Exodus 24:12-18; Matthew 17:1-9
Something has brought you here this morning. Maybe it’s habit, in the sense of a holy and blessed
practice. Maybe it’s habit in the sense that
this is just what I do on Sunday mornings.
Maybe it’s curiosity or a desire to find a spiritual community. Or maybe something has happened to you or to someone
you love, and you’re looking for answers to questions you can’t even quite
form.
We may have many different reasons for
being here, but I’ll bet there’s at least one thing every one of us shares. At some point, and maybe it’s right now, I’ll
bet you’ve asked two questions: Is God really there? And if so, does God really care that I’m
here?
I don’t think there’s any shame in asking
those questions, given the cost that comes with being alive. Now, don’t get me wrong; I think life is full
of blessing, overflowing with blessing, actually. And at the same time…. I talked with a woman this week who’s the
primary support for her mother. Her mom
lives alone, in an apartment, but she’s having a harder and harder time managing
her own needs. And those needs tend to
land in the daughter’s lap, with the daughter finding herself on the receiving end
of frightened phone calls about bills or medications. After a while, that load gets heavy – both for
the older mom and for the daughter. It’s
a story many of us might recognize, which is the point. Just dealing with what life throws at us can
make us wonder sometimes whether God’s there and whether God cares that we’re
here.
And then come those moments when the
stakes get higher. A vibrant young
woman, from a family that’s been part of St. Andrew’s for decades – she died two
weeks ago with no warning. We celebrated
her life here yesterday. I can imagine
Allison Benson’s family and friends might well find themselves, in the weeks ahead,
asking whether God is there and whether God cares we’re here.
Listening to the Scripture readings this
morning, you may not have heard much that relates to situations like these. Instead, on this last Sunday before the
beginning of the season of Lent, we always hear the story of the Transfiguration
– this weird, out-of-body experience that comes to three of Jesus’ followers
when out of the blue, the guy they’ve known as their rabbi and leader shines
with God’s own light. But hang with me a
minute, because I think there may be more in this story than meets the eye
about whether God cares that we’re suffering, whether God’s even there at
all.
So, about whether God’s there … we need to
go back to the Old Testament reading about Moses. We pick up Moses’ story in the middle of the
action, so we’ve got to know a little bit about what’s brought him to this moment
of going up the mountain – and I do mean the mountain – to meet
with God. You probably remember Moses as
the leader who brought God’s people out of their oppression and slavery in
Egypt. In today’s reading, those liberated
people are now traveling through the Sinai peninsula, between Egypt and what’s now
Israel, because God has brought them there, leading them in a pillar of dark,
swirling cloud in which raged the fire of God’s presence – certainly scary enough
to keep the Egyptians at bay. But before
that, before leading the people out of slavery, Moses was an outlaw, hiding out
and tending sheep in the Sinai wilderness, when God brought him to this very
same mountain we heard about in today’s reading – Mt. Sinai. There, God also showed up in fire, burning in
a bush but not consuming it; and God spoke directly to Moses, commissioning him
to lead deeply suffering people out of their bondage and into freedom.
Now, as we pick up today’s story, God is in
the process of giving these liberated people a set of instructions for how to
live in harmony with God and each other, and God invites Moses to come back up
the mountain to bring more of that law back to the people. And again, the divine presence storms and
rages and flames on the mountain, scaring the living daylights out of the
people waiting down below as Moses enters into the cloud and the fire, experiencing
God up close and personal for 40 days.
So, with this story in our minds, go back
to the question: Is God there? You bet –
a stunning, majestic presence leading the people into the blessing of a new, promised
land. In fact, that divine presence doesn’t
just show up from time to time; the Hebrew word says God’s glory “settled” there
on the mountain, in the sense of dwelling there for a time, taking up residence
with these people God had freed. So yes,
God’s absolutely there – and everyone cringing at the sight of the swirling cloud
and the raging fire would attest to it. And
yes, God cares deeply that these people have been suffering – caring enough to liberate
them, defeat Pharaoh’s army, and show them the path of shalom, God’s own
peace. It may be a little terrifying, but
after all – this is the sovereign of the universe who’s shown up to take care
of them, so a little awe may be in order.
