Not the Jesus We Used to Know!
Rev. Eugene N. Nelson, Jr.
The Community Church of Sebastopol
March 2, 2003
Mark 9: 2-9
During this past week, as I reflected on today’s text, I was reminded of some words from the poet, Brian Andreas:
Most people don’t know there are
angels whose only job is to make sure
you don’t get too comfortable and fall
asleep and miss your life.
Dan Gilbert, a Christian Church, Disciples of Christ minister, was late to a seminary board of trustees meeting a while back. He explained that he was serving as a volunteer working as a big brother to a troubled inner-city teenager. He was late because he had to accompany the young man to court that morning. In his words, “If you were paying me thousands of dollars to be at this meeting on time, I would not have come. Being with this young man has not been a particularly pleasant experience. In fact, it has been extremely painful. However, it has been one of the most important things I have done as a Christian. It has been very important for me to put my faith in action.” He went on to describe the difficulty, the hurt, but also the abiding sense of wholeness this experience has brought him. In serving as a volunteer friend to a troubled child, Dan Gilbert has caught a glimpse of what God is like.
Most people don’t know there are
angels whose only job is to make sure
you don’t get too comfortable and fall
asleep and miss your life.
A troubled teenager…an unlikely angel.
Mark Salzman’s novel, Lying Awake, is about a contemporary nun who is dedicated to a life of prayer and contemplation. In spite of her vows and intentions, however, she has never enjoyed prayer or worship in her community. It is at best drudgery, never very fulfilling, never meeting her personal needs. But then, suddenly, after a couple of decades of this dry and desolate discipleship, she begins having amazing and euphoric experiences of God and God’s grace. What she experiences is so beautiful that she begins to write lovely and acclaimed poetry, poetry which makes her world famous. She is even invited to Rome to read her poetry at a special service in the Vatican.
Then the nun is told by her doctor that she is suffering from a rare form of epilepsy. It is because of her illness that she has been having these amazing epiphanies of God. The epilepsy can be cured with a relatively quick, simple and safe surgery, but the result will be that she will have no more visions. She will be back to the uninspiring worship and mundane daily duties with the other sisters in the convent. She is faced with a choice and no one dares tell her what to do.
I believe these two stories join the poem as illustrations of today’s always puzzling text – the Transfiguration of Jesus. The story begins with Jesus leading Peter, James and John up a high mountain. This already tells us that something is about to happen. High mountains are where God is encountered – a burning bush, a smoking presence, the gift of the Ten Commandments. In the Hebrew imagination, every mountain was a place where the fiery presence of God might be encountered again. Perhaps the three disciples even had some inkling of this as they followed Jesus up the mountain, that this was no routine mission. Perhaps, although in the Gospel of Mark perception is never very high on their list of virtues. But even they could not miss what happened next.
While Jesus was praying, he seemingly caught fire from within. His face changed, his clothes became dazzling white. Then, in the circle of his light, two other figures appeared – Moses the lawgiver and the prophet Elijah – dead heroes of the past now alive in the present, as if time were nothing but a veil to be parted and stepped through. All of them in a white-hot circle of light.
Describing the Biblical scene, Barbara Brown Taylor writes, “With Moses standing right there, the parallel was hard to miss. Jesus like Moses before him, was about to set God’s people free, only it was not bondage to pharaoh they needed freedom from this time. It was bondage to their own fear of sin and death, which crippled them far more than leg chains ever had….So God had planned another exodus for them – in Jerusalem this time – where the Red Sea of death would be split with a cross and Jesus would lead them through.”
She continues, “Elijah’s presence was the divine seal of approval on this plan. He was the one whose reappearance meant the Messiah was due. To see him standing there with Jesus and Moses was like standing before the Mount Rushmore of heaven – the Lawgiver, the Prophet, the Messiah – wrapped in such glory that it is a wonder the other three could see them at all.”
“OK, preacher, that sounds good, but what really happened up on that mountain? The light, the appearance of Moses and Elijah…sounds just too incredible -- did it really happen?” Who can say? I think what Mark and the other Gospels present us with is an intensely private moment between Jesus and God. There were witnesses, of course, but even what they saw, they didn’t understand and they were so terrified that they weren’t really sure what they saw. So we are left with this absolutely fantastic story. What do we do with it?
