...that we are here!

The Second Sunday of Lent

Gn 15:5-12, 17-18: Abram put his faith in the Lord.
Phil 3:17—4:1: Our citizenship is in heaven.
Lk 9:28b-36: They saw his glory.





I am sorry: I am late with this post.

I don't know why but as I have been preparing this week's readings, I have been recalling the refrain from Carly Simon's 1971 hit "Anticipation."  Perhaps it is because she has been in the news, perhaps it is because transfiguration--the subject of the Gospel--rhymes with anticipation--the title of the song and it's most prominent word--but one way or other it runs through my head, as fresh as the 1970's Heinz Ketchup commercial:

Anticipation, anticipation
Is makin' me late
Is keepin' me waitin'

Perhaps, however, it has to do with what the Transfiguration signifies to me, to many of us.

The story is wonderful: Jesus takes Peter, James and John up the mountain with him, where he prays.  As he prays, he is transfigured: Luke specifically refers to his face changing and his clothing becoming a dazzling white.  Moses and Elijah were seen conversing with him in his glory about his exodus that he was going to accomplish in Jerusalem.  Peter, ever the enthusiast, blurts out: "Lord, it is good that we are here..." and proceeds to discuss his plans--his architectural plans for the site.  But the voice interrupts--the same voice we heard earlier in Luke, on the feast of the Baptism of the Lord back in January: “This is my chosen Son; listen to him.”  And then it is just Jesus, alone.  And they do not know what to say.

I don't know about you, but I would love to see Jesus this way; I would love to have been there, and I look forward to it perhaps someday.  I suspect that we all do.

Anticipation, anticipation

Is makin' me late

Is keepin' me waitin'

And of course, this is the irony--did you ever notice that there is always irony when dealing with the things of God--we've just missed the point.

There are many things that can be commented on in this story.  For instance, "the mountaintop experience" that Peter, James and John have with Jesus.  Many will point out that Peter, trying to build his booths, is trying to make that experience permanent.  A friend of mine--a wonderful evangelical Protestant who would not call me Father because "Ye have but one Father, your Father in heaven"--as she was dying of cancer said one day to me that we all love mountaintops--people always have--it's so lovely and clear on a mountaintop.  You can see forever up there.  But, she reminded me, we cannot live on the mountaintops; there is no water.  No, she said, we have to live in the valleys, where we cannot see too far and where it can be crowded and hard to move around.  But there is water in the valleys; that's where life is.  That is why God chose to come into our valleys, she said.  It was her way of reminding me about where to look for God, just before she died.

There is also the context; it is vitally important to recall what is going on the the Gospel of Luke if we are to make sense of this mystery.  Jesus has been doing wonderful ministry all over Galilee and even beyond--healing, expelling demons, even feeding thousands of people.  He is being followed by adoring masses.  His disciples have been going out and doing wonderful things in his name.  But there is a dark side at work too: the masses who follow him are the simple, the poor, the country folk, the workers; the really good people--those who actually know something about God, like the scribes, the Pharisees, the Sadducees--have begun to oppose him.  His cousin, John the Baptist, has been first imprisoned and then killed.  So when the disciples show some evidence of beginning to understand who he is--"The Messiah of God!" Peter exclaims when he asks them--he has to tell them the hard truth: that it is not going to be what they think it will be, that he will have to suffer and die, and that being a disciple will mean going along for that ride!  Luke does not record that story quite the way Matthew does, but there is evidence that the disciples--even Peter--do not get that.

So when Jesus goes up the mountain with Peter, James and John, my suspicion is that he wants them to know a little bit more of the truth--as much as they can--so that they will be able to hear the hard news and not be discouraged by it.  But I suspect that the Father also takes the opportunity to give Jesus something every son or daughter needs from a loving father or mother--a bit of the affirmation that any parent would give to a beloved, obedient child who is having a really tough time!  I do not think Jesus doubts his Father's love, but I do think he is struggling--even as we will see him struggle on another mountain of prayer with the same three disciples, when he faces the hardest truths of all in his prayer on the Mount of Olives, that his Father's perfect love asks of him a perfect trust, a perfect sacrifice.  So the Father speaks to the disciples for Jesus here, but I am sure it is also important to the Father that Jesus knows exactly what he thinks of him!  And I have no doubt that this  helps Jesus to go down that mountain, where the disciples still don't get it, and decide that he will go to Jerusalem--the phrasing is apt: he sets his face toward Jerusalem (Lk 9:51b, cf note 25). 

As a disciple, it is such a consolation to know that at a human level Jesus struggles with these things too!  When he asks us to trust and believe, he knows what he is asking about.  When he asks us disciples to pick up our crosses and to follow him, he is not asking it lightly.  Jesus knows, and he understands!  These things are not easy for him either.  So when we have to undertake them, we can be sure that he is with us--not against us, but really with us, for that is what his name, Emmanuel, means: God with us! (Mt 1:23).

Isn't it funny, though, that the disciples did not see the other thing that happened on the mountain; I guess they could not have.  But as they looked up and saw Jesus as he truly is, the light of his face and the brightness dazzling off his clothes, is reflected upon them.  Their own faces brighten with his brightness, their own clothing shines as in the rays of a new sun.  No wonder Peter cries out, "It is good for us to be here!"  For his glory changes them.  Granted, Peter doesn't really understand, no more than he did when he confessed his faith in Jesus' relationship to the Father just a few verses earlier in the Gospel.  It is very good that they are there, not for the reason Peter enunciates, but for what happens to them there.

Remember what my friend said about mountains?  Well, Jesus takes them back down into the valley.  The valley full of life and all its problems, where things are not so clear and easy.  Because there is work to be done, God's own work!

But you know, what the disciples experienced on the mountain is not less true in the valleys.  Jesus is still the beloved son, and his words are still authentic, the very words of God.  Even when the disciples cannot see the glory, it is still truly there.  And that is true for us too.  Often we do not see the glory, more often than not, in fact.  But it does not mean that it is not there!  Perhaps it is even more present when we cannot see it.  I think of Mother Theresa, who early in her life saw the glory of God with some frequency.  But later in life, all she saw, by her own testimony, was the crying need of the poor, the ill, the starving, the outcast before her.  And she ministered to them.  And we all saw it, even as those she ministered to saw it: in her own way she reflected the glory and the love of God, though she herself could not see it.

It is good that we are here!  Peter is so right, so much more than he understands.  For that is Jesus' attitude in our world, when he meets the poor, the ill, the starving, the outcast.  When he meets the sinners.  When he meets the disciples who still do not--or will not--get it.  With each--with each of them and each of us--he knows it is good for him to be with us, for he sees before him a brother, a sister, another child of his Father.  It is this constant love that allows him to keep reaching out, even until his last moments on the cross when he greets the repentant thief with no less joy than he would greet the best of saints:  Today you shall be with me in Paradise!

It is good that we are here; we may not understand that anymore than Peter did.  Bu whenever we say that, whether we are at those infrequent peaks of mystical union with God or in the more frequent valleys of human reality, facing and struggling with our own sins and human frailties or facing and struggling with the sins and human frailties of those around us, we are like Jesus.  We reflect his glory and his love no less--perhaps even more-- than Peter, James and John did on that mountain top.

No, then, it is not just about some anticipated future; it is also very much about now.  Jesus took those friends to the top of the mountain so that he might be transfigured for them.  But he comes into our valleys to transfigure us.  And to show us that we too, even when we cannot see it, reflect the great glory and the love of God whenever we are willing to be with him here!

AMDG