The Last Sunday after the Epiphany Mark 9:2-9
A couple of weeks ago we lost a great scholar, teacher, and writer in our Christian tradition. Marcus Borg, who wrote 21 books on Jesus and the New Testament and was an internationally respected speaker, died in late January. I have been reading the book he wrote on the occasion of his 70th birthday called Convictions: How I learned what matters most.
At the beginning of the book, Borg describes his journey of faith and what he calls his “conversion” to Christianity. He says that his earliest struggles in and exploration of faith was primarily about ideas and the life of the mind. But then in his early thirties while driving through a sunlit Minnesota winter landscape he had an experience that made God real to him. He had been on the road for about three hours when he entered a series of curves and the “light suddenly changed.”
He said, “It became yellowy and golden, and it suffused everything I saw: the snow covered fields to the left and the right, the trees bordering the fields; the yellow and black road signs, the highway itself. Everything glowed. Everything looked wondrous. I was amazed…I became aware not just intellectually, but experientially of the connectedness of everything. I ‘saw’ the connectedness, experienced it. My sense of being ‘in here’ while the world was ‘out there’ momentarily disappeared.”[1]
Borg had discovered the mystical experience in Christianity. The more he read the more he learned that people who had these experiences spoke of them as encounters with God, with the sacred. It had never occurred to him that God could be experienced. Until that time, he had thought of God as a being who either did or did not exist—one who you could believe or disbelieve. He came to believe that there were a “cloud of witnesses” for whom God was real and could be experienced. For the first time in his life, he understood the affirmation that the earth is full of the glory of the Lord.
This morning we hear the story in the Gospel of Mark when Jesus takes three of his disciples up a mountain and there before them is transfigured. On this day we come to a hinge point in our liturgical calendar between Epiphany, which began with the journey of the magi, and Lent, which begins Jesus’ journey to the cross. Some call this in-between state a liminal space, from the word meaning “threshold.” A liminal space is characterized by ambiguity and openness—a thin border where inbreaking is possible. On this last Sunday after the Epiphany we hear the story of the disciples as they go up a mountain–heaven is opened to them and they experience a glimpse of the reign of God revealed in Jesus.
All three of the Synoptic Gospels, the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, report this story on the mountain. In Mark’s Gospel it is said to have come “six days” after Jesus has told his disciples that he will undergo great suffering, be rejected and killed and then after three days rise again. His disciples do not understand what he is saying. Peter even rebukes Jesus.
Jesus in turn reprimands Peter telling him that he has set his mind on human things and is ignoring what is divine—what is possible in God. Jesus also tells them that if they want to follow him, they must “deny themselves and take up their cross.”
These are hard words to hear. These disciples have left everything, literally dropped their nets, walking away from their former predictable lives to follow Jesus and now they are told that being a disciple will require much more than simply following a charismatic teacher, a miraculous healer, or a victorious ruler. Now they are putting themselves in the way of the cross, which they know is the way of suffering and ignominious death.
So Jesus takes three of these disciples up on a high mountain. These three, Peter, James and John are set apart for this experience. They have walked hot dusty roads together and now, as they stand in this liminal place– they see Jesus “transfigured”—that literally means to change figure or form.
Jesus’ appearance was changed– shimmering in a way that could not come from human hands. They see the glory of God in him. He is “dazzlingly white” and what is more, he is not alone. Two other figures appear, Elijah and Moses, prophets who suffered because of their faithfulness to God. Ched Myers calls this a “salvation history summit conference.”[2] Elijah and Moses have had their own experience of God’s revelation when their missions faced particular difficulty.
The disciples are astonished at the mighty acts of God in Jesus. The text tells us that they were “terrified.” And it is into this splendid and yet paralyzing scene that Peter feels compelled to say something. He offers to build dwellings for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah. He wants to maintain this mystical event. How lovely it would be to just stay here in the presence of Jesus’ glory.
This scene surpasses all imagined hopes of these followers—Jesus revealed as the beloved of God, accompanied by Elijah, the great prophet and Moses, the bringer of the law. Suffering and death may have been discussed before, but now it appears that all that may be bypassed. Jesus is in glory here and they are with him.
