SERMON, 26 FEBRUARY 2017 - TRANSFIGURATION

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight: O Lord, our strength and our redeemer.

The Season of Epiphany is about light, about illumination and about revelation.

Across its Sundays we have re-visited and, hopefully, re-discovered the wonder of Our Saviour, Jesus Christ whose birthday we celebrated at Christmas. We’ve revisited how the babe born at Bethlehem is also the light of the world as well as how we as his followers are also called to be light.

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We have been drawn more deeply into an understanding of who and what this infant, who was greeted by shepherds and magi is -- for us and for all the world -- and of our role to share what we have learned.

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In many ways the Christmas message may be described as a tightly, even intricately packaged Christmas gift which takes us the whole of the season of Epiphany to unwrap and discover.

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Today, Transfiguration Sunday draws the season to a close, and Matthew's account provides an almost perfect bookend to the story of the baptism of Jesus.

The Australian Singing Group – The Hillsongs  have

"Transfiguration" as the title of a song from their album – Open Heaven

From the cloud You speak
What was veiled now is seen
Jesus the image of
The invisible God
Divinity confirmed
In the transfigured Word
A kingdom once concealed
On the earth now revealed

Thought provoking lyrics

Google U tube 5m

"Transfiguration" is an unusual word, one that we almost never use in everyday speech.

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Definition of transfiguration Webster

1. 1a :  a change in form or appearance :  metamorphosisb :  an exalting, glorifying, or spiritual change.
2. The word describes the complete change of the form and substance. For example, we use it to describe the change from a caterpillar to a butterfly. Here then we have a complete change in the appearance or form of Jesus in the presence of the disciples. He now was brighter than the light, revealing His true glory to them.

A similar word is used by Paul in Romans 12:1,2, in which he instructs believers to be “transformed” by the renewing of their minds. There is to be a genuine change in the life of the believer.

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Transfiguration Sunday makes clear the relationship of the final Sunday of the Season of Epiphany to the Baptism of our Lord, in the first Sunday in the season, as we are again invited to listen with the crowds (at Jesus' Baptism) and disciples (at the Transfiguration) as a voice from heaven announces, "This is my Son, whom I love; with whom I am well pleased’. In today’s gospel, followed by the powerful injunction : ‘Listen to Him!’

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At the same time, Transfiguration leans unmistakably into Lent, as Jesus comes down from the mountain to head to the death he speaks of during that very descent.

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‘Don’t tell anyone what you have seen, until the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.’

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The injunction to "listen to him" addressed to Peter, James, and John will become poignant, perhaps even painful in the weeks ahead as they regularly fail to do just that, or at least fail to understand what they are listening to. And those same words, when taken as being addressed also to us as Jesus' latest disciples, orient us to listen and watch the Lord of Glory approach his destiny in Jerusalem so that we perhaps might more fully comprehend God's purposes and work in Jesus.

As if all this weren't enough, Transfiguration also foreshadows Easter.

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When the disciples fall to the ground in holy awe, the glorified and glowing Jesus comes to them, touches them (elsewhere in Matthew a sign of healing), and commands them not just to stand up but almost literally to "be raised!" Jesus then commands them not to speak of this event until he himself has been raised, this time from death. There is something about this day, this event, that can't be really understood until after the resurrection.

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Our possible confusion about Transfiguration Sunday moves beyond both linguistic and liturgical considerations, as it comes like something out of nowhere, in each gospel playing to a greater or lesser degree a pivotal mark in the narrative (most noticeably in Luke), but not clearly connected to what comes immediately before or after. In Matthew's account, the Transfiguration occurs six days  after Jesus' first prediction of his passion and his rebuke of Peter (presumably) outside Caesarea Philippi  (16:21-23). (Perhaps recalling the six days the cloud enveloped Mount Sinai before the Lord speaks to Moses in today's reading from Exodus) -- It is followed by more passion predictions and the continuing story of Jesus' ministry in and around Galilee and his impending journey to Jerusalem.

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It is nevertheless interesting to see how the account contributes to or advances Matthew's story of Jesus. For this reason, we can probably have a closer look at the details of the account itself. Two of these perhaps deserve particular attention.

