The sermon will be a post on our Facebook page. Please click on link to view sermon.
Finding God in the Clouds
We often speak of mountaintop experiences as those joyous times we look forward to with excitement and look back upon fondly, such as summer camp or an annual hiking trip. The mountaintop moments in today’s readings were different: awe-inspiring, yes, but also full of devouring fires, clouds, and fear. Vision is obscured, the familiar becomes unknown, and nothing is the same. People get lost in fires, clouds, and fear, unable to find their way, but God’s presence is where we get both lost and found. Many biblical encounters with God involved fear, pointing to the awesome reality of God that is much more than the gentle shepherd we often imagine (though God is that, too). God is, as C. S. Lewis famously said, “not a tame lion” (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, London: HarperCollins Children’s Books, 2001, p. 197). The truth is, we can no more plan our mountaintop times with God than we can stay there forever, as much as we think we would like to. God’s place is to invite, ours to respond, faces bowed to the ground.
Eventually, of course, the time comes to leave that mountain, walking with Jesus down to the valley and getting dusty with the ashes of daily life. Many churches symbolically “roll up the Alleluias” today, recognizing that this is the end of a glorious season celebrating Christ’s light and the entrance to a no-less-real season of Jesus’ and our own lives, the “valley” season of Lent. But that doesn’t mean there is nothing to do down in the valley. On the contrary, the traditional disciplines of Lent—fasting, prayer, and gifts to the poor—all help us maintain the eyes, ears, and heart to see and hear God whenever and however God appears.
Gospel: Matthew 17:1-9
Shortly before he enters Jerusalem, where he will be crucified, Jesus is revealed to Peter, James, and John in a mountaintop experience of divine glory called the transfiguration.
1Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves. 2And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white. 3Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. 4Then Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” 5While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!” 6When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear. 7But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Get up and do not be afraid.” 8And when they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone.
9As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus ordered them, “Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.”