I wonder if you can think of a time you witnessed something amazing. Sometimes it’s big and flashy, but really it could be anything that catches you by surprise, stops you in your tracks, leaves you reveling in awe. Perhaps your response to a moment like that was to stop and soak it all in, or to fumble for your phone to try to capture the moment. Perhaps it left you feeling peaceful or kind of stunned, floating above reality. Or maybe it energized you, and you couldn’t stop talking about what you had experienced, even if you couldn’t quite find the right words to fully describe it.
Last summer, we traveled to England, and one of our stops was the city of York. While we were there, we went to the stunning York Minster Cathedral. The building is massive, with soaring ceilings and enormous medieval stained glass windows. We visited toward the end of the day, but not quite late enough to convince everyone in the group to wait around for the evening service, to hear the organ and the choir. I was a bit disappointed, to be honest, but it was still impressive to walk through the building and the undercroft, and see the Roman ruins and stained glass and statues throughout.
As we were coming up the stairs from the undercroft, suddenly the massive organ burst to life - the organist, warming up for the upcoming service. The sound swelled and filled that massive space, echoing off the stone, swirling up to the high ceilings, enveloping us. I don’t remember anything about the tune, but the energy, the enormity of the space and the experience? That was something I could feel, and can still recall, in my body. It was good to be there.
 |
| Photo by Georg Eiermann on Unsplash |
In today’s readings from Exodus and the Gospel of Matthew, we hear a pair of mountaintop experiences. Moses, accompanied for a bit, at least, by Joshua in Exodus, and Jesus, along with Peter, James, and John in the Gospel, head up a high mountain. Up on that high place, they encounter clouds, and brightness, and a voice from heaven. These awe-inspiring elements all signal a very basic message: God is here! Something big is happening! Pay attention!
That basic message could be the slogan for the whole season of Epiphany, which ends with Transfiguration Sunday. With images of light and revelation, we’ve seen God’s presence as the magi were led to the Christchild; as Jesus was baptized in the river; as fishermen were compelled to leave their nets to fish for people; and as this new and different reality called “the Kingdom of God” was described and explained to ordinary people. God is here! Something big is happening! Pay attention!
Here, in the transfiguration story, we find ourselves at a hinge point in the Gospel narrative. Though this story is about God’s glory and Jesus’ divine identity, from here, down the mountain, in Jerusalem, into Holy Week, what lies ahead is Jesus’ suffering, crucifixion, and death. At this point in the Gospel, Jesus has already told his disciples that this is coming - and will continue to remind them - and their response is disbelief, and rebuke, and distress.
And, as Peter, James, and John share this encounter on the mountaintop, their response is fear (understandable!), and awe, and a kind of deflection from their discomfort. I can imagine Peter thinking, “I’m not really sure what’s going on here, but probably I should do something…maybe Jesus would like to stay a while?” But before Peter can move forward with this offer, God’s voice breaks through from heaven: “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well-pleased; listen to him.”
I love what scholar Mark Allan Powell writes in his commentary on this text: “The point is that this is an epiphany: a moment for watching and listening. It is a time to be not a time to do.”
I don’t know about you, but I’m not so good at the “being” thing. There’s always something to do, and yet, we need the reminder to stop and be in the moment, to notice that God is here! Something big is happening! Pay attention!
In addition to being a fitting theme for Epiphany, that basic message could also be the slogan anytime we gather as the people of God around Word and Sacrament. God is here!
In word and water, in bread and wine God comes near. In a simple meal, alongside the saints of all times and places, we hear the promise: this is Jesus, given for you. Something big is happening!
In words of forgiveness and mercy, assurance and love, challenge and promise, God speaks. Pay attention!
I wonder sometimes if we still notice the awe and amazement and wonder of all this. Or, perhaps, because of distractions, or familiarity, or heartbreak it’s no longer enough to stop us in our tracks. I wonder what might bring us back, what might break through in ways big and small and whisper, or shout, God is here! Something big is happening! Pay attention!
Though the liturgy doesn’t quite say it that way, I think that’s the message we hear when we get to include baptism in our liturgy, as we have this morning. Midway through the liturgy, we reach the “Thanksgiving at the Font”, which recounts amazing, impressive moments from salvation history where God brought life, salvation, and freedom: delivering Noah and his family through the waters of the flood; parting the Red Sea to lead the Israelites from enslavement in Egypt to freedom; the baptism of Jesus, where we first hear God’s voice proclaim Jesus as beloved Son. And then it points to this water and says, God is here! In this ordinary water, through God’s word and God’s promise, God comes to us and we are transformed.
The promise of baptism is that God’s presence is always with us, anywhere we go. Not just in moments of awe and glory, but also in our suffering, our grief, our pain, our distress, our questions, and our discomfort. Perhaps this is why, on the way down the mountain, that Jesus instructed the three disciples not to say anything about what they had witnessed, not yet, not until the Son-of-Man has been raised from the dead. Because if they had shared about it right away, people might think it was only on mountaintops, in light and cloud and booming voice that God shows up. But after Jesus’ suffering, crucifixion, death, and resurrection, people could see that God is there, too.
Whether in flashy moments of amazement or small things that still manage to stop us in our tracks, we rejoice in any moment that proclaims: God is here! Something big is happening! Pay attention!
Comments
Post a Comment