Last Epiphany Yr A, The Transfiguration

This story of the transfiguration is always the last story we read as we approach Lent. We are presented with the mighty characters of the past, in the present of the story, and in the present of our own time. Moses and Elijah. Moses, Elijah, and Jesus. Moses, who led the people out of Israel, and walked with them through the wilderness constantly encouraging them, constantly pointing them toward God, especially when they got whiny and impatient. Forty years they spent in that wilderness, a whole new generation of Israelites was born before they got close to the land that was promised. Moses guided them the whole way, Moses saw God, but Moses didn’t live to see the fulfillment of that journey, Moses saw the promised land, but died before they got there.

Elijah was a prophet in the Kingdom of Israel during the reign of Ahab, the 9th century before Jesus lived, according to the Book of Kings. Elijah defended the worship of Yahweh over that of the more popular Baal, he raised the dead, brought fire down from the sky, and ascended into heaven in a whirlwind, either accompanied by a chariot and horses of flame or riding in it, depending on what you’re reading. In the Book of Malachi, Elijah's return is prophesied "before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord," making him a harbinger of the Messiah.

The appearance of Moses and Elijah with Jesus in this story shows us something about God. We creatures, we humans, count time chronologically. Many of you went to the musical Rent over the last couple days. That is a story that questions the measure of time, and even the quality of time with the lyrics of Seasons of Love. “Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes, how do you measure a year? In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee. In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife. In five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes, how do you measure a year in the life?” These lyrics, while suggesting the continuum of life, carry some angst for something more than tick-tock time. What we have in the story of the Transfiguration, is a story of God breaking into our time, it is a story that shows us time out of time. It is a story that calls us to bear witness to God’s inbreaking Kingdom. The song asks how do you measure a year in the life, the transfiguration story asks us what difference does it make?

This transfiguration story takes place in God’s time, not our time; it is a story of kairos, not chronos. Madeleine L’engle suggests that kairos, God’s time, can sometimes enter, penetrate, and break through chronos: the child at play, the painter at an easel, the person at prayer, friends around the dinner table, the mother reaching out for the newborn; like the story we have before us today, with Moses, Elijah, and Jesus all in one time.

God breaks into our time, we have captured here a moment of Gods time, to show us something amazing. In Star Wars, we see Obi-wan, Anakin Skywalker and Yoda; past characters all showing up in the present, to say something important to Luke Skywalker. In the story before us today, Moses, Elijah and Jesus all show up to say something important. What is it? What difference does it make? And how do we bear witness to it?

This is my son, the beloved; with him I am well pleased! The very same words heard at Jesus’ baptism in the river Jordan, the very same words spoken just before Jesus is led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil, the story we will hear next week, the first Sunday of Lent. God is trying to get our attention here, and God is doing it by breaking into time. Peter and James and John see something extraordinary, something that is not bound by time, and they hear something extraordinary, Listen to him! Listen to him!

Something extraordinary is happening here, God is breaking into time, and it changes us, it transfigures and transforms us. It may even change the world. It is that extraordinary experience that we must bear witness to. There is no staying on that mountain, Peter and James and John went back down the mountain, utterly changed. We too, accompany them down the mountain, and bear witness to God’s extraordinary shining.

God shows forth God’s glory, God shows that life with God is without limits. It is like the Eucharistic moment, it may be comfortable and calm, it may be nourishing and refreshing, it may be inspiring and illuminating. We really want to stay, but we can’t stay in it, and we can’t repeat it. But it changes us. It gives us the ability to persevere, and from it we are sent out into the world to do the work we are given to do, we bear witness to God’s presence. We are sent out into the world to bring peace and to show forth God’s reconciliation and healing to a broken and fragmented world.

The glory that is shone forth in this story of transfiguration is a touchstone. We may return to it, but we can’t control it, it is out of our time. We come to worship and sing God’s praises; we come to find stability in an unstable world. We come to hear the story of our faith that has not changed over time. And yet God’s word and our worship are not comfortable, they are not static. God’s word and our worship are growing and changing, becoming the creation that God has intended for it.

When we bear witness to the transfiguration it may cause us fear, as it caused Peter and James and John to fear. Because we are called to go down the mountain and confront the comfortable and disrupt the status quo. We are to bear witness to the love of neighbor that Jesus demands. We are to bear witness to the arrest and torture of the one who is the Good News, and we are to bear witness to the inauguration of God’s kingdom on earth with Jesus Christ God’s son.

As God breaks into our time, transfiguration promises to accompany us into our ordinary lives. We carry the extraordinary into the ordinariness of our work and our school and our play. It becomes the spirit that inspires and creates us; it becomes the life that gives us life. It is that which is in the eyes and souls of those whose paths we cross, it is in the respect and dignity with which we treat everyone we meet.

We bear witness to the transfiguration when we are about God’s mission. God’s mission of healing and reconciliation. God’s mission of putting fractured souls back together in this broken and fragmented world. God’s mission of loving and serving your neighbor.

The Lord has shone forth his glory: Come let us adore him.