2/3/08                                                                                MATTHEW 17:1-9

“RISE AND SHINE”

Rev. James Singleton

            Whenever I have taught Pastor’s Classes for sixth graders or classes for adults on Christian basics, there is one question that always stumps everyone. I ask, “What is the transfiguration?” The answers I received have ranged from the witty, “a Christian Diet” (change figure), to the weird, “the place where Dracula is from” (Transylvania), to the understandable, “it’s what happens to communion when it changes into the body of Christ” (Transubstantiation).

            After they have guessed wrongly, I then tell them what it is. It is what we call the event when Jesus took three disciples, Peter, James and John with him up a high mountain and there his face suddenly began to shine like the sun and his clothes became dazzling white. It’s then that I would get “the look” that can best be described as bewilderment followed by the comment, “You’re kidding.”

            I have to admit that I, too, have always struggled with this event. I think that it baffles us because it comes across as so mystical. I know there are people who have had visions of God shining before them. Great mystics of the past have made such claims and people who have had near death experiences have also had such visions. But most of us are like the other nine disciples who were left behind. We didn’t see it and we don’t get it.

The three who did see it didn’t get it either. They didn’t know what to make of this sudden burst of light from their Jesus, so Peter babbles something about building monuments or dwellings there so they can remain caught up in the vision forever.

            I don’t want to sound like I’ve never had spiritual experiences in my life, because I have. I have had moments that have left me speechless with awe and wonder.  

But the light that shined through Jesus that day that we call the transfiguration is something that is beyond a breathtaking sunset or an inspiring piece of music. Rather, the church has remembered this event for over two thousand years for a deeper reason than that.  

            We’ve been talking a lot about Jesus being light ever since the season of Epiphany began on January 6^th. It began with the three wise men following the light of a star that led them to a child. And the season comes to an end with that child having become a man standing upon a mountain glowing like the sun or star that those original wise men followed.  

 I like the symbol of light being applied to Jesus. But let’s face it, we don’t need Jesus to be our sun, we already have one. So what is the point of the transfiguration? What does it mean?
 

Jesus had been healing people and forgiving people for years, but his disciples did not get it. He told them that he must go to Jerusalem to suffer and die upon a cross, but his disciples did not get it. So finally, in one great attempt to get them to get it, he took three of them on a mountain where he cracked open his outer humanity to allow his inner divinity to burst forth in blinding radiance.  

It was not merely light per se that burst forth from Him, however. Rather, it was the glory and radiance of unconditional and sacrificial love that burst forth. It was love so bright, so pure, and so overwhelming that it drove the disciples to their knees.  

Jesus was demonstrating once and for all what all of His actions and words have been pointing to—Jesus is God and God is Love. Love is the glorious power that drives all of life. That’s the meaning of the Transfiguration. And that is why it always appears the Sunday before we enter into the hard and dark season of Lent.  

Lent is the season, beginning this Wednesday, when we look on the dark side of life and the world. It is a time when we focus upon all the powers that brought Jesus to the cross. It is a time when we take a good, hard, honest look at our own weaknesses, sins, doubts and fears. It is a time when we admit that we are mortal and will face illness, suffering and death.

Many churches today skip the season of Lent. It’s not popular today to talk about the dark side of life. Churches today like to remain up and happy. They sing only clap happy songs. They have eliminated the cross from their sanctuaries. They preach only sermons about how wonderful God has made us and how much money God wants us to have.  

To face the dark side of life is to face reality. You know that because you live with it every day. You live with temptations; you know where you have failed; you know how you have hurt others; you know where you are weak and vulnerable; you know you will one day contract an illness that no pill will cure. You live in a world that is heartbreaking at times.  

The Church calls upon us to face this reality not because we are pessimistic and like to dwell on the negative. We face this reality because we are not afraid of it. In the transfigured face of Christ, God’s love shines out upon us so powerfully and gloriously that we are shown that there is no grief, fear, doubt, cynicism, hatred, violence, war, suffering, illness and death that is more powerful than this love than shines like the sun. We will make it though every Lenten valley of our lives because love will lead us through.

 
    And that’s why Jesus told Peter not to build anything on that mountain because they weren’t going to stay there. They were going back down into the dark valleys where people were in need and they were going to shine forth the love of God upon others.

