On Transfigurations and Transformations
Rev Dr Mark Porizky
2/3/08
Matthew 17:1-9
Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. Then Peter said to Jesus, ‘Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.’ While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!’ When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear. But Jesus came and touched them, saying, ‘Get up and do not be afraid.’ And when they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone.
As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus ordered them, ‘Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.’
When
I was a kid, there were a few movies that seemed to get watched every year.
“It’s a Wonderful Life,” at Christmas, always.
“Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” was my mother’s favorite.
“Mary Poppins” was my sister’s choice.
Me? Well, I liked to be
scared to death. So a favorite was
“The Wizard of Oz.”
“The
Wizard of Oz,” terrifying? No, it
wasn’t the wicked witch that did me in. She
was fake, I knew that. And I could
handle the tornado that blew Dorothy out of
Of
course, eventually I learned that there were no such things as flying monkeys.
Flying squirrels, yes; flying monkeys, no.
I discovered that my fear was unreasonable.
Yet
having come to grips with my anxiety over airborne apes does not mean that I
have overcome all my fears. Like
most folks, there are anxieties that still haunt me.
Giant bugs, the size of baseballs, make me queasy.
And I still fear that liver is going to make a comeback as a dinner entrée
and that some mother like mine is going to make me eat it.
But
of all the fears I have, the strangest may be my fear of the IRS—the Internal
Revenue Service, a fear that starts to grow right about this time of year.
Now, let me be clear, I have always been mostly honest about my income.
I have always paid my taxes on time.
Yet the thought of a certified letter from the IRS frightens me.
It is the flying monkey of my adulthood.
While
my fear may be silly, the reason for it is simple.
The IRS possesses, at least in my imagination, an almost life-or-death
power. You can fight city hall, but
you best not mess with the IRS. Make
the auditor happy and all is well. Hack
her off, and its, “Do you have all of the receipts for these deductions?
And this item here, what proof do you have it is legitimate?
I think we might need to look at your returns from the last seven
years.”
At
least in my mind, the IRS’s power is frighteningly absolute.
I
share this with you because that fear is the closest I can come to conveying the
biblical picture of a human being before God.
God the Creator is not our buddy. God
is the one who holds our life and death in his hands.
To be in his presence is the most frightening reality one can experience.
Take
Moses for example. The book of
Exodus tells us that Moses was watching his father-in-law's sheep when he
noticed a bush that was burning but not consumed.
Curious, he went to see the bush, to see why it was not consumed.
But as he neared it, God called out to him.
God told him he was on holy ground, stop and take off his sandals.
And God said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God
of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”
And
what did Moses do?
He
“hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.”
Or
consider Isaiah’s experience. Isaiah
was in the temple in
Isaiah
knew he was a dead man because he was sinful just like everyone else.
And there was no place for the sinful in the presence of God.
The divine presence is too great, too holy, too pure for a mere human to
see.
That
is the background that makes sense of the disciples’ actions on the day in
which Jesus was transfigured. Here
they were on the mountaintop with Jesus. They
were watching as he prayed, and they noticed that his face began to shine like
the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white.
Then suddenly Moses and Elijah, representatives of the Old Testament law
and prophets, men who had long ago departed the earth, appeared.
And Jesus sat there chatting with them, visiting as if they were old
friends.
Now
think about that for a moment. The
man they have been following, listening to, trusting in starts to glow like a
light bulb. Then two long-dead
leaders show up as if for tea. And
yet what does Peter say, “This is cool. Let’s
pitch some tents so we can stay a while.”
Does
that seem right to you? Of course
not. Something more is happening.
So suddenly the voice of God comes thundering from a bright cloud, a
symbol of the divine presence, and he is speaking not to Jesus, Moses and Elijah
but to Peter, James and John. “This
is my beloved Son,” God says. “In him I am well pleased.
Listen to him.” And with
that, Peter, James and John fall to the ground in fear.
Suddenly they realize they are in the divine presence.
Suddenly they realize that they should be afraid—very, very afraid.
But
to their surprise, rather than the wrath of God, they feel a gentle touch on the
shoulder. Jesus has come to them and
touched them. And he says to them,
“Get up and do not be afraid.” And
when they look up the cloud is gone, Moses and Elijah are gone.
All that remains is Jesus. And because Jesus is who he is—God’s
beloved Son—and because Jesus stands between the disciples and God, they can
now rise to their feet, lift up their eyes and let go of their fear.
Jesus’
presence means they don’t need to fear God’s presence.
And
it has been so ever since. The
presence of Jesus in our lives removes any fear we may have of being in God’s
presence.
We
see that in the life of the early church. Suddenly
people who were supposed to fear God didn’t.
People,
like Peter, who knew they were a sinner unworthy to stand before a holy God
began to rejoice in God’s presence, seeking it constantly in prayer and
worship.
People,
like the Apostle Paul, who had spent a lifetime striving to fulfill the Old
Testament law, people who had thought of God as only available in the Temple,
people who just knew they needed to be righteous on their own accord, began to
experience God in the new community of faith, in the word preached and the bread
shared, in the forgiveness offered through Christ.
People
whose lives had separated them from God, people like prostitutes and tax
collectors, shepherds and lepers, began to seek out the presence of God,
confident that they were no longer under judgment but under grace.
People
who had heard the prophets of old rail about the coming Day of the Lord, the
coming judgment in which God would punish all who sinned, suddenly began to look
forward to the Day of the Lord as a day in which they would dwell forever with
God.
Where once they feared the God, now they adored him. The difference was Jesus, whose presence took their fear away.
A friend of
mine says that he can remember as a very small child when his mother had to
teach him to be afraid of the traffic in the street in front of his house.
"The street is a dangerous place. You're not even to think about crossing
the street without first asking me for permission. You're not to cross the
street unless I am holding your hand. The street and the cars in it are very
dangerous," his mother had to teach him.
But then he grew older, eventually he was given permission to venture across the street on his own. He lost that childhood terror of the bad things that might happen to him while crossing to the other side.
The other day
my friend, who is soon to turn fifty, said, "One thing I have found out
later in life. My mother was right. Most of the bad things that happen to you in
life happen while you are crossing over to the other side. A lot of pain could
be avoided in this life if we only followed the simple rule - don't cross the
street unless you are holding somebody else's hand."
When
I read this amazing story about the transformation, I don’t get caught up in
the cloud, or Moses and Elijah, I don’t even get too worked up over the voice
from the heavens. There’s so much
more to faith than what I understand that understanding this event isn’t all
that important to me.
But
what I don’t understand does make me nervous, be it flying monkeys or a holy
God. And so every time I fall on my
face in fear like Peter, James and John, every time I’m afraid to look up, the
touch of Jesus, and the words, “Get up and do not be afraid,” these words
put me back into the game of life.
For
some this story is called a transfiguration.
For me, it’s a transformation.
And
once more I am transformed from fear to faith, from cowardice to courage.
“Get up and do not be afraid.” Jesus’
is the hand I hold crossing the street of life.
Will you pray with me now?
St.
Andrew Presbyterian Church, Groton
,
Web Site: WWW.SAPC-CT.ORG
Office Email: OFFICE@SAPC-CT.ORG
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