Well, we need that story about God and Moses
on the mountain for today’s Gospel reading to make any sense at all. Just as God invited Moses to come up the
mountain and experience the divine presence, so Jesus invites his leadership
team – Peter, James, and John – to come up “a high mountain with him” (Matthew
17:1).
We also need to know what’s come just
before this point in the Gospel story to help today’s reading make sense. What’s come before is Peter blurting out the
deep mystery that their friend and teacher is actually the messiah, God’s anointed
king, whom the people of Israel have been waiting for through one foreign
oppressor after another. The oppressor du
jour is Rome, and God’s people are waiting for someone to be the new Moses
and bring them freedom and self-rule once again. So, Peter names Jesus as this anointed king –
and he’s right. Then Jesus quickly says,
“Yes, but….” Being messiah doesn’t mean
glory in the way you’re thinking of it.
It doesn’t mean freedom in the way you’re thinking of it. It means suffering and death for God’s anointed
king, but a death that leads to life – resurrected life, eternal life, the
freedom of God’s reign and rule on earth as it is in heaven.
So, that’s what comes just before the
story we heard today, as Jesus invites his deputies up the mountain. I don’t know what Peter, James, and John were
expecting, but whatever it was, they found something else. On the mountain, Jesus is “transfigured
before them,” the story says (17:2). It’s
the glory of God shining forth from him, the same divine glory that took up residence
on Mt. Sinai but dwelling very differently this time. Now, it’s embodied in Jesus himself, not blazing
in fire but shining as heavenly light.
And there with Jesus is Moses himself,
dropping in for a visit from God’s time outside time. He’s there with Elijah, Israel’s greatest
prophet who also encountered God’s terrifying glory on Mt. Sinai. Peter sees the trio together and thinks he
gets it – the messiah he recognized the other day is on the same level as these
two all-stars, Moses and Elijah! Well,
no, not exactly, as it turns out. God intervenes
to clarify the situation, swirling up the clouds and thick darkness to remind
the disciples of their spiritual history.
This Jesus is not just up there with the big boys. He’s God’s own Son, divine glory itself but
manifested very differently than anyone’s ever seen before.
Here’s the thing: In this story of the Transfiguration, God is saying
to these beloved people, God’s chosen people still aching under bondage, that
God is choosing a new way of showing up to liberate them. No more blazing fire but embodied
glory instead. God has taken flesh. And here he is, Peter, James, and John – he’s
right in front of you. So, you might
want to listen to him, even when he tells you the last thing you’d want to hear:
that this time, God’s going to suffer and die in order to save you.
And once the voice of God goes quiet and
the scary cloud lifts off the mountain, the disciples get back up off the ground
to find only Jesus there with them, because he’s all the God they need. And he touches them – their friend and
God in the flesh – he touches them and quietly reassures them, “Get up, and do
not be afraid” (17:7).
Yes, Jesus told them a few days earlier, there
will be times along this journey when things won’t go well. There will be times along this journey when
you’ll look at life and wonder how you’ll be able to get out of bed the next
morning. There will even be times along
this journey when things will go worse than you could ever have imagined. Still – “Get up,” Jesus says, “and do not be
afraid.”
God loves us enough to come to us in our
bondage and our suffering. God loves us
enough to come and inhabit that pain right alongside us. God loves us enough to sit with us and cry
when lamenting is all we can do. God
loves us enough to endure the same death that comes to all of us, whether our ending
is brief or long. And, God loves us
enough to use this journey through the valley of the shadow of death to defeat
death and free us from it, forever. That’s
how much each life matters. That’s how
much you matter. And that’s how much God’s
willing to be there with you, through it all.
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