Last Epiphany, 2025-C: From glory to glory
Lectionary: Exodus 34:29-35; Psalm 99; 2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2; Luke 9:28-36
The story of the Transfiguration of Jesus is one of those stories that seems so beyond our everyday experience of life and faith, but when we think about it, it really isn’t. It’s the first account of something we all experience in our faith journeys - if we’re awake to it.
This is a story of the revelation of Jesus as divine to his very human followers. It’s also the story of how we, like those first disciples, can open ourselves to this transforming experience and be changed by it into his likeness from glory to glory, as our Collect says.
Let’s break down the elements of this story to see how this works. 
The whole thing begins with prayer. Jesus takes Peter, John, and James up the mountain (Bible-speak for where God is encountered) to pray. During this shared prayer, Peter, John, and James become aware that Jesus’ face is changing and his clothes are becoming a dazzling white, which when we look to the original language, means: emitting light, brilliant, shining, glittering, radiant. Jesus - in his body - was emanating a dazzling light.
This kind of dazzling light traditionally refers to divine light, the light of the presence of God, in an earthly body. We see it in the story of Moses who didn’t know his face was shining with this light until Aaron told him. In response, Moses veiled his face since the people, even the leaders among them, were afraid to come near him because of it. It makes sense… how could Moses share the guidance of God given to him for the people in their exile if the people are afraid to come near him?
Next, we are told that Peter, John, and James see Moses and Elijah with Jesus in the midst of this dazzling light, and they’re talking about Jesus’ decease, his departure from his life on earth, which he was about to accomplish in Jerusalem. By witnessing this, Peter, John, and James can ground this experience in the strong foundation of their faith. I wonder if later, when they witnessed Jesus’ actual death in Jerusalem, they remembered this prophetic moment and took comfort in it.
Then the disciples reach the limit of their strength and physical endurance, or as Luke says it, they were weighed down with sleep. But since they stayed awake, they saw this amazing revelation.
Isn’t that always the case with us? It’s when we are emptied of everything: strength, thoughts, hubris; when we are at the very limit of our humanity, that God leads us beyond ourselves and into the divine mystery, into the experience of divine-human unity.
The revelation witnessed by Peter, John, and James, isn’t a one-time thing. It’s a first-time thing and the revelation continues for them as we see from Luke’s written accounts about the remainder of their earthly journeys.
Mountain-top experiences are not (I repeat not) unusual. They are part of our Christian journey and we all have them. Many of us simply aren’t awake enough to recognize them for what they are.
One of my mountain-top experiences happened when I was a teenager visiting the Grand Canyon. I was so overwhelmed by the splendor and awed by the size of it. My heart prayerfully poured out unbound gratitude at the beauty I was witnessing.
Another happened when I served a church in northern Michigan and saw the sky - unimpeded by city lights - so full of stars it literally took my breath away. In both of those instances, I was physically, emotionally, and spiritually overwhelmed by the majesty, magnificence, and beneficence of God.
A Bible Study member shared their story of a mountain-top experience while inside the Grand Canyon. Their experience moved from the magnificence of God’s creation to an intimate moment with God resulting in the release of some long-held grief. They came out of this experience feeling cleansed and set free.
We all have stories of mountain-top experiences, experiences where we become one with God while still in our bodies - our feet firmly planted on the earth. The divine and the human living as one. It happened first in Jesus. Now it happens in us, and it has a purpose.
Every mountain-top experience is an amazing gift from God that deepens and broadens our everyday experience in life and faith, drawing us closer in relationship with God and with one another. Each mountain-top experience we have brings down another barrier to love in those relationships. Each one also frees us up to walk the path God is setting before us, a path that will require us to take up our cross and love as Jesus did - which is the purpose - to transfigure us from glory to glory until we love as Jesus loved.
Most of us grow up drenched in images of divine light emanating from a human body, but we often don’t connect the dots to the potentiality of this for all of us. Our religious art is replete with images of God’s light emanating from the bodies of exemplars in our faith.
What comes to mind as I say that? Right - a HALO! A halo is an artistic representation of Emmanuel - of divine light emanating from the human body in which God dwells. That’s all of us, not just those listed in the books about saints.
As Episcopalians, we honor the saints who went before, the ones we call “the communion of saints.” These saints love us, continually pray for us, and offer to be our companions at any point on our path of life in faith.
All we have to do is invite them to join us. It’s as simple as that.
The saints stand ready to share with us the gifts they were given during their time on earth, gifts that might serve us at different moments in our lives. For example, during my process to ordination, Julian of Norwich was my companion. Knowing this, my first church, where I served my curacy, had this icon commissioned as a gift for my ordination. (Iconographer: Anne Davidson, Diocese of Western Michigan)
Later, as I was discerning a change in my path, St. Faustina, whom I’d never even heard of, came to me in a dream. I asked my then Spiritual Director, who was a Roman Catholic nun, if she’d ever heard of Faustina, and she said one of the nuns in her community was reading Faustina’s diary. She had a diary?! I immediately got the diary and before I finished the first chapter, I knew why Faustina offered to companion me in that part of my journey.
We all will have many mountain-top experiences of varying degrees of intensity throughout our lives, each one transforming us a little more, changing us from glory to glory, until we, like the saints before us, among us, and yet to come, emanate the radiance of the light of God.
We know that God has chosen us, has chosen to dwell in us, which means… God’s light emanates from us, whether we know it or not. We often exclude ourselves from the company of those lofty exemplars of our faith - but that’s a mistake.
Our journey through this earthly life is full of haloed companions on earth and in heaven. None of us travels alone.
Today, our Christian Formation is called Select-A-Saint Sunday - companions for the journey. Together, we will discuss saints who are or were, and we will learn how we can wake up to their presence with us now,and receive the gift of their companionship in our lives… and maybe even claim our own halos.
We have work to do bearing Christ’s love into our world. We’ll need our halos shining brightly. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment