Mother Robyn Szoke
In the name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
Well, good morning, St. Stephens. Good morning. So good to see you all here on this very special Sunday.
Yes, I know there are pancakes and other things awaiting us, but this special Sunday is all about transfiguration.
We have a very deep truth before us this day, and it is kind of what we prayed in our collect.
We are to be what we behold. We are to be what we behold. So consider this day as we go through this liturgy.
What did you behold in the scripture, in the prayers, in the celebration of Holy Eucharist.
So today we stand between the dazzling glory of transfiguration that you just heard from our gospel lesson and the shadowed path of Lent, which we will soon be entering this Wednesday.
So today is meant to be a time of revelation, a pivotal point for all our spiritual practices.
It is a moment to behold, to truly see, to let that glory of God fill our hearts, open our eyes, and listen to the way God is speaking to us through scripture, prayer, song, and Eucharistic presence.
It is Transfiguration Sunday, and through our scripture lessons, we move from Moses’ encounter of the glory of God on Mount Sinai to Moses standing with Jesus in his encounter of glory on Mount Tabor.
So for just this moment, let’s take a look at our Exodus lesson. You all know the story.
Remember the Israelites were freed from slavery, and they needed to face the wilderness. They no longer had their temple.
They needed a message from God. They had lost their identity as a people of God who worshipped and gathered in the temple.
And so we know, and you know the story, Moses climbed up the mountain, saw God, heard from God, got the Ten Commandments, came down the mountain the first time, and the people were worshipping a golden calf.
What did he do. He broke the tablets, got a bit angry, almost quit, but didn’t quite quit.
This is the second time, our lesson today, that he climbed up the mountain. He saw the burning bush, and he received the renewal of God’s covenant again, Ten Commandments, the second time.
Now we know, we are told, Moses’ face shone with the glory of God, and you might wonder at this moment, what is this glory.
We pray it, and we sing it, but what is it. So I’d like us to think of it this day as this luminous, loving kindness of God.
The display of God’s magnificence, holiness, and the very character of God. For Moses, it was found in God renewing God’s covenantal promise to the people of Israel.
But did you notice. The people weren’t ready to receive it. This love was so fierce, so strong, that it penetrated right to the heart of the people.
It was so powerful, that they could even realize, God’s all around us, God’s right here, God’s within us.
Maybe we are children of God, but then, when you think of it, they must have thought of their own sin, because it was too powerful.
So what did Moses need to do. He needed to veil his face. He veiled his face to bring the glory of God to the people.
I love that old song, Go down Moses, bring it down, bring it down that mountain, that luminous love, give it to the people.
But all did not have open hearts. But God through Moses maintained that love to thousands, forgiving wickedness, idolatry, rebellion, and yes, even sin.
And this is God’s mercy. This is what we define as mercy, to bring healing and peace, even in the most wildernesses of experiences.
Now, Moses appears again in our gospel lesson, this time with Elijah and Jesus, standing together at the top of Mount Tabor.
They were speaking about Jesus’ impending death and God’s luminous love. So there was this darkness before the glory.
And while Peter, James, and John, as we are told, were very tired, barely awake, probably exhausted from all the travel and the spiritual learning with Jesus, they managed to stay awake long enough to see the power of God’s everlasting love.
They saw Jesus transformed, transfigured. And Moses and Elijah, as that cloud came over, disappeared.
And the glory of God was there. Because the voice from the cloud said, Jesus, it is my beloved.
To be sure, this is a bit of a mystic Sunday. We stand with Peter, James, and John at this place where heaven and earth meet.
A thin place, as the Celtic mystics would say. And Richard Rohr writes that the tradition of the mountain is about presence, beholding the holy presence of God.
And wilderness, the desert, is about absence and silence and listening in order to follow God through the valleys and the shadows of death.
But you see, at the top of that mountain, the disciples saw for the first time what has always been true.
They saw the light of divinity and the glory of God within me. And I believe that’s the real meaning of this lesson.
They realized they were made in the image of God just as we are all made in the image of God.
It is the trinity of presence. Moses, Elijah, and Jesus filled with God’s glory as the cloud, the Shekinah as it’s known in Hebrew, brought a veil over the radius.
And as the veil appeared and a voice was heard, this is my beloved. Listen to him.
Listen to him. It is clear that the call to the disciples and to all of us this day is not just to gaze and go on with life, but to behold it.
Let that glory inform and transform us This is our approach to Lent. This is our pivot point moment as we get ready to turn toward this whole season of Lent.
To take in the profound gift of glorious love and just accept it, behold it, take it in, and carry it every day with you.
Consider how Peter wanted to stay in the very place of awe. Perhaps Peter just did not understand what he witnessed.
