The Transfiguring Holiness of God
Transfiguration Sunday, March 2, 2014 (Matthew 17:1-9)
I wonder if you have ever experienced, been intensely aware of the holiness of God? Such an encounter can happen in a number of ways.
I remember one day, going to visit a parishioner. It was spring time in Saskatchewan. The snow was melting quickly, the sunlight was just beginning to contain noticeable warmth and everything was returning from its five month dormancy to the abundance of life. Even the robins were returning, singing merrily. I drove into the driveway. I jumped out of my car and was about to ring the doorbell when I saw 3 year old Rodney sitting on the step. At first it was difficult to recognize him. You see Rodney's mom had been busy. And so he had been playing, unattended in what last week had been their back yard rink, but which now had been transformed into a mucky quagmire. So when Rodney met me, all I could see of him were the whites of his eyes and when he opened his mouth his very white teeth. He smiled and said, "Hello Pastor Tim". In his very next sentence the holiness of God crashed into me. Three year old Rodney asked me in his complete mucky state, "Pator Tim, DO YOU KNOW THAT GOD MADE EVERYTHING?"
In that moment as I looked at him, I realized, just as if a shot of lightning had struck me, that certainly God made Rodney and everything but now in a way that I had never realized before. In that moment I was humbled by the holiness of God in that little boy....
Sometimes when the holiness of God strikes us – we are moved to fear. I remember being inside a large inner city church at 1 o'clock in the morning. I was then very young, merely 23 years old. I was preparing my very first funeral sermon – in a tiny little office. There wasn't any one else around. The entire church, save for my office/closet was encased in darkness.
The man who had died was elderly. He had been born in Sweden, baptized as an infant under the auspices of a Lutheran congregation. But later, when he came to Canada he had become a Jehovah's Witness. He had remained in their fellowship for over fifty years until just three years prior to his death, when he had chosen to leave. Now he had died. His wife according to his wishes had requested that a Lutheran Pastor preside at his funeral. Needless to say, I was afraid. I had hardly been to any funerals myself. Now on my own, with my supervisor holidaying in Europe I was to speak to this man's family. I was struggling. I was asking God for guidance. aI didn't know what to say or do, or even what Scriptural passages to choose.
But then as I was sitting in my office I had the sense that Jesus himself was sitting in the front pew of that large church. On the one hand his presence was comforting. I wasn't alone! But on the other hand, his presence was utterly terrifying. The risen Lord sitting there in "my" church. He who knew me, who knew my thoughts and feeling, all my shortcomings. I was so scared I couldn't even go out and see if he was actually sitting there. Yet I could feel his presence intensely for about fifteen minutes.
Ah, yes the holiness of God – and the reality of our lives - so less than holy!
Perhaps that's some of what we hear from Peter, James and John as Jesus is seen with Moses and Elijah and then TRANSFIGURED before their very eyes. AT first in Matthew's account they seem to at least be able to remain standing as this is occurring. But then God's voice COMES OUT OF THE CLOUD, "This is my Son, the Beloved, LISTEN TO HIM". At that, Peter, James and John fall on their faces. Who can blame them?
We might know this experience, at least figuratively if not literally. We fall on our faces – hurt people we love, forget God, think very unkind things about people without even really knowing them or understanding why they are acting the way they are. Then relationships are severed, or, we slink off trying to justify our action or inaction in our own minds. God can see all of that. God does see all of that. When we realize this, we can literally fall on our knees, our faces and ask God's forgiveness. We are responsible for what we do, for what we don't do.
So, when we observe those 3 disciples this morning, they have just seen Jesus transfigured, hobnobbing with Moses and Elijah. They have also been enveloped by the cloud of God's presence and now have fallen on their faces. They are literally paralyzed. They sense their mortality in the face of the immortal, their sinfulness in the face of the holy.
But God, through the agency of God's own beloved, His Son, doesn't leave those early disciples or us in that state. God's own Son, approaches James and John and touches them. Then he speaks to them – GET UP, STOP BEING PARALYZED. NO LONGER LAY ON YOUR FACES. COME ON, LET'S GO BACK out of the cloud, to the other realities of life. Jesus has important things for Peter, James and John to do. The risen Jesus also has important things for us to do. He has the capacity to raise us up from wherever we have fallen on our faces – to experience new life in the midst of any and all of life.
Sometimes the very holiness of God surrounds us but we are so busy, so afraid, so convinced that "life" is up to us, that we miss beholding God.
Be careful! Behold the holiness of God surround us as water splashes over us reminding us of our baptism. We are God's children, called to listen to God's own Son in so many ways. Sometimes his voice appears in the voices of others, in the Words of Scripture, in the bread and the wine, where MIRACULOUSLY JESUS GIVES HIMSELF UP TO DEATH FOR YOU AND ME SO THAT WE CAN BE RECONCILED TO GOD AND TO EACH OTHER. THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE CAN EXPERIENCE NEW LIFE.
Luther has great insight when he says that we are to fear and love God: fear in the sense of AWE, REVERENCE, RESPECT. There is no other God. Nor is God about to fit into or be contained by our minds, our understanding, our work at logic. Only God can lead us through holiness, and all the ickiness of life to love and forgiveness, to hope and meaning, to love and courage. THANKS BE TO GOD, FOR CHRIST'S SAKE, Amen.