SECOND SUNDAY OF LENT C

[cappie]

Jesus and his disciples Peter, James, and John were atop Mount Tabor.  Whatever all was happening to Jesus and to them at that moment, they did not want it to end.  They wanted to save it, cling to it.  We call it Jesus’ Transfiguration.   In actuality, it was also the transfig­uration of the three apostles.  Suddenly they, too, were filled with this light: lighting their lives, lighting the darkness of their pasts, lighting their hopes, and dreams, and confusions, and fears about the future.  It was such an incredible experience, and Peter – I’m just guessing it was Peter who spoke for the three – seized onto this experience and said to Jesus: Don’t move!  This is it! Don’t change anything. “Master,” Peter says, “Let’s just stay here.”

Now there’s two different ways to be grounded in life.  One, a good way and one, a bad.  It is no good to be “grounded” like in a boat.  These fishermen – Peter and James and John – would have known the dangers of being grounded like a boat on the rocks of the Sea of Galilee, which is to be stuck.  It is quite another experience to be “grounded” like a tree: grounded in the soil in which the roots, very much alive, keep the tree upright and steady, actively drawing water and nourishment from the soil, meanwhile being anchored in the ground so as to be able to withstand even a raging storm without toppling over.  For these three disciples to have stayed put on Mount Tabor would have been like the grounding of a boat.  They would have been stuck in time.    Jesus was talking about being grounded, not in a place, but grounded in a relationship, to be “ grounded in love,” from the Letter to the Ephesians.

 Peter, James, and John had gotten grounded, gotten momentarily stuck, on this mountaintop experience with Jesus. However, Jesus kept talking about a terrible twist to his life (and to theirs!) when they arrived in Jerusalem.

Jesus had talked about the doorway to the future having to pass over a threshold of loss, and suffering, and death: death on a cross.  The apostles and many of Jesus’ other followers were not able to hear this, which is so true to life.  Sometimes you simply cannot bear to hear what you hear, and so you don’t.   We say  something “goes in one ear and out the other…” The disciples could not take in what Jesus had been saying all along about the cross.  It’s as if they were pretending not to know what Jerusalem would portend for Jesus… and probably for them also for them.

We don’t know much about when or how the apostles came down off the mountain top.    The next time they would experience that kind of light would be on Easter, following Jesus’ resurrection.  We do know that the transfiguring light did again transfigure Peter, James, and John and the other apostles.  How it happened was miraculous, but it also became normal.   Here’s the good news they discovered… and here’s the good news for you about a miracle wanting to become normal in your own life.

First, the apostles were able to hear that Jesus would be with them always, after all.  Jesus is God Emmanuel, God with us. We do not worship a God whose presence is limited to a particular mountaintop experience, nor to a particular place,nor to a particular time.  We worship God Emmanuel, in all times and in all places. God is with us, with you. The disciples realized Jesus was going to abide with them.  They didn’t have to stay on the mountaintop, or to go back to a mountaintop experience to be with Jesus.  They would be grounded in the light and life and love of Jesus, who was going to stay really present to them always.

And then they realized if Jesus was going to stay with them, it would be in a new way… because he was still going to leave them.  That was for sure.  He would depart the dusty roads of Galilee, yet leave his Spirit with them. And this had been their other fear: not that Jesus would just leave, but that Jesus would leave his power with them.  They weren’t afraid of his impending absence, but rather of his continuing, powerful presence.  Really. Were they up for it?  Who were they?  These simple little fishermen.  And who are you?  Simple little you?   You have been given the light and life and love of Jesus to transform your own darkness and the darkness of the world in which you live.  By your touch, your words, your presence, you have been given power by Jesus. God Emmanuel is with you. Jesus abides with you.  That’s his promise, always, even to the end of the world.