths to our mountaintops. God doesn’t lead us into those hard times. They are not God’s doing, but God enables us to make those experiences times of growth, which eventually brings us to the peaks of life’s experiences. Our experiences on the Mount of Transfiguration are possible only because God helped us through the jungles and deserts of hardship.
Yesterday, during my own personal mediation time, I started reading Ann Lamont’s second book on Thoughts on Faith called “Plan B.” And after I read the first section, I thought, geeze, this is sort of what I was talking about in my sermon. So I have to admit I sort of spent most of last evening sort of editing my sermon so that I could read this to you and not preach for an hour. Because I thought I’d never be asked to do it again if I preached that long. And also with apologies to Ms. Lamont, I edited this selection, both for content and to run in the allotted time.
So this is from Ann Lamont’s “Plan B, Some Thoughts on Faith” (not typed due to copyright)
(Ann tells story of a person who is miserable celebrating her birthday alone but then receives a free ham from the store. She runs into a friend who has no money or food for her children. She has birthday money to share and a ham to feed that family. From her valley to the mountaintop of helping those in need.)
As Martha said to the children this morning, on Wednesday, we enter the season of Lent. One of the mysteries of the Lenten message is that God’s victory in Christ came in the agony of the suffering and death of Christ on the cross. I don’t know if any of us will ever understand exactly what that means for our lives. But Jesus’ journey to this valley tells us something about God. Lent whispers in our ears that the suffering of death and the hurt of failure are where we find God’s presence. God may stand beside us on the mountaintops of experience but God also holds us up as we grope our way out of the darkness of suffering. The transfiguration of Jesus is the mountaintop experience from which we look across a vast and rocky valley filled with pitfalls and dangers. But looking across the valley, we see another mountaintop. The peak experience of the resurrection.
The view we have from the Mount of Transfiguration is a view of Jesus’ journey. But it’s also the view of life’s journey for all of us. Some of us may be sad today, depressed, lost, hurting. We may want to hang onto our peak experiences of the past. And that’s okay, but we also need to move on. To continue our journey…left foot, right foot, left foot, breathe. We move on by being kind to ourselves. We breathe, we eat. We remember that God is present in the valleys of suffering, not just the mountaintop highs. And maybe those peaks aren’t so lofty. Maybe it’s the little things, like helping a friend and sharing the ham of God. Amen.