What Happens On the Mountain

2-26-17 (Transfiguration A)

2 Peter 1:16-21; Matthew 17:1-9

What Happens on the Mountain

What would you have done if you were in the shoes of Peter, James, or John?  What would you have done if you had been there, on the top of that mountain, and you had seen the things that they’d seen - Moses and Elijah standing beside the man you’d been following, whose  clothes are now glowing the brightest white you’ve ever seen and whose face is blindingly bright, glowing like the morning sun?  What would you have done?

Would you be dumbstruck, as James and John appear to have been in the moment?  Would you gaze in awe and wonder for as long as you could at that bright and shining face until you couldn’t bear to look anymore, and even then still have the afterimage burned into your retinas?  Would you see Moses and Elijah standing beside Jesus and have the sudden, dawning awareness rush over you that this is, in fact, real?  Would you finally, once and for all, believe that this is the promised Messiah, and in the face of all of these realizations, be completely unable to muster any kind of response whatsoever?

Or would you not hesitate leap into action, like Peter?  I think he wasn’t clear just what he was supposed to do in light of the current situation, but being the man of action that he was, he knew that an occasion that momentous required something be done - in the past, when God showed up and did something amazing, they built something at the place where the event happened: wells were dug, altars constructed, places given special names that signified the events that had happened there.  So why not build booths for the distinguished icons of the Hebrew people, why not have the Messiah on the mountain for all to see?

In the moment of the transfiguration, it becomes quickly clear that neither one of these responses is truly adequate, though for the life of me I don’t know exactly what the adequate response in that moment would or should have been.  Either way, Peter’s bumbling and the stunned silence of James and John bring about God’s own response - “This is my son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; Listen to him!”

And it’s here that we should be having our own moment alongside the disciples on the mountain, because it’s here that it really hammers home that we’ve been invited to the same journey with Jesus - in fact, we’ve been on the journey with him, at least narratively speaking, even longer than the disciples have.  We’ve been there for the promise of Christmas - we’ve heard the proclamation of the angels to not be afraid.  We’ve seen the magi come from across the globe to give their gifts to the newborn king.  We’ve stood in the waters of the Jordan with Christ as he is baptized, and we’ve seen the Spirit come down like a dove upon him - we’ve heard the voice of God speak out already once before, and in that voice we’ve heard these same words proclaimed already: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased!”  And because we’ve heard the story so many times before already, we also are able to recognize the brilliant, dazzling white clothing that Christ wears and see its connection to the clothing of the angel at the empty tomb.  And so it is in this one, pivotal moment of the Gospel that all these things are brought together - the human and the divine meeting here in one place, both holy and profound.

It’s here, then, that we’re brought back to the original question once again.  What would you do in that situation?  Are you there, cowering with the disciples?  Are you still trying to mark the occasion and build something impressive on the mountain with which you can hopefully contain the moment?  Are you dumbstruck and not sure just how to respond?  Jesus’ answer in the moment is the same, regardless - he goes to the disciples, recognizes their fragility in that particular moment, and touches them.  He urges them to get up, to not be afraid.  And as they begin to get up, as they brush themselves off and once more take stock of the situation, the moment has already passed.  Moses and Elijah have gone back to the heavens from whence they came, and Jesus is just his normal self once more - no glowing, no shining, no brilliant white clothing… just Jesus.  And he’s inviting the disciples to continue on the journey with him.

I can’t imagine the mindset of the disciples at this point - the best I can come up with is a state of shock, of emotional numbness as they trudge down the mountainside with the savior.  Peter is likely in sensory overload trying to figure out what to do next, how to strategize and figure out what the next step is.  James and John - who knows?  They’re still processing everything, figuring out what it all means for them.  On the one hand, they’ve had the ultimate confirmation of the question that has likely been on all the disciples’ minds since the first day Jesus called them away from their fishing: there’s no doubt that this is the Messiah, and further, God has now said “This is my son.”  What’s more, in seeing Moses and Elijah standing beside Jesus in the flesh, these three disciples have now essentially been given absolute proof that there is a resurrection!  And while we don’t really focus all that much on this particular epiphany to the disciples, it’s a huge deal, and again - a lot to process.

And then, to add just one more level of complexity to all of this, Jesus looks at the disciples as they come down the mountain with him and explicitly instructs them - in fact, he orders them - not to say a word of it to anyone else “until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.”  He basically invokes the old “climber’s code” - what happens on the mountain stays on the mountain.  He tells them yet again that he is going to die, tells them that he is going to be raised from the dead (which they can now firmly believe, since they’ve seen Moses and Elijah now), and that they can’t say anything about it.  It’s not enough that they’ve been given the mother of all things to process and figure out; now they can’t even talk about it until after everything that they’re trying to process has already come to pass.

So… what would you do at this point?  What could you do?  You’ve seen the most amazing thing you’ve ever seen in your entire life up to this point, but you can’t talk about it, let alone even begin to comprehend what has just happened to you.  Anything you might have wanted to do, like Peter wanting to build the booths, you can’t… and there’s no one to share it with.

Perhaps the only thing we could do at this point is just that which the disciples themselves did - they continued down the mountain.  In spite of their fear, their uncertainty, their confusion and wonder… they put one foot in front of the other and kept walking forward with their master.  They haven’t begun to comprehend where their journey is going to take them, and they’re still not all that sure about what Jesus is even saying with all this “Son of Man” talk and discussion of going to his death and his pending resurrection, but they know that the very voice of God has told them to listen to God’s Son, and so they continue to take step by step, moving forward in faith and trusting that Jesus knows the way.

And if that’s not the perfect image for our own journey in faith, I don’t know what is.  As someone mentioned in a podcast I regularly listen to, "the only way we find God’s will for us in the world is to listen to Christ, but to also continue putting one foot in front of the other as we follow along. It is only through taking that ‘next step’ that we will ever know what all God has in store for us and what all he has for us to do in this life. Keep taking that next step."

And it’s this very idea of taking the next step, even when we don’t know where that step leads or what God has in store for us that is, to me, on almost the same level of awe and mystery as the transfiguration, itself.  Martin Luther King, Jr. said that “Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.”  Our calling isn’t an easy one - we never know what God might be calling us to next, or what that calling might entail for us - and yet we keep taking that next step, keep setting one foot in front of the other.  May we ever be so bold, and may we ever trust Christ to keep guiding our feet as we journey together.  To God be the Glory.  Amen.