March 2, 2003 - Transfiguration Sunday
2 Corinthians 4:3-6
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Mark 9:2-9
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A Glory Observed

“For it is the God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”

‘Glory,’ the American Heritage Dictionary tells us is, “exalted honor, praise, or distinction accorded by common consent.”  It is “something that brings renown” or “adoration, praise, and thanksgiving offered in worship.”  In short, glory is something that exalts, uplifts, takes one’s breath away and is not something ordinary or routine.  To experience glory is to encounter something mysterious and overwhelming, and those who have never forget the encounter.  A glory observed is a life changing, a transfiguring, moment.

What we read about today in Mark’s Gospel, and to which Paul refers in his letter to the Corinthians, is the final installment in a series of revelations that began with the manifestation of God’s glory and promise of salvation to all people in the persons of the Magi.  The weeks following that Epiphany have simply continued to unfold the message and the implication of Emmanuel – God with us.  Now we come to yet another moment, but one of even greater mystery and a dramatic foreshadowing of what God intends for humanity through the person and the work of his Son, Jesus.

All of these events have been laid out for us to get us ready for the events that we will walk through during the Lenten journey.  It is only against the backdrop of God’s glory, which is just below the surface of these events, that we can appreciate the incredible gift of the suffering, the death, and the resurrection of Jesus.  There is more to this story than simply the death of a good man who taught profound truths.  In the self-giving love of Jesus we enter into a glory observed that speaks to the heart and reminds each of us that we are fashioned in God’s image and likeness.

When the disciples went up the mountain with Jesus they had no idea what they were going to see.  Their experience overwhelmed them. Long ago John Chrysostom preached to the people of Constantinople, “He disclosed, it is said, a glimpse of the Godhead.  He manifested to them the God who was dwelling among them.”  And the poet Ephrem, from Syria, would sing, “The Lord who is beyond measure/measures out nourishment to all,/adapting to our eyes the sight of himself,/to our hearing his voice,/His blessing to our appetite,/His wisdom to our tongue.”  What Peter, James, and John saw was more than they expected, but it was for them – and it still is for us – a reminder, a confirmation of God’s love and care for those whom God has made.  Whatever trials may come, whatever we may have to go through on life’s journey, God is with us.  What the disciples hear said to Jesus is for all of us, God now looks on us all as beloved children.

As frightening and confusing as it must have been, the disciples needed that experience so they could go through the days that lay ahead of them.  I think all of us need those ‘mountaintop’ moments, those ‘highs,’ that allow us to simply get on with the often dreary, and sometimes, painful business of living each day.  I also think that this is one of the best reasons for holding on to the cycle of the church year.  In the church year we first travel from the expectant hope of Advent to the joy and life born of the nativity and revealed in the Epiphany.  Then that brightness gives way to the passion of Lent and the powerful events of the Holy Week brought to fulfillment at Easter.  We walk with the resurrected One and receive the Spirit at Pentecost, where we witness the birth of what we are -- the church.  Then we experience the constantly renewed promise of presence in the ‘ordinary’ time of life.  Each year the cycle begins again – like life itself – constantly renewing us in the promise of God with us.  These liturgical landmarks help us to not lose our way on the journey and remind us to focus our eyes on the horizon of God’s promise of eternal oneness.

There is more to all of this than the mountaintop.  Peter would have liked to stay up there, but wouldn’t we all?  However, that’s not the way it is to be.  To put it another way, one doesn’t define baseball by the grand slam (and certainly not if one is rooting for the Brewers of late) and we ought not try to define the integration of our life in faith by mountaintop moments.  The glory observed becomes a helpful memory and a living presence becomes the reality because Jesus comes down the mountain with them.  We go into the plain of life, even into its valleys, knowing that the promise of presence is effective and real. Jesus tells them he will always be there – the promise still holds true.

The glimpse of the promised glory continues among us in those high points of life, yes, but I think we often overlook the presence in the ordinary.  God’s glory is there, just beneath the surface of the everyday, even what might appear to be tragic, if we have the eyes to see and the minds and hearts open to appreciate.  I was reminded of that truth this week by three passings.  Two were of men in their seventies, each had led rich, full lives and contributed to our world.  The third was of a little girl not yet two years old.  All three of them pointed to a glory observed.  Let me tell you a bit about them.

Fred Rogers was a figure who touched many through his work on television.  When he was ordained as a Presbyterian minister in 1962 his call was to a ‘television ministry.’  His faith, then, drove his work and his gentleness and loving concern for God’s children of all ages touched me, and I know touched countless others.  Eddie Murphy and a thousand bad imitations aside, Mr. Rogers made a difference.  I was privileged to know him when I lived in Latrobe, Pennsylvania and I learned that what you saw was what he was – a gentle, loving, deeply-listening man.  He believed with all his heart that as God loves us “just the way we are,” so are we to love.  Fred, sweater, sneakers and all, was a reminder to me of the glory in us, the potential in all of us to be loving, gentle people.  The Divine image and likeness is there, waiting to be made real in us, if we open ourselves – Fred did, and our collective neighborhood will be forever a better place because of it.

Bill Law was a businessman and a life-long member of this church.  I got to know Bill only toward the end of his life, but even on a bad day the sparkle of his wit and the keenness of his mind spoke volumes.  All his life Bill loved to learn, I read somewhere that the only reason he worked to be successful at his business was so that he could have the wherewithal to continue his quest for knowledge.  I believe it.  Through Bill I was reminded, again, of what power lies within each of us and what we can accomplish when we are excited, dedicated, and motivated.  God wants us to think, to learn, to grow in knowledge of things Divine and of created things, too.  Open minds, open hearts, hungry to know more should mark our lives, we should never be simply content to get by with the minimum – it’s not the way God made us and Bill reminded me of that.

I only saw little Rosa when I went to the ICU at Children’s Hospital to pray with her mother as Rosa was about to be removed from life-support.  She had undergone a heart-lung transplant some months before, but things simply didn’t work out and it was time to let her go.  I never knew this child save as she was hooked to all those machines, looking like a little doll full of tubes.  Yet, I was profoundly touched by her and saw the effect she had on those who had cared for her during those difficult months.  Rosa reminded me that God can, and does, reach to touch us and give us a glimpse of glory in the most unlikely places and does so just to remind us that we’re not alone.  God is always with us.

These passings were glories observed for me, little confirmations of God’s continued care for us and for the world in which we live.  I suppose that what I’m trying to say is that we need to constantly keep our eyes open to catch these glimpses of God in our midst, because God is constantly redefining what glory really means.  God’s glory is here.  It shone on that lovely face long ago in Palestine and it continues to shine.  God’s light has pierced and does pierce our darkness and enlightens our minds and hearts if we have eyes to see.  God’s glory isn’t about the mountaintop nor is it about our limited definitions of what glory is.  Rather, it’s about God’s presence with us in the seeming drudgery of the everyday.  Like the old hymn says: “How good, Lord, to be here!/Yet we may not remain/But since you bid us leave the mount,/Come with us to the plain.”  The glory observed is that prayer answered every day.  God is present and it is good to be here in the middle of a glory observed called -- life.