So he told his disciples to stop being afraid and to rise and shine themselves. The love that was shining through Him is the same love that he expects them to shine upon others.  

Isn’t it interesting how fascinated we are with heroes these days? Television and the movies cannot produce them fast enough. Your children watch them on Nickelodeon: Jimmy Neutron, Danny Phantom, Avatar, Timmy Turner and Kim Possible. You watch them on shows like Smallville, Heroes and Journeyman. We all read comics or watched the movies of Batman, Spiderman and The Fantastic Four. Even the Discovery Channel’s Animal Planet crowns a Hero of the Year.

            Why are heroes so popular? In part, I believe it is because we secretly envy them. The life of a hero matters. Heroes are people who can give other people hope during what seems like hopeless times. Heroes are people who can show others that there is more to their life than just the hard and difficult situations they face. A hero cares—and that’s a powerful thing. 

I hear people lament the fact that they have never done anything great in their life. They haven’t discovered anything, they aren’t a rock star, they aren’t running for President, they have never been interviewed by Oprah. Yes, we all want to do great things, but since we are no hero we live the heroic life vicariously through the media. Or is it possible that we really can be real heroes?

When you vow your love in marriage to another that no matter whatever changes in life the one thing that will never change will be your steadfast love for that person and you keep that promise—you are a hero because your love uplifts that person and helps lead him or her through the dark valleys just as his or her love uplifts and enlightens you.  

When the doctor hands a mother and father their newborn child for the first time, their faces shine like the sun because they have not only received love but they are ready to give sacrificial love. And over the years, if a parent believes that that child is the most precious gift given, and willingly sacrifices money, time and energy over the decades to raise that child, protect that child, educate that child, guide that child, then that parent has done something great and is a hero.  

When you go on mission trip or give to Compassion to help others in times of great distress, you shine forth the light of God into a dark place and remind people that they are loved and not forgotten. As one woman in New Orleans told one of our mission team members once, “If it wasn’t for church people we wouldn’t have any hope.” That’s being a hero. 

When you visit a shut-in, prepare a meal for the grieving, listen to someone tell you their fears, invite someone to church where they might find hope, pray for another, even forgive another all because you care, the light of God is shining through you and you are a hero.

Heroes are people with superhuman powers. No one has more superhuman power than a disciple who absorbs the love-light that shined so brightly through Jesus upon that Mount of Transfiguration and allows it to burst forth upon those all around.

There is a wonderful image in the last Harry Potter book (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows) that illustrates all of this. Harry is attending the wedding of two dear friends, Bill and Fleur. Fleur is so beautiful (magically beautiful) that usually her beauty eclipses everyone around her. Men are rendered speechless; women seethe.  

But on her wedding day, Fleur wears an elfin-made tiara that exerts a different sort of magic: when she wears it, the tiara transfigures those around her. Everyone around her seems to glow. Her tiara renders the other beautiful, and the wedding guests cannot understand how they never noticed it before: how the faces of those around them shine.

As the song Shine, Jesus, Shine says,

Lord the light of your love is shining,

In the midst of the darkness shining,

Jesus light of the world shine upon us,

Set us free by the truth you now bring us,

Shine on me. Shine on me.

As we gaze on your kindly brightness

So our faces display your likeness.

Ever changing from glory to glory,

Mirrored here may our lives tell your story.

Shine on me. Shine on me.

The Light of Christ has been shining upon us all Epiphany, bringing us the truth that we are loved by God. Now it is time for us to allow ourselves to be changed by that love, to allow that love to become to most powerful force in our live

Lent will focus upon our sins, but it is not our sins that dominate us, for God’s love forgives     them.
 

Lent will focus upon death, but it is not death that is our destiny, for God’s love raises us up. 
 

As people upon whom the love of God shines, we are called upon to stop being so afraid in life and to mirror in our own lives that same glorious love because there are people who long for a hero who cares. We are to be that hero. 

Jesus’ transfiguration is like the magical tiara—it renders us beautiful and our faces shine. We are transfigured or changed because Jesus shines his love-light upon us. Now it’s time to rise and come down off of the mountain and go into the valley of the world to shine that same love-light upon those who sit in dark need.  

Once we didn’t know what the transfiguration was. Now we are one.

AMEN.