What can we say Feb. 19? Transfiguration Sunday

 As we head into Lent, I thought I'd commend to you a fabulous new book of Lenten sermons (beginning with Transfiguration Sunday!), Being Transfigured, by Chris E.W. Green, a sparkling theologian I admire immensely. 

    Exodus 24:12-18. Why does my mind drift to the Busch beer ad from the 80’s, revived for the 2022 Super Bowl: “Head for the mountains.” God invites Moses to come up “on” the mountain; but then Exodus 24 says they went up “into” the mountain. The Hebrew isn’t all that significant. But I wonder. We think of going “on” a mountain. But this mountain? It’s a deeper experience. You go “into” the mountain.

   Such mountainous heights remind me of something I wrote in my book on hymns (Unrevealed Until Its Season). “Roger Scruton, philosopher of beauty, contrasts the serene beauty of a green meadow with a ‘wind-blown mountain crag… We experience the vastness, the power, the threatening majesty of the natural world, and feel our own littleness in the face of it.’ This we call ‘sublime,’ which isn’t super-beautiful, but a beauty that humbles, even frightens you a little. It’s thrilling and inspiring, but it underlines your finitude, your frailty.”

   Isn’t God like such a sublime mountain crag? We are in awe. We tremble a little, and wonder if it’s safe. You can’t just jog to the top. You feel small, and yet drawn into the wonder. How perfect that so many mountain scenes figure prominently in God’s revealing God’s mind and grandeur to us.

   Notice there are 6 days of waiting in a cloud before the Lord spoke! Time. Sabbath timing. Such is Moses’ experience – and his on behalf of all Israel, and of us all.

   2 Peter 1:16-21. The apology here, “We did not follow cleverly devised myths” – which is what the Transfiguration sounds like! The claim from whoever wrote this epistle, not sounding late so much as the word of one of Jesus’ real disciples: “We had been eyewitnesses of his majesty.” Richard Bauckham’s extensive study of the Gospels indicates we have good cause to think of them as based on actual eyewitness accounts – which is a big deal, echoed in today’s text!

   Jesus, in this eyewitness account, “was honored by God the Father” with the voice from heaven: “This is my Son, my Beloved,” a declamation God offered not once but twice: at the Baptism of our Lord, and at his Transfiguration. We are told, at such magical, pivotal, transformative moments, not merely to admire Jesus, but to “listen to him,” to be attentive to him as to a lamp shining in a dark place (Psalm 119:105).

   Matthew 17:1-9 is an endlessly great and generative text for preachers – but not if we have some moral take-away or point. In The Beauty of the Word, I suggest that preaching shouldn’t be so much about us, our faith, our life as disciples, but about God. The Transfiguration is the parade text: the Bible, and thus sermons, should be first of all about God, not us! The takeaway? This threesome are so overwhelmed by God’s unmitigated presence that their respond is simply “They fell to the ground in awe.” Period. I want to preach the sermon that causes my people to be in awe of God. Period.

  So speaking of awe: I just finished Dacher Keltner's remarkable Awe! This deep dive into what Awe is – via storytelling and science - is fabulous. “Awe is the emotion we experience when we encounter vast mysteries that we don’t understand.” “Awe reveals that our current knowledge is not up to the task of making sense of what we have encountered.” Lucky us, because “we can find awe anywhere.” This “need for awe is wired into our brains and bodies, and finding awe is easy if we just wonder.” 

   He distinguishes “eight wonders of life.” Before romping through all 8, I wondered which Jesus' transfiguration fit. I suspect it's all 8! Best, maybe, is “other people’s courage, kindness, strength, or overcoming obstacles” – or “moral beauty." Examples abound, from escaping Auschwitz to firemen on 9/11 to Desmond Tutu; think Fr. Greg Boyle or Special Olympics. Then there is “collective effervescence,” like weddings, sports celebrations, reunions, joining in a “wave” – all involving other people. Of course, there is “nature,” from cataclysmic events like a thunderstorm or a tsunami, or the ocean or mushrooms in a forest, or a double rainbow. Then music – which taps something subterranean and inexplicable. Visual design is another wonder: buildings, a Mayan pyramid, a dam, a carved angel, the crafted, crafting and crafter all amazing. Spiritual awe happens, a moving service or an encounter with the numinous. Life and death: so birth, and being at the bedside when your mother dies. And finally epiphanies, sudden moments when we understand essential truths about life. 

   Sometimes it’s a realization, like the moment that dawned on Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward that “Oh my god, this president is going to be impeached.” Or the moment when someone's true self emerges in a crisis or grief. I love it in John Irving’s A Prayer for Owen Meany when Owen responds to key moments with THE SHIVERS. Awe gives you goosebumps, chills, or you shudder; it takes your breath away, and you can’t summon the words to tell about it will, although you wish you did. Maybe you emit a “Whoa” or “Oh my.”

   Keltner points out that in gathering stories of awe from people of 26 cultures around the world, not one mentioned money, Facebook, a smartphone or consumer purchases. Studies show people with less wealth feel awe more frequently. Also, medically, awe evokes humility and joy – but also “regions of the brain that are associated with excesses of the ego, self-criticism, anxiety and depression, quiet down” when we experience awe. As we cultivate and find awe, we become more open to new ideas, more curious, and attentive to the strengths of other people. 

   In preaching, I wonder about the suggestion that any time anybody feels awe, they get a glimpse of what the disciples saw in the Transfiguration. It's a reach - but using the text to cultivate the habit of looking for everyday awe? Okay, enough Keltner for now!

   Some other items worth pondering in our text for today: it was “6 days later,” just as our Old Testament text, Exodus 24, did not jumpstart until six days, waiting for the Sabbath, had passed. The 6 days here are also after the Caesarea Philippi conversation on Who Jesus is, and why he matters, all that gloomy talk about Jesus suffering, taking up your cross, and more.

   At such a pregnant moment, Jesus was “transfigured.” The Greek is more interesting: metamorphothe – and yes, if you don’t know Greek, it looks and sounds like “metamorphosis,” a crusty thing opening into a beautiful butterfly. Amazing. Miraculous. Jesus happening.

   His clothes dazzled, but so did his face, shining so brightly, enacting that classic benediction from Numbers 6: “May the Lord make his face to shine upon you.” It happened to these disciples, and perhaps happens to those who are attentive, attuned to Jesus and his appearing.

    “Suddenly” (!) Moses and Elijah appeared. Centuries old dudes! They may symbolize Law and Prophets. Or they are the two guys in the Old Testament who didn’t obviously die and get buried. They were the mountain men, like Christ, familiar with such mystical moments on this high place. They’d been on that mountain, they know its perils, the trembling before the mystery, surviving the annihilating presence.

    They were “talking with one another.” About… what…? We wish we knew! And we wish we could eavesdrop on that conversation! Fair for the preacher to ask – and without attempting an answer. In preaching we simply can reiterate Peter’s ridiculously wild understatement: “It is good that we are here.”