Homily Last Sunday after Epiphany year B
For the ancient Hebrews mountain top experiences were an important part of how they experienced their faith. Moses ascended a mountain and came back with the Ten Commandments that established a law for how to live.
For many of us, mountains are a place of adventure, of recreation, and of retreat, a place to get away from the distractions of day to day life. Our spirits are lifted by the glory of nature. We can see with great clarity, and we feel closer to God, our creator.
Today’s gospel reading tells of a mystical mountain top experience shared by Jesus with his most trusted disciples, Peter, James and John.
It is a pivotal moment in Mark’s Gospel narrative.
By the middle of Mark’s account, we have witnessed Jesus calling his disciples, teaching, healing, and casting out demons.
He has already told his disciples of his coming death and resurrection. “Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the scribe, and be killed and after three days rise again.”
Mark says six days after this prediction of his death Jesus takes Peter, James and John up a high mountain, “by themselves.”
While Jesus is there, he literally changes in front of their eyes and his clothes turn a dazzling white—a colour impossible to obtain by bleaching cloth.
To transfigure is defined in the dictionary as “to give a new and typically exalted or spiritual appearance to,” a definition which no doubt owes it origin to this Bible passage.
Mark describes Jesus as appearing with Elijah and Moses, thus establishing the continuity of God’s revelation through Moses to Elijah and then Jesus.
This tie between Jesus and Elijah is also underlined by our reading from the Old Testament which reminds us of how Elijah ascends like a whirlwind into heaven on his chariot of fire after leaving Elisha behind to carry on his work.
The most challenging part of the story is Peter’s immediate reaction to the transfiguration. He says to Jesus that the tiny group should stay on top of the mountain, and build three dwellings, one for each of Jesus, Elijah and Moses.
That’s when the voice comes from Heaven, as it had when Jesus was baptized, saying: “This is my son, the beloved, listen to him.”
As well as reinforcing the prediction Jesus has made just days earlier, Peter’s suggestion that the mountain top experience could somehow carry on, by building dwellings and staying there would seem to be a warning for us as we carry on our journeys of faith.
Mountain top experiences can be wonderful. Mountain top experiences of any kind. But we have to come back down the mountain.
The journey doesn’t end on the mountain top. We need to take the long view, and move on. Perhaps that will help us understand our challenge to be the church in a changing religious environment in North America.
Our mountain top may have been the 1950’s and 60’s when the churches were full, and the hub of the community in many ways. But we couldn’t stay on that mountain top. Society has changed. Sunday has changed. Only a third as many people go to church and there are many more churches.
That doesn’t mean we don’t continue to experience the presence of God, as individuals, as parishes.
Peter, James and John were witnesses to the supernatural power of God on the top of the mountain when they saw Jesus transfigured.
They didn’t really understand what they had seen, but it helped prepared them and the other disciples for what lay ahead.
They were the witnesses on which Christ built the church.
It may be hard for us to relate to supernatural events like this. After all if we reported seeing Moses and Elijah talking with Jesus while standing on top of one of the Rocky Mountains we might be accused of having too much to drink, or smoking funny cigarettes.
But some of us have probably had dramatic moments of spiritual insight, or God’s healing presence---experiences which can’t be explained by science.
Our visions and our spiritual awakenings are something only we can assess. Others may have had no such experiences but still feel God’s presence in their lives.
Our faith is something we can depend on in an age of uncertainty. Science and technology can’t give us all the answers, and lots of scientists would confirm that.
We need the hope our faith gives us in a world that has so much suffering and evil.
Mountain top experiences can be uplifting and inspiring as we serve Christ in an often bewildering world.
It’s sometimes hard to grasp all the information we have access to with the explosion in communications over the past few decades.
But mountain top experiences—experiences of joy, of beauty, of revelation of God’s presence and love for us—help us amidst a broken world.
We can’t build our home there, as Peter found out, but we can find strength to carry on with the journey.
The story of the Transfiguration is literally an answer to prayer. Usually in the Gospels when Jesus goes up to the mountain it is to pray, to be apart. This time he took three of his disciples with him.
As we prepare for the season of Lent, and the journey to Calvary and the empty tomb let us offer our prayers for strength on our Christian journey.
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