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First, Peter's reaction in offering to put up three shelters may seem odd to us, but some New Testament scholars suggest that it is the appropriate cultic response to what is, quite literally, an epiphany, a manifestation of divine presence. Peter wishes to make a booth, a tent, a tabernacle -- perhaps referencing the Jewish festival of Tabernacles – to be able to offer lodging for these historic and significant religious figures. Others see in Peter's suggestion less a cultic response and more the desire to preserve the event, to capture something of the magnificence of the moment. Still others have been struck by this as characteristic of Peter and perhaps many of us: when we meet something way beyond our understanding, our first inclination is to do something, anything! However we read the impetus for Peter's suggestion, it is notable that in Matthew the voice from heaven actually interrupts him, cutting him off in order first to pronounce Jesus blessed and then to command the attention of the disciples. Whatever Peter -- or we -- may have been thinking, there is only one thing that is paramount: to listen to him, the beloved One.

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Secondly, when all is over -- when Moses and Elijah are gone, the voice is quiet, Jesus' face and clothing have returned to normal, and the disciples are left in holy awe -- all that is left is Jesus, just as they have always known him.

Whatever all these signs and symbols may have meant, the disciples are once again with their Lord, their teacher, their friend. This is perhaps one of the signature characteristics of Matthew. Jesus, the one whose clothes and face shone like the sun, the one equal to Moses and Elijah, the one whom the very heavens proclaim as God's own beloved Son, will not leave them.

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When all else fades -- and indeed, soon enough all will become dark indeed -- yet Jesus remains, reaching out in help and healing. At the very close of Matthew's account, he will gather with these and all of his disciples on another mountain, and promise that he will be with them even to the close of the age – the Great Commission.

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The setting in the gospel is also important. After a time of popularity in the northern regions the tide has turned against Jesus. The leaders were busy trying to discredit Him, and the people started going away. This prompted Jesus to ask what people said about Him, and what the disciples said. Now, as He begins to turn towards Jerusalem and His death, He is transfigured before three disciples on the top of the mountain. This should have encouraged the disciples that no matter what happened in Jerusalem, Jesus was the Lord of Glory. Looking back they realized this; but at the time they may not have thought it through. But as far as the arrangement of the gospel goes, it is downhill from here to the valley of humiliation and death.

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In the transfiguration Moses and Elijah appear and talk with the Lord. Moses represents the Law, and Elijah the Prophets;  Moses wrote the Law which anticipated the sacrificial atonement of the Messiah; Elijah was to come to prepare the hearts of the people for the coming of the Lord. Moses went up Mount Sinai and because he was with the Lord of Glory there, his face shone when he came back down; Elijah did not die, but was taken up to glory in the whirlwind and the chariot of fire. Here the two of them speak to Christ, and the parallel accounts tell us they spoke of Jesus’ “departure” (Greek exodus). They spoke of His coming death; but by the term the Bible uses we know they spoke of it as the fulfillment of the great deliverance in Egypt. Jesus’ death would be the exodus from the bondage of sin in the world.

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The vision is now clear: Christ was revealed in His glory, and He was joined by Moses and Elijah to indicate that He was about to fulfill the Law and the Prophets, and that death cannot destroy the glory that will follow. Moses and Elijah were and are alive, and are glorified. Jesus may face death in the days to come, but death in God’s service is the way to glory.

Amen

Roger Lee

FOOTNOTE:

It may be a small point, but it is worth noting that there are two traditions about the location of the Mount of Transfiguration. The Roman Catholic tradition identifies it as Mount Tabor, south of the region of Galilee, on the northern edge of the Jezreel Valley. As one would expect, there are chapels and churches on the top of the mount to commemorate the spot. The other view, and possibly the more likely one, is that Mount Hermon is the site of the transfiguration.1 It is in the far north, located north of where Caesarea Philippi is situated. It would make sense for the transfiguration to take place in that region where Jesus had been ministering and where Peter made his confession of Christ. Of course, there is a week’s time for them to get almost anywhere. But the critical point is that they went up to the place away from all the people. Mount Tabor is not a very large mountain, and it was inhabited at the time.