 |
||
|
Last Epiphany There are moments in our lives when time stops, and we are drawn into such a pure sense of joy and happiness that we are lost for words, lost for explanations. We call these moments peak experiences, emotional highs. We talk about them afterward as ‘being on cloud nine’, or ‘being on top of the world’. They are so singularly enjoyable and uplifting that they remain indelible in our memories. We can never forget them, and we long for them to return. Psychologists explain this phenomenon in human beings as a return to primal ecstasy. Bio-chemists explain it as a release of endorphins in the brain. Mystics speak of the experience in hushed tones as union with God. It is why people take drugs, or what causes them to jump out of planes of bungy jump off of bridges. But all of these explanations cannot begin to exhaust the power and mystery these highs hold over us. Peak experiences are what most of us live and die for. They touch something in our depths, in our longing, in our desire. Think of the scene in Washington D.C. a month ago. Those who attended the Presidential Inauguration, when asked to give their reasons for being there, stumbled on religious language to share what they were feeling. My own brothers who were there with there families described it as a revival, a once in a lifetime spiritual connection with something greater, a time out of time experience when the millions who were there and the millions more who watched at home were fused in transcendent moment of unity, joy, and peace. They, like so many others crowded on to the Mall felt like they were experiencing divine intervention. And if seems a little over the top, then how do we explain the inexplicable feelings so many of us had as we passed through this rite of passage together as Americans, something so riveting and numinous, where something eternal was touched in us, something that has always been, and will always be? One old bishop friend of mine spoke of these times of life as thin experiences. In other words, when we enter moments of numinousity, we are drawn to a place where there is little that separates us from God. When we look back in time, and especially in our scriptures, these thin experiences are a dime a dozen. And more often than not, they physically occur on mountains. Abraham brought Isaac to Mt. Moriah for sacrifice. Moses received the tablets of the Law on Mt. Sinai. Elijah battled the prophets of Baal on Mt. Horeb, and then again was drawn to the mountain to experience the “still, small voice of God.” King David wrote in the Psalms: “I look to the hills from whence cometh my help and salvation!” In each of these biblical accounts, there was always a purpose, or a telos as the Greeks described it, to the peak experience. The epiphany, or revelation on the mountain, always led to a new way of being and a new way of acting. This is especially true as we look to our Gospel today, and recount how Jesus is taken up to the mountain with his disciples and is transfigured before them there as the beloved Son of God. He does this, he goes to the mountain, our Gospel tells us, and then turns his face to Jerusalem, toward the cross, so that all who believe in him should not perish but have eternal life. We read this story of the Transfiguration on the last Sunday of Epiphany each year, because it is meant to instill in us courage and strength to face the Lenten journey upon which we are about to embark together. The journey we are about to take again is from Ashes to Easter, from death to life, or from ‘glory to glory’ as our collect puts it. The peak experiences of our lives are not meant to be experienced in isolation, as ends in themselves. If these experiences do no better than to make us feel good about ourselves, or give us a perpetual emotional high, or if we return to them over and over again like a junkie to his needle, then, I believe, we have fallen far short of discerning their purpose in our lives. They are not simply feel-good moments, or ways to escape the humdrum of our lives. They have a purpose. The light and clarity and illumination they offer is meant, in the words of our collect, to strengthen us to bear our own cross. They serve to turn us, like Jesus, with compassion and courage toward a suffering world. They serve to transfigure us into men and women in whom glory has taken up residence. When we enter these thin experiences, it is far more than endorphins racing through our brains, it is far greater than something we can reduce to psychology, it is instead God who is breaking into our lives. It is divine intervention, if we will see and believe it. Four centuries ago, William Shakespeare placed this hope and belief on the lips of King Henry, in these enduring words: “I have touched the highest point of my greatness, and from that full meridian of glory, I haste now to my setting.” Come again this Wednesday, we are invited to take a journey, and experience Lent as a season in which to see and believe that our destiny is far beyond anything we can imagine or hope for. So then, friends, may this Lent truly be a peak experience for each and for all of us, as we open our minds, our hearts, and our purposes and be changed into Christ’s likeness from glory to glory, and from that full meridian of glory, may we too haste to our setting, with joy and peace. |
||