But in speaking up, Peter comes close to missing an encounter with God. For just as he stops speaking, a voice from heaven both announces and commands, “This is my Son, the Beloved. Listen to him!” Peter is trying to preserve this encounter. God invites him instead to experience the wonder and mystery of Jesus.
Peter’s attempt to enshrine his mountaintop experience was not what Jesus had in mind. As R. Alan Culpepper observes, “Faithfulness is not achieved by freezing a moment but by following on in confidence that God is leading and that what lies ahead is even greater than what we have already experienced.”[3]
Peter hopes to build dwellings or temples where he and two other disciples can just stay with Jesus, Elijah and Moses surrounded by the glory of God. In our reading today, Jesus does not respond to Peter’s request, but coming down from the mountain they are given a staggering blow to their plans—don’t tell anyone about what you saw. They alone will carry this vision as they follow Jesus to Jerusalem.
Elisha, too, wants to preserve his time with Elijah. Three times Elijah tries to say good-bye to Elisha as he prepares to be taken up to heaven. But each time Elisha says No way! “As the Lord lives and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.” He fears what will happen once his teacher is gone. Elisha is plainly wary of what might be coming. Prophetic succession is not for the timid and so this time with his teacher is precious.
Just like Peter and Elisha, we may long to be able to summon and hang on to an experience of God, “How good it is to be here”—particularly when we are surrounded by confusion, trouble or anguish.
Like Peter and Elisha, we cannot manage or control God’s presence. But we can trust that God is always near. Whether we are on the mountaintop with the glory of God glowing before us—whether we are on the plains of our everyday life—or whether we walk in the valley—God waits to infuse our lives with his love.
We may never experience a revelation such as the one described in today’s Gospel. We may not have an identical feeling of connection with all of Creation as Marcus Borg did. But our God is a God who longs for relationship. In story after story our scriptures tell us of God who never leaves us. Though repeatedly we may turn from God, God is always faithful. God is the one who has searched us out and knows us, who knows our thoughts from far away and is acquainted with all our ways.
We are invited to experience God not through believing in a set of doctrines or practicing a set of liturgical rituals, but by opening our hearts so that we can fall completely in love with the One in whom we live and move and have our being. (Acts 17:28) God is everywhere in Creation. In our Sanctus as we celebrate at the table of God, we sing Holy, holy holy Lord, God of power and might, heaven and earth are full of your glory. To affirm that heaven and earth of full of God’s glory means that everything is filled with God’s light. And we are invited to be witness—to experience God the holy One who infuses all that is.
One of the things we offer each other in the faith community is to create a space so that each of us can experience the wonder and mystery of God. When we come together in worship, prayers, music, and fellowship we are given the chance to be filled by God’s Spirit. When we serve our neighbors in our food pantries, read to a child, work in the garden, deliver socks to those in need, we open ourselves to seeing that Christ is present in all we meet. Sitting with a friend who needs a safe place, visiting someone who is sick, offering care to a family experiencing tragedy—we prepare our hearts for the One who is always coming into the world and seeking us.
And we are invited to share our experiences of the Holy One. I have felt God’s presence in our worship together. In listening to your stories of how God is made real in your lives, I have felt invited into a sacred place where we stand together in the presence of God and God’s love. In opening ourselves to each other, we make space for the mystery of intimate connection with God.
God is with us on our mountaintops and in the plains of our everyday life. God is with us always, even into the valley of death. Sometimes our eyes are opened and we are able to delight in the glory and the wonder of God—to catch a glimpse of the kingdom of God.
But even as faithful followers, we will not be able to live forever in this moment. We are sometimes given this gift so that we may be sustained as we continue our journey in faith.
The Transfiguration affirms life, a light that shines ahead as we enter into Lent, a time of hope and confidence. God is here. God is knowable. God seeks relationship with each of us. Because God is life, we follow in trust that God is forming us into a new people in Jesus, through whatever comes our way. I pray that each of us may know God as we are known by God. We begin by following God’s command to “Listen to him.”
[1] Marcus J. Borg. Convictions: How I learned what matters most. New York: HarperCollins, 2014, 36.
[2] Ched Myers, Binding the Strong Man: A Political Reading of Mark’s Story of Jesus, Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1988; p. 250
[3] R. Alan Culpepper. Luke, New Interpreter’s Bible.