Sermon

Have you ever been to the mountains? I mean real mountains and not rugged rock formations, like the Cow and Calf. I am referring to real mountains like you find in the Alps. Have you ever been on those magnificent towers of stone and ice, capped with snow, so high that they seem to touch the sky? On top of such mountains heaven and earth almost seem to meet. On top of a mountain it seems that you are closer to God.

In the ancient world that is exactly the way people thought of mountaintops. They literally were holy places where heaven and earth met. That is why the Aztecs and Incas in South America either built giant pyramids or went to mountaintops to make their sacrifices to the gods. They wanted to be closer to heaven. 

In Genesis 11 is that not why humanity built the Tower of Babel? They wanted to get closer to heaven and the gods so that they could make a name for themselves. Sometimes I wonder if that is why we now build these magnificent skyscrapers hundreds of feet into the sky. If they are not an attempt to get closer to God, then surely they are monuments to our own attempts to be more like God.

In today's lessons such mountaintops are also places for some very special encounters between the divine and the human. In the First Lesson Moses and the Israelites are camped out at the foot of Mount Sinai. Moses has just completed his second trip up and down the mountain. 

After his first trip up and down the mountain, Moses returned with the stone tablets on which God had written his covenant with Israel. But Moses, upon seeing the golden calf, the idol that the Israelites had constructed in Moses' absence, smashes the stone tablets in rage, grinds up the golden calf into fine dust, mixes it with water, and forces the Israelites to drink it as punishment for their idolatry. 

Moses then returns to Mount Sinai for a second time and has the covenant with God renewed. When he comes down the mountain a second time, something is very different. This time Moses' face is shining with such a bright light that the Israelites are frightened. They couldn't look at his face without being blinded.

Moses had truly been in the presence of God and the blinding light beaming from his face was proof. Every time the Israelites looked at Moses' bright face, they knew that they were in the presence of one who had been in the very presence of God on the mountaintop. And they were frightened by it and wanted to hide. 

That is why Moses developed this unusual ritual. Every time when he was in the presence of Israel and was not speaking with God, he covered his face with a veil. Only then could the Israelites bear to be in the presence of Moses and not be so frightened. But his shining face, even though veiled, was a sign to them that he was speaking for God.

Today's Gospel and its account of the Transfiguration of Jesus also takes place on a mountaintop. Here too a strange and wonderful encounter between the divine and the human takes place. 

Like Moses, Jesus glows with a blinding light. A voice from the heavens announces that Jesus is the very Son of God. Jesus has a conversation with Moses and Elijah, two great leaders of the Old Testament. When Peter and the disciples saw all this -- on a mountaintop of all places -- they knew they were in some place special. They knew they were in the very presence of divinity. They had had a mountaintop experience.

Both mountaintop experiences seem unreal, supernatural, surreal, not of this world. Both mountaintop experiences literally were occasions when the divine met the human. Heaven met earth.

Peter was so impressed that he tried to preserve the experience by offering to set up a tent for Jesus and his two visitors. 

By seeking to preserve this experience by setting up tents for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah, Peter is no different from us. We too attempt to preserve the memory of a mountaintop experience by keeping some kind of trophy, maybe a photograph. Even though the memory of those mountaintop experiences will fade over time, the photographs will help us to remember and relive the thrill of the mountaintop experience.

But I must admit that I have never had a mountaintop experience like these. I have never heard booming voices from heaven, seen great historical characters from the past, or observed someone glow in the dark. It is strange and supernatural events like this that make the Bible, for some, an odd and unbelievable book. 

I don't live in a world like this. I suspect that you don't either. And when we hear stories like this read in Sunday worship in our church, it contributes to the mystery of our faith. 

We want to believe in God. We want to believe the Bible. But because the world of the Bible and its God and stories like this one seem so unrelated to our world, it all seems so weird, so odd. If God inhabits a world like this, then we live in a world without God. Our religious faith seems to be nothing more than a game we play on Sunday mornings and then ignore the rest of the week.

Is there any place where these strange stories about the transfigurations of Moses and Jesus intersect with our world? Where might we have a similar mountaintop experience today? Where might we have a similar divine meets human encounter? Where might we behold Jesus or Moses in all of their transfigured glory?