He wanted to commemorate this experience. Let’s set up the booths to celebrate this ongoing presence of God just like they had done when they were wandering in the wilderness.
But the lesson is that that glory is never meant to be grasped or to stay still or just captured for ourselves.
Yes, there is awe, and we are to celebrate it and bask in it, but it’s meant to be carried into the darkest valleys, into the pain, into our grief, into the loss in our lives, and of course the loss in our communities and the world.
If we listen to Jesus, we know that our path as Christians is to accept that love and live into, what I love to refer to as the spirit of the Beatitudes.
Now I know some gathered here today and some of us might be thinking right now that in our own personal journeys there might be too much pre-Lenten experience, too many shadows, too much pain, too much change, challenge, and maybe even too much contention.
But that should never deter us because what we see and hear from our gospel from the Hebrew Testament today, we are to be illuminated with this glory of God.
We are made in the image of God. We are all God’s children. So consider the fact that Peter, James, and John had just climbed up the mountain with Jesus.
They didn’t know what they were going to experience. They thought this was just another day to climb up and get some prayer time with Jesus.
But they saw something that they didn’t understand. Their hearts were open to listen to Jesus, to follow Him down the mountain because they knew that this glory, this illuminating love of God was for absolutely everyone, even a lad that carried a demon.
So today we are invited to behold this glory of God revealed in Jesus Christ.
Right in this moment. It’s not just a story from a faraway land and a faraway mountain.
It’s a living and breathing reality that has the power to transform life even today.
Perhaps you will see it in the wafer you will receive. Perhaps it is in the wine you will drink in a few moments.
Perhaps it is found on the face of your neighbor. And if we listen to the voice of Jesus and follow, it is what we will see.
Behold the glory. Allow it to seep into our souls at least for a little while.
Now here’s the twist. Lent is a descent. It is that journey from the mountain of glory into the wilderness of life where we’re all tested.
Even in the dirt and messiness of life. The glory that Peter saw on that mountain is the same glory that Jesus took to the bottom of the mountain to heal that young lad when the disciples were not quite ready to fully accept that glory and experience their own healing power.
And I often wonder, this is not biblical scholarship, but I often wonder when did Peter really accept that glory.
Now I like to imagine it was when he preached and the Holy Spirit was there and there were 3,000 people converted to the faith.
Perhaps I’m wrong. I don’t know, but it sure seems it. Today’s scripture invites us to look deeply into our own souls and I realize that there are many questions about this passage.
Probably even Peter, James, and John must have wondered how could Moses and Elijah appear on this mountain with Jesus.
How could this cloud come over and we heard a voice speak. Well, I see those questions no deeper and different than our questions.
How could the water in the baptismal font allow us to go deeply into our salvation.
How can Jesus promise to be with us every time we gather in his name.
How can it be that the bread and the wine are changed to the body and blood of Christ.
How could this be true. I believe there’s an answer. It rests in love and our faith in Jesus Christ.
It is the way we behold. We behold the love of God in our own lives and I think of how powerful it is.
Every Sunday it is awesome to stand here and watch this wave of peace literally go through this congregation for you are beholding the glory in each other.
The invitation today is to carry that glory as we leave this place because glory is always meant to be shared and I realize and I do this myself that we often keep the veil on not sure about all this glory not sure about what other people will say or accept the glory and perhaps we’re afraid we’re afraid to allow it to be seen and allow it to be known.
Lent is not just a season of giving up for the sake of giving up no it’s a season to be to allow God to shape and mold us.
It’s not the time to retreat from life but to lean more deeply into it this is a time to be transformed from the inside out to let the light of Christ just burn away the shadows of doubt, fear and yes even apathy and I wonder what spiritual practices will be helpful for you all here at St.
Stephen’s there’s many opportunities and I won’t go into them now but there are very many
So what if this Lent we just didn’t go through was just emotions of fasting or giving up chocolate or whatever else you might do but we truly deeply enter into this mystery of Christ’s glory including his suffering, his death and his resurrection but what if we allowed ourselves to be changed by our journey what if we invited others who might not know this glory or this experience to just come along with us what if we actually allowed ourselves to be changed by this journey.
So decide with me that this Lent will be different. Accept the invitation to let the light of Christ shine through us in ways that we have never ever allowed before, to be sure take time behold the glory of God and then listen as Jesus calls us to follow and put our faith into action.
So our call is to stop holding back stop hiding our light not to sing under a bushel basket but to let the glory of God shine in our hearts and allow the illuminating love of God to take us through the wilderness of Lent through the wilderness of Holy Week until we arrive at that Easter empty tomb. Do not be afraid glory resides even in the darkest of places and the deepest struggles of life may we all be what we behold, Amen.
