Transfiguration of our Lord

Reformation, Media

Larry V. Smoose

It’s good to be here.  Did you ever have one of those moments when you simply realized how good life is, how blessed we are,  when you simply had the feeling that it’s good to be here.  A week ago Linda’s son Michael and his wife Jamie had a baby girl, Ella Catherine – we were able to be there and see Ella less than an hour old, and remember the birth of our children.  It was one of those moments – good to be here. 

When I was in Pangani, sitting in the little open air thatched roof restaurant early in the morning, a warm breeze blowing – I spied two fishermen on the shore of the Indian Ocean about a quarter mile from where I was sitting, they were pulling in their net in the dim early morning light, waves quietly lapping the shore – a peaceful moment of reflection for me as I thought about a couple of other fisherman on another distant shore, some two thousand years ago.  I thought – It’s good to be here. 

The moments are so special that sometimes we try to capture them with a photograph, or to describe them with words, but somehow we can never quite capture those moments adequately – you just had to be there.  But somehow, as you share that moment, if you simply say – “You just had to be there”– people seem to understand, because they have had times like that, special moments that remain locked in our memories.

It’s good to be here.  That’s what those ancient fisherman said to Jesus when they were up on the mountain together and suddenly without warning the glory of God enveloped Jesus with a brightness as dazzling as the sun.  And then Moses and Elijah appear – I don’t know how Peter and James and John knew it was Moses and Elijah – maybe the robes in heaven are monogrammed like those doctor’s coats – I can’t imagine them with names on the backs of their jersey’s – but somehow it was evident.  “It’s good to be here, Lord.”     

Of course there are also those moments like the time Laura and I had hiked to a beautiful overlook at Lake Louise, and were quietly enjoying the beauty of this amazingly blue lake and the surrounding mountains, when all of a sudden a family with three young kids comes tromping up – “Hey, look at this view!   Wow, you can really see everything here!  Come on kids, get a picture of this!”  Just like that the moment is gone.  That’s what Peter’s sudden, unexplainable and inappropriate comment did to the small band at the transfiguration!   “It’s good to be here, Lord”  . . . Hey, I can pitch some tents – over here I can pitch one for you and – Oh, I won’t forget Moses and Elijah. . .

You know that your sudden outburst was not the right response when God interrupts you!  Right in the middle of his remark, suddenly they here God’s voice – “This is my son!”  Enjoy the moment, do you understand what I am showing to you here – just be quiet and enjoy this moment – “This is my Son, with whom I am well pleased – don’t talk, Listen to Him.” 

Listening – that’s another problem we share with the disciples isn’t it.  Have you ever been so anxious for a person to finish what they are saying that you interject the last couple of words?  - At least the words you thought they were going to say, but were taking too long to say it?  Or, have you ever been in a meeting, when someone is discussing an issue and before they are done, you have already started forming your own response – sort of only half listening.  Or maybe you have been in a classroom, while the teacher is in the middle of a lesson, but you are daydreaming about something else – like my High School English class when I was daydreaming and sort of tapping on the desk with my pencil while the teacher was reading from a play or something and suddenly he stops by my desk and says, “Mr. Smoose – I think the rest of the band’s gone home.” 

“This is my Son, with whom I am well pleased, Listen to him.”  What is it that Peter is not hearing?  Just before this event, in fact six days earlier, at Caesarea Philippi, Jesus had told the disciples about his passion and death and Peter had said, “No!  God forbid it Lord, this can’t happen to you.”   Unplug your I-pod Peter – Listen to him.   And that’s when this amazing moment, botched by Peter’s remark, becomes a moment for all of us.

For as Peter and the others hear God’s voice, they just about jump out of their skin!  They fall to the ground – but this is not some ritualistic prostration and awe.  The Greek word “Pipto” here is the same word used a few verses later when the father of an epileptic boy tells Jesus that his son “falls” into the fire, or into the water.  It is an uncontrollable action, as occurs in a seizure.  This is a cowering fear.  The disciples – the hand-picked, cream of the crop, chosen to experience this amazing moment have screwed up again!

You have to love the Bible’s honesty.  The disciples aren’t listening to Jesus – they want to set their own agenda and make Jesus to fit their image.  They don’t understand his teachings.  They don’t have enough faith to do the kinds of things that Jesus does.  Later, when he invites these same three disciples to the Garden of Gethsemane with him and asks them to stay awake – they fall asleep.  On Easter, when the women tell them that an angel told them Jesus has been raised from death, they don’t believe them.  The more you know about the disciples, the more they seem like – us.  Not that any of you have dozed off while trying to pray, or listening to a sermon. 

So here they are – cowering on the ground, anxious, frightened, struggling to understand and to be the faithful followers that they want to be.  That’s when Jesus comes over to them and touches them.  The shining glow of the heavenly Jesus is gone, it is their earthly Lord who touches them – touches them – always a sign of healing.  And he says, “Get up.”  Or perhaps better  “Be raised.”   The same word that the angel used when he says to the women at Easter – “You seek Jesus who was crucified, he is not here, he has been raised.”    Get up. 

In this moment, the disciples have been metamorphoumai-zed.  They are the ones transformed by this experience.  Why is it that we see the disciples as such courageous, confident champions of the faith and have forgotten their frailties?  It is because of the transforming touch of Jesus, that keeps offering them healing and new life.  His mission became their mission and that mission is our mission.

On a day when we think about Superbowl’s; in a society that focuses on Super-sizing not just a combo-meal but our lives, Jesus suggests that what we need is to be Metamorphoumai-zed, not “conformed to the world, but Transformed by the renewal of your minds, so that we might be able to understand the will of God, what is good and acceptable.”  Listen to him.

Jesus comes to us today, in Word and through the Sacrament, to touch us – to raise us from our weakness, our doubts, our insecurities, our hesitations, our fears, our inadequacies and anxieties – don’t be afraid.  It’s good to be here.  It’s good to be here and to be reminded that Jesus is with us, in the midst of all of our imperfections he is with us.  But we can’t stay here.  These are the memorable moments of life, but they pass, life continues.

So Jesus walks with us from this worshipful moment – down the mountain, back into the world.  Indeed, he sends us transformed by this moment with Jesus, we go back to our jobs, our schools, our families, our community not as super-humans but just as simple human beings who have been touched by Jesus – his disciples, little Christ’s to our neighbor is what Luther called us.  Little Christ’s to our neighbor – touching people who themselves may be fearful, anxious, insecure, hurting – God’s presence to those around us.  Saying, “Don’t be afraid.” 

It’s good to be here. 

Amen.