Let me begin with the story of Jesus' transfiguration. There is a helpful clue there that can help us see the relevance of both of these stories. When that divine voice from the cloud speaks and essentially repeats the words spoken at Jesus' baptism ("This is my Son"), it adds these significant words: "Listen to him." Then the whole supernatural experience abruptly comes to an end. The disciples are left with the same old ordinary Jesus. Moses and Elijah are gone. The cloud has dissipated. There is no more glowing light. There is only that very ordinary carpenter's son from Nazareth.

And that is exactly the point of it all. This whole experience now buried in the memories of the disciples is intended to remind them of the importance of listening to Jesus. If they are ever again to return to the mountaintop for such an encounter, it will be when Jesus speaks. It will be through the Word of Jesus that they will once again get to behold the truth of Jesus' divine identity in all of its blazing glory. It will be when Jesus speaks that they will "see" the glory of God and know that they have been in the very life-giving presence of God.

But where and when does that happen in our world? Our world is cluttered with lots of words and lots of talk. Many of those words and much of that talk claim to speak for God. But the message that many of those words and much of that talk convey is disturbing and threatening. They reveal a God who is not very pleased with us and with what we have done with this world. They reveal a God who demands that we measure up. Therefore, unlike Peter and the disciples, we would rather flee than relish such a moment.

But if we look closer to what Jesus actually was saying, we see something different. Matthew notes that Jesus was talking with Moses and Elijah about "his departure which he was about to accomplish in Jerusalem." The Greek word Matthew uses for "departure" is the same word for "exodus."

Matthew is making a very important point here. After this transfiguration experience on the mountaintop, Jesus turns toward Jerusalem and begins the last and most important chapter of his life: his arrest, death, and resurrection. By calling them his "exodus," Jesus is comparing what he is about to do with his life to what God did for the Israelites in the exodus of the Old Testament. 

The first exodus resulted in the liberation of Israelites from slavery in Egypt. Now in this second exodus God was once again going to work a miraculous act of liberation. This time, however, it would affect more than just one nation. This time it would mean the liberation of all of humanity from all the powers that threaten it.

It is no accident that every year on this last Sunday in the season of Epiphany, as we enter the season of Lent and our march to the cross and the empty tomb, we hear this story of the transfiguration of Jesus. The "exodus" of which Jesus spoke with Moses and Elijah will be accomplished in the events that lie ahead. Jesus goes to the cross and suffers the fate of humanity. "On the third day" Jesus is raised from the dead and the powers of sin, death, and God's own judgment on this crooked world are broken. And in the proclamation of the Gospel, in the spread of the Easter message, we are told that God did all of this for us and our salvation!

Did you hear that message? Did you hear about the "exodus" that was accomplished for you, for your benefit? Did these words of Good News send a message to your brain that was interpreted as Good News and believed by your heart? If so, you have not just heard me speak; you have heard Jesus speak. You have heard God speak. You have been there with the Israelites and heard Moses speak with his veil removed. You have been to the mountaintop. You have been in the very saving and life-giving presence of God!

Even though there has been no blinding light, no voice from a cloud, no appearance of Moses and Elijah, no Moses with his glowing face covered with a veil, you have been to the mountaintop. You have participated in a divine/human encounter. You have been to where heaven and earth have met.

Look carefully at the text of Luke. After the divine voice said, "Listen to him," all the supernatural razzle-dazzle disappeared. All the disciples had left was the ordinary Jesus.

The point the divine voice was making was clear. In the future, that is precisely the way God is going to appear in our midst. It will be in the ordinary and mundane that Jesus will take us to the mountaintop. Jesus will continue to appear to us not in the razzle-dazzle of some supernatural experience but in the ordinary and mundane of the everyday. 

When Jesus speaks to us and offers to us his life at the communion table in ordinary bread and wine, in a baptism of ordinary water, in the words of forgiveness you hear from the members of your family, from your neighbours, or from your enemies, you are on the mountaintop! You are in the presence of the transfigured Jesus. You are at the foot of Mount Sinai with Moses, veil removed, face glowing, speaking the very words of God.  The mountaintop experiences continue for us. We "see the face of God." 

In today's Second Lesson Paul takes the "mountaintop experience" one step further. Paul reminds us that as members of the Christian community and the beneficiaries of God's mercy in Christ, we get to "reflect" that same mercy in our lives and actions to others. We are like mirrors that shine the bright, transfigured glory of Christ on others by our words and deeds of mercy.

Through our ordinary lives we are privileged to do something very special. We can take the world to the mountaintop!