CEC News and Service Schedule:
…Father Riley will lead us in Stations of the Cross Ash Wednesday at 11:30am followed by our Ash Wednesday service at noon February 26, 2020. He will also lead us in Holy Eucharist March 1 and 15.
…Other services will be Holy Eucharist with Father Jefferson or Morning Prayer led by Mrs. Jane Barnett, 10am as usual.
LAST EPIPHANY -A -20 MATTHEW 17. 1-9
Just like that, we come to the close of another Epiphany season and stand on the threshold of Lent. Today’s gospel is Matthew’s account of the Transfiguration. Mark and Luke also record it albeit with varying detail.
For the past few weeks, we have heard from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. However, today we skip to this mystical experience of the disciples and the glorious manifestation of the true nature of Christ as he makes his way to
Let us back up a bit. After Peter’s confession of Jesus as the Christ, Jesus reveals to his followers the true nature of his messiah ship, the mystery of his passion. We know how Peter reacts to that. He unwillingly speaks for Satan in opposing the idea that Jesus must die on the cross. Satan did not want Jesus to reveal his mission and save mankind through his suffering and death.
In response, Jesus rebukes Peter for opposing the will of God and for the moment, that ends the discussion. Six days after that exchange, Jesus takes Peter, James, and John up on the mountain with him and away from the others and the crowds. Here he was transfigured before them.
Transfigured means he had an unearthly appearance. Luke described it this way. “His countenance was altered and his raiment became dazzling white.” Mark wrote, “He was transfigured before them, and his garment became glistening, intensely white as no fuller on earth could bleach them.”
Matthew simply says “his garments were white as light, his face shone like the sun.” All three gospel writers who recorded this extraordinary event in the life and ministry of Jesus did their best to describe it. However, none of the three was present. They were recording what was told them by the eyewitnesses, Peter being one.
In today’s Epistle, Peter acknowledged he was there and saw it with his own eyes. In addition, he heard God’s voice proclaiming Jesus as his beloved son. It was a confirmation of his earlier confession of Jesus as Messiah that preceded the mystical experience of the Transfiguration.
In addition, if seeing Jesus with a divine aura surrounding him, shinning in and through him was not enough, the three readily recognized Moses and Elijah as they stood on either side of Jesus and spoke to him. The presence of Moses, the lawgiver, and Elijah, the prophet witness to Jesus as the messiah who fulfills the whole of the Old Testament.
Peter, being the impetuous one that he is, interrupts the conversation between Jesus, Moses and Elijah, and offers to build shelters so that they can all remain. He wanted to preserve the moment. But Peter and the others with him are quickly frightened when a bight cloud, the sign of God’s power, suddenly overshadows them and a voice is heard coming from the cloud proclaiming Jesus to be God’s beloved Son with the commandment to “listen to him.”
The three fall down in fear, bowing their faces to the earth, but Jesus touches them and takes away their fear. When they look up, they see Jesus only. The cloud is gone. The aura has left him. Suddenly it was all over as quickly as it had begun. Life was back to normal.
Jesus then led them down from the mountain. As they descended, He told them to keep the vision to themselves until he was risen from the dead. As I am certain they did. For whom would they tell and how could they explain it? Who would believe it?
They did not at this point understand fully what they had seen concerning Jesus. It was a glimpse of His Glory, if only for an instant of time. However, it was enough for Peter to want to remain there.
The Transfiguration is a theophany, a manifestation of God, especially the divinity of Christ. In all the gospel accounts, the Transfiguration is a proof and a foretaste of the coming of Christ in glory at the end of time.
The three who ascended with Jesus to the top of the mountain now descend to face reality. The Transfiguration was followed by a story of a boy who is desperately ill, so sick those disciples left behind could not cure him. Their mountain top experience now confronts a stubborn demon.
Life is like that for some of us, that is, we seem to go from mountain top experiences to being confronted with reality. Dramatic visions and spiritual experiences are followed by huge demands. For others life is a plateau.
The disciples were unable to understand how it was that the glory, which they had glimpsed on the mountain, the glory of God’s chosen son, the Servant who was carrying in himself the promise of redemption, would finally be revealed on a very different hill outside
We too often find it completely bewildering to know how to understand all that God is doing and saying, both in our times of great joy and our times of great sadness. We will never be able it understand it if we chose to only look at it from a human point of view. Instead, we must learn to look at it from God’s point of view.
The more we are open to God and the different dimensions of God’s glory, the more we are open to the pain and suffering of the world, the more we are called to do what we can to alleviate it.
The disciples had their eyes opened, so that they can see for the first time. Even though he does not look like what they might have expected, Jesus really is messiah. Now these three know it. When the veil of ordinariness that normally prevents us from seeing the inside of a situation is drawn back, the fullness of reality is disclosed.
We don’t generally experience things as dramatic as this story. We don’t often try and interpret the details of our lives according to a detailed spiritual plot. However, each of us is called to do what the voice from the cloud said: Listen to Jesus, because he is God’s beloved son.
If we want to find the way, the way to God, the way to the kingdom, we must “listen to him.” And as we learn to listen to him, even if we sometimes get scared and say all the wrong things, we may find that glory of God manifests itself to us, strengthening us, as it did the disciples, for the journey that lies ahead. AMEN+
No comments:
Post a Comment