The Feast of the Transfiguration
August 6, 2006

Today we celebrate the Feast of the Transfiguration of Our Lord. In the church in the East, the Feast of the Transfiguration has been celebrated since the late fourth century, and it is one of the twelve great festivals of the Eastern Orthodox calendar. In the West, however, it was not observed until after the ninth century when some monastic orders began to include it, and wasn’t until 1457 that Pope Callistus III ordered its general observance. At the time of the Reformation, some viewed this feast day as a "recent innovation," and so it was not immediately included in most Reformation calendars, but is now found on most calendars that have been revised in the twentieth century, including our Episcopal liturgical calendar.

The notion of “transfiguration” runs through all three of our readings today: In our Old Testament reading we hear how when Moses came down from Mount Sinai where he met God and received the Law, his face was shining so brightly that the other Israelites were afraid to come near him. Moses did not know that his face was alight, but when he saw the reaction of others, he began to cover his face with a veil, so bright was his countenance. In our second reading, we hear from Peter how he was an eyewitness to the transfiguration of Jesus. And in our Gospel reading from Luke, we hear the story to which Peter refers. Jesus has gone up to a mountain top, taking Peter and James and John along with him. The three disciples are tired and “weighed down with sleep”; I can imagine them struggling to stay alert, to keep their eyes open, jerking back to consciousness when they realize that they are nodding off. At just such a moment, struggling to stay awake, they realize that they are not alone with Jesus, no indeed; they are in the company of not only Jesus, but also Moses and Elijah, who are talking with Jesus. As they watch in wonder they see that Jesus’ clothing has become a dazzling white, and his face has changed, radiating glory.

Peter, being Peter, is enthralled by the sight of Jesus with Moses and Elijah, and suggests that they make booths for each of them and stay right there on the mountain. But clearly Peter has missed the point, for even as he speaks, a cloud comes over them and God speaks, saying, “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him,” echoing the word heard at Jesus’ baptism. And then, Moses and Elijah being gone, Jesus leads the disciples back down the mountain, where they do not speak of what they have seen.

The word “transfiguration” is not one that is in our everyday vocabulary. Merriam-Webster defines transfiguration as a change in appearance or form, a metamorphosis, and certainly this describes what happened to Jesus—and to Moses in our OT reading. Their appearance was transformed; they were transfigured as it were by being in the presence of God in a direct and special way.

Jesus’ transfiguration has all sorts of significance for his disciples and for those early hearers’ of the Gospel who struggled to fully grasp what the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus really meant. The significance of the appearance of Moses and Elijah on the mountain top with Jesus would not be lost on them—here was confirmation that Jesus was the fulfillment of the Law and of the Prophets. The affirmation from God that Jesus was indeed his son, echoing the voice from heaven at the time of his baptism, was like icing on the cake. This story must have been both moving and reassuring to Jesus’ early followers and to Christians down through time.

I think it’s still a powerful and moving story for us today, but for me, the real message isn’t so much in the change that came over Jesus, but rather in the transformation that must have taken place in the disciples. Here are three followers of Jesus, three men who have witnessed his teaching and his healing and his praying; they’ve heard him say, indirectly perhaps, who he was, and they’ve heard him say what his ultimate fate will be. And they’ve struggled to understand what it all meant. Now, on this mountain top, they’ve had a glimpse of the meaning, a glimpse of Jesus in all his glory, in the full glory of God. Surely they too were transformed by this. So why did they not speak of it again? Why did they not run down the mountain to share this amazing story with the other disciples, and with the followers who flocked around Jesus? Why, instead, their silence?

All too often, I think, encounters with God are portrayed as something dramatic and immediately obviously life changing. A lightening bolt strikes, God speaks, and one becomes a different person internally and externally. I don’t want to say that encounters with God can’t be like this, but I think the transfiguration story tells us that they don’t have to be. Peter and James and John witness an encounter with the divine, with the full glory of God, an experience that could not fail to leave its mark, and yet their behavior is not immediately changed. Indeed, they are strangely silent about what they’ve seen and heard. No matter how dramatic and transformative this experience with God was, it didn’t send the disciples running down the mountain to proclaim it. Rather, it seems, the transformation took hold slowly. Peter and James and John held onto it, they lived with it and they assented to it and because they assented to it, gradually it became part of their reality, a reality that guided the course of their lives. Their transfiguration was obvious not in radiant faces so much as in radiant lives—lives lived out as faithful followers of Jesus who helped to spread the gospel message. Their assent to God, and the slow and gradual nature of their transformation that comes with it, stand as a paradigm for us and the way encounters with the divine change us as well.

Few of us will be taken to the mountain top to meet Jesus and Moses and Elijah face to face, but all of us will encounter God somewhere in our lives. For some, it may be a dramatic and bold encounter; for others it may be quieter and more understated, for some it may go unnoticed until we look back on it. We may encounter God in our worship at Saint Mary’s, in our prayers or scripture readings or when we come to the table to receive the Eucharist. We may encounter God in our “every day jobs”, in our families, while walking on the beach, or while sailing or fly fishing or playing ball, or while doing nothing at all. No matter where or how we encounter God, it can be transforming. Like the disciples we may not immediately go running to tell others what has happened but like the disciples we will be changed if we pay attention, if we give assent to the change God is working in our lives. And that change worked by God can transform the whole of our lives. It may not be immediate and dramatic, but it will happen.

One of our most powerful and most transformative encounters with God comes at our baptism. Many of us don’t remember our baptisms, and many of us don’t recall feeling transformed by them at the time. But when we are baptized by water in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and marked as Christ’s own forever, we are indeed transfigured; we are indeed changed for ever. Just as the change effected in the disciples at the Transfiguration wasn’t at first obvious to others, so too the change worked in us at our baptisms may not be obvious to the world, or even to us at first. But changed we are, and over time we will grow into the transformed persons God is calling us to be, we will grow into our life in Christ.

In just a few minutes Emma and Sarah, daughters of David and Seth will be presented for baptism. We will incorporate them fully into the household of God, and mark them as Christ’s own forever. My prayer for Emma and Sarah as we do this is that their encounter with God in their baptisms may be truly transformative. May God imbue Emma and Sarah with the grace and love that will enable them to grow in faith and stature, and like Peter and James and John, may they continue to experience the transformative grace and power of God’s love in their lives, today and always.

AMEN