After seeing Jesus’ glory revealed on the mountain top, Peter, James, and John kept silent and told no one what they had seen. Maybe they were Colts fans? As if New Orleanians need a reason to celebrate, the Saints victory in the Super Bowl erupted a jubilant celebration across the city that might end . . . well, I’m not quite sure when. Saints fans have done anything but kept silent. Matthew Albright, opinion editor of the LSU Reveille put it this way, “You can hear the bands marching down Canal Street. This isn’t sophisticated, subtle music. This isn’t the kind of music you politely bob your head to or tap your feet to. This is loud, proud, raw and wild like rolling thunder—music you can feel in your bones and in your blood . . . there’s music everywhere, on every corner of every street. There’s music in the bars and restaurants—music in the streets and on the sidewalks. There are all kinds of songs being sung in all kinds of styles and keys, but they’re all up-beat, they’re all jubilant, and they’re all meant for dancing.” This is the kind of celebration which breaks forth after years of suffering. This is Miriam on the shore of the Red Sea singing, “Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; horse and rider he has thrown into the sea.” This is David dancing before the Ark of the Covenant as it returns from Philistine exile. This is John the Baptist leaping in Elizabeth’s womb at the sound of Mary’s voice. This is Easter Sunday when the tomb is empty and Mary runs to tell the disciples the news. But . . . but we’re not there yet.
The Epiphany Season is like an underwhelming soy burger patty stuck between two thick, delicious pieces of Wonder Bread. It’s the valley to two great pillars of the church. It’s the church’s planning period between Christmas and Lent. Of course, it’s not really the church’s planning period before Lent . . . but it kind of is. We just don’t know what to do with Epiphany. The season begins dramatically with Jesus coming out of the waters hearing God’s voice say, “You are my beloved son.” The season ends gloriously with Jesus descending the mountain, transfigured, again hearing God’s voice say, “This is my son, listen to him.” But the in-between is so . . . in-between. Even preschool calendar publishers have a tough time with Epiphany. February has a big red heart. March has a four-leaf clover. January has a snowflake because it’s cold. Epiphany and the Transfiguration go hand in hand because each are difficult to describe and quantify and explain.
Jesus goes up the mountain about eight days after teaching the disciples. Did you get that . . . about eight days. That’s so very Epiphany. He didn’t travel eight days later. It was about eight days. Eh, a little over a week later, Jesus goes up the mountain with Peter, James, and John to pray. While he was praying the appearance of his face begins to change, and his clothes begin to shine. Then Jesus finds himself between two pillars of the faith, Moses and Elijah, the Law and the Prophets. Jesus is in-between the organized institution and the free-moving witness. But this is nothing new for Jesus. It’s not that Jesus has one foot in divinity and one foot in humanity. He has both feet in divinity and both feet in humanity. It is we who wrestle with Jesus, Moses, and Elijah glowing in the clouds and Peter, James, and John hiding the foggy darkness. This is how Walter Bruggeman puts it in his prayer, “Awed to Heaven, rooted to earth.” “This is how it is when we praise you. We join the angels in praise and we keep our feet in time and place . . . awed to heaven, rooted in earth. We are daily stretched between communion with you and our bodied lives, spent but alive, summond and cherished but stretched between. And we are reminded that before us there has been this One truly divine, truly human . . . dwellers in time and space. We are thankful for Christ, and glad to be in his company. Alleluia. Amen.”
This is what Peter wants to do. He sees Jesus between the pillars of Moses and Elijah, and he wants to worship by building pillars for all three. Peter wants to remember this moment and all its glory, and who can blame him? Jesus, their guy, their rabbi, their Lord, is in the clouds speaking with Moses and Elijah. It’s like Drew Brees on Oprah, you want to TIVO it and keep it forever. But Jesus comes down from the mountain and turns his face toward Jerusalem and the cross. From this moment on, everything will change.
Just a few short verses ago, Jesus asked the disciples who they thought he was. Peter said, “You are the Messiah,” and now Peter is beginning to realize what this means. Jesus begins speaking about his death. Peter doesn’t want to hear it. He wants to build pillars. He wants to worship this moment. He wants to remember the glory and the awe, and don’t we? Maybe this is why Transfiguration Sunday is the last Sunday before Lent. It’s a foreshadowing of Christ’s glory which is to come, and maybe we, too, need this before turning our face toward Jerusalem and to our own finitude just a few short days from now. Why must we move down the mountain, Lord?
Fred Craddock put it this way: “Sometimes a child falls down and skins a knee or an elbow, then runs crying to his mother. The mother picks up the child and says—in what is the oldest myth in the world—Let me kiss it and make it better, as if mother has magic saliva or something. She picks up the child, kisses the skinned place, holds the child in her lap, and all is well. Did her kiss make it well? No. It was that ten minutes in her lap. Just sit in the lap of love and see the mother crying. Mother, why are you crying? I’m the one who hurt my elbow. Because you hurt, the mother says, I hurt. That does more for a child than all the bandages and all the medicine, in all the world, just sitting on the lap. What is the cross? Can I say it this way? It is to sit for a few minutes on the lap of God, who hurts because you hurt . . . I have to preach that. Peter . . . I have to do this. Without this journey, the world will never be healed.
Maybe Epiphany is an underwhelming soy patty between two delicious slices of Wonder bread, but without it, it wouldn’t be a sandwich at all. J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Two Towers is a book almost exclusively comprised of walking. While on the road Frodo and Sam have a vision. They come up to a statue of a king of old whose head had been knocked to the ground by the villains in Mordor. “Standing there for a moment filled with dread Frodo became aware that a light was shining; he saw it glowing on Sam’s face beside him. Turning towards it, he saw, the road to Osgiliath running almost as straight as a stretched ribbon down, into the West. There . . . the Sun was sinking, finding at last the hem of the great slow-rolling pall of cloud. The brief glow fell upon a huge sitting figure, still and solemn as the great stone kings. They years had gnawed it, and violent hands had maimed it. It’s head was gone, and in its place was set in mockery a round rough-hewn stone, one large red eye. Suddenly, Frodo saw the old king’s head. Look, the King has got a crown again. They cannot conquer forever!”
Without this journey, without this foreshadowing of victory, Sam and Frodo might not have made it to Mordor. Without this journey, without seeing the mountain top glory and being led off the mountain, we might not make it to the pillar of Easter. Jesus stands between the pillars of the Law and the Prophets. We stand between the glory on the mountain and the fog of humanity. Today, we worship between the pillars of Christmas and Lent. True, today is considered a transitional Sunday in the life of the church. It is not because it is unimportant. It is not just filler between point A and point B. It is the reason there is a point B. Thanks be to God. Amen.