After six days Jesus took Peter, James and John with him and led them up a high mountain, where they were all alone. There he was transfigured before them. His clothes became dazzling white, whiter than anyone in the world could bleach them. 4 And there appeared before them Elijah and Moses, who were talking with Jesus. Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.” (He did not know what to say, they were so frightened.) Then a cloud appeared and covered them, and a voice came from the cloud: “This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!” Suddenly, when they looked around, they no longer saw anyone with them except Jesus. As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus gave them orders not to tell anyone what they had seen until the Son of Man had risen from the dead.
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A week from today, I will be boarding a ship and sailing the western Caribbean. It is going to be a wonderful vacation, travelling with my sister.. But in many ways, it is also a dream; someone there to make the beds up in the morning and take them down at night; someone else who will cook and serve and clean up all the meals; as a long-time customer, a private lounge where breakfast, evening hors d’oeuvres and drinks are served; interesting ports, formal nights, and being spoiled completely. For the people who work on those ships, it is real life, and not easy; for us, it’s a dream. Coming back to reality can be a real shock.
Well, if you hadn’t guessed by now, let me just say I love to cruise. In cruisers’ lingo there is a term jokingly called PCD, or Post-Cruise Depression. The joke goes that the only way to live with it is to book another cruise so you can look forward to something. It may sound funny, but depending on the experience, it can really be hard to come back to earth.
I don’t use this story to trivialise what we call mountaintop experiences, but the aftermath is the same. It is so unreal, so good, that coming back “down” is hard.
So what is this transfiguration business? What’s the point? We have some disciples supposedly seeing both Moses and Elijah. How did the disciples know the two figures with Jesus were Moses and Elijah?
Well, we could say it was the story teller’s way of showing that Jesus was really God’s son, and was now the sole authority for God on earth. Moses and Elijah represented the law and the prophets, the very heart of belief for the Jews. It may well be that Mark inserted Moses and Elijah into the text to make the point, that the law and the prophets came together and were incarnated in the person of Jesus.
But maybe that wraps it all up a little too neatly. Maybe we need to wrestle with this passage just a little. We can’t just assume that what we think it says, is it what it really says. Words and their meanings change, the story is set in a period of history about which we know a little, - but not everything. Mark and Matthew are the only two Gospels which mention this experience at all, and there is lots of scholarly literature which would give us ten sermons at least. This isn’t a scholarly sermon.
What would you think if you saw a person’s appearance change “from the inside out”, right before your eyes. “His clothes shimmered, glistening white, whiter than any bleach could make them”. Clearly the vision is beyond description with mere human words.
There is a theory in some quarters that each human gives off light, an aura. In parapsychology and many forms of spiritual practice, an aura is a field of subtle, luminous radiation supposedly surrounding a person or object. For example, in religious art, people of particular power or holiness are depicted with a halo around the head, or some light around the body.
Then too, the Celtic peoples talk about the “thin places” where the connection to the spiritual plane is thinnest, and easiest to pass through. All we know in this story is that Jesus and the disciples went up a mountain. Tradition has that it was Mount Tabor, but in fact the mountain is never named. Maybe it doesn’t matter what mountain it was - mountains in the Bible always figure in important events. Was this one of those thin places, where Jesus and the disciples were so in touch with the spiritual that they had this experience? And after it was over they sat there shaking, and asking each other “What just happened?”.
Some of you, I am sure, have had something of the same kind of experience. Maybe you had something “other worldly” occur in your life that might be called a mystical experience, or a “mountain top” experience. You may not have wanted to share it with anyone. You couldn’t find the words to describe it, or you didn’t quite know what had happened yourself; you were afraid someone would think you were crazy. It’s funny isn’t it? We are a church, we are willing to say we believe some of the most unbelievable things, and yet we are afraid to speak about spiritual experiences because people might laugh at us, or call us crazy. We come away from such experiences shaking, saying to ourselves “What just happened?” We not only don’t want to talk about such experiences, but if we do tell someone, we ask them to keep it private, not to tell anyone else.
Then there is the other reality - that in comparison to the brightness, the high of the experience, the real world - the one we live in every day - seems drab in comparison. We want to run back into the experience. Or we are completely stunned and can’t figure what to do next - and we want to hold on.
That was how Peter reacted...wanting to stay in the brightness and colour and clarity of vision of the experience. The wondrous experience didn’t end with the vision. A cloud came down and they heard a voice - or at least they thought they did. And then the cloud lifted; Moses and Elijah were nowhere to be seen, and Jesus appeared once again in his probably dusty clothes. It was a colossal let-down. Mystical encounter with God - over. Can’t hold onto it. Nothing to do now but go back down the mountain into reality.
In every single one of the sermons I’ve heard and written on this text, the major focus is on the reaction of the disciples. It’s almost as if we assume Jesus knew what was going to happen, or made it happen, or made it some kind of teaching. The text doesn’t tell us that, though. The text says that Jesus and the disciples went up a mountain, and this experience happened to all of them. The text tells us that when it was over Jesus told them not to talk about it. In fact it looks to me like Jesus was a little stunned as well. Oh, he had a couple of similar experiences before - fasting in the desert, and then his baptism. But I can tell you from personal experience that no one goes out of his or her way to have one of those experiences. They are too dramatic and intense, and frankly draining. Jesus recognised the nature of the experience, but he also knew what the reaction would be if they all came running down the mountain saying they had seen Moses and Elijah, and seen Jesus talking to them, and shining like the brightest of suns. I have a feeling that despite his previous experience, Jesus was also saying “What just happened?” HE didn’t see Moses and Elijah - at least the text doesn’t say he did, it says the disciples did. And it says their vision was covered by a cloud. So we don’t actually know what happened to Jesus.
When we are fortunate enough to have those kinds of experiences that let us know there is something beyond our earthly world, experiences that leave us wanting to stay in the moment, rather than return to reality, we have to realise that we can’t package them or hold onto them to re-experience whenever we wish. We can’t come out of a prayer time in which God seemed especially close and hold onto that feeling. I think Jesus was wise enough to know that, even if the disciples didn’t. And sometimes the learnings from those experiences take years.. something inside us will shift and we have a moment of insight again, a clearer understanding of the experience.
So here we are, down from the mountain, back from the dream, back to living in a real world that seems rather mundane. What now?
The disciples caught a glimpse of what the realm of God would be like. Jesus kept telling them that the realm was at hand, and here was the view. Then they had to come back to what the world is, and live in it. There was a point. They were being called to come back to the ordinary world, to bring to it something extraordinary. They had to learn how to translate the wonder and insight of their experience into the ordinary day to day world.
It is what we are called to as well. Who are we? What is the vision of the realm? How do we retain the inspiration and joy as we return to the ordinary? Hold these questions, as we begin the walk along the road of Lent, to the cross and the tomb, and beyond. May it be so.
Sources:
1. With thanks to Rev. Beverly Snedeker for inspiration for this sermon.
2. What Just Happened? February 22, 2009 Transfiguration Sunday
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