Well, amidst the light and clouds and wondrous appearances, I believe we need to keep our eyes focused on Jesus. What does this story say about him? As they gaze upon Jesus there on the mountain, the disciples certainly realize that this isn’t the same old Jesus, the guy they have been following through Galilee. Sure he had performed some healings, and that thing with the loaves and fishes wasn’t too bad either, but this… this takes things to a whole new realm. You get the feeling the disciples know they aren’t in Kansas anymore. On the mountain, Jesus is revealed once and for all as the Lord, God’s Chosen, the one with power and authority, greater even than the lawgiver, Moses and the prophet, Elijah. Jesus is revealed, not only as the one who ushers in God’s new order, but as the one who in fact is God’s new order. There, on the mountain, a new world is rising from the old. It is a scene of mystery and wonder and glory, a thin place where the veil is lifted between this place and the next. But as wonderful as it is, it doesn’t last.
The final painting of the great artist, Raphael, was his painting of the Transfiguration. He painted it in Rome in 1520. He was 37 years old and was dying. In fact, he died before he finished. In the background of the painting you can see the village of Caesarea Philippi, the place where Jesus first told the disciples that he must suffer and die. In the upper center of the painting you see a flat, rock mountaintop. The three disciples are shielding their eyes from the glory all around them. Just above them, in the air, are Moses and Elijah and Jesus. Jesus is shimmering in white and everything in the painting is drawn toward him. At the bottom of the mountain you see the other disciples, trying but unable to heal a boy suffering from epilepsy.
Your attention is drawn to the boy. He is tense but focused. His vision is locked upon Jesus, his eyes wide and white. His right hand is stretched up as far as it can go, as if the boy has seen something, as if he wants to reach out and touch it. From the depths of his suffering, he is reaching toward the transfigured Jesus. The painting wonderfully captures the truth that just below the wondrous and mystical Mount of Transfiguration lies a broken and suffering world, a world which reaches out, which cannot long be ignored. And indeed, in the Gospel of Mark, when Jesus finally comes down from the mountain, his first encounter is with the epileptic boy.
But the disciples don’t want to come down. Once they get over their fear they don’t want this wondrous experience to end. “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here. Let us make three dwellings and stay. Let’s hang out for a while. Why go back? It doesn’t get any better than this!” But Jesus will not stay on the mountain. Even as the shadow of the cross falls ever more ominously across his life, he will not stay on the mountain. This also is the Jesus the disciples didn’t know….probably the one they didn’t really want to know; Jesus will not turn from this chosen path, no matter what the consequences. This is the Jesus who invites them – and us - to join him on the path. The mountain is no escape. It really is only the beginning. Mystery cannot be separated from ministry.
And so Dan Gilbert leaves the comfort of church and home and goes into the city to work with a teenager who challenges, even disappoints him at every turn. And there, in the struggle, far from the mountain, Dan Gilbert meets God – it becomes a thin place.
And so the nun in the story is challenged to leave behind her visions and mystical experiences and once again immerse herself in the mundane tasks of each day, and there to meet God.
Most people don’t know there are
angels whose only job is to make sure
you don’t get too comfortable and fall
asleep and miss your life.
We lost such an angel this past week. “You can never go down, you can never go down, you can never go down the drain.” So sang Mister Rogers to generations of children, to our children’s children. Deceptively simple messages of love and reassurance and caring. Something we all need these days. What a gift he had for taking the everyday experiences of children and seeing in those experiences the stuff of wonder and mystery. Everyday he was telling our kids, “You are so important! Your life is so important…don’t miss it!”
It can be so hard to come down from the mountain. But, as Mister Rogers daily reminded us, as Raphael so wonderfully captured in his painting, a hurting world is waiting… life is waiting. And who knows, it just might be that transfiguration is not limited to mountains and mists and otherworldly experiences. In the most unexpected time and place, an angel might peal back a corner of reality and let us glimpse eternity. The mystery is all around us and deep within us. Our challenge is to be present in each precious moment God gives to us.