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The Last Sunday After The Epiphany (Quinquagesima)
O God, who before the passion of thy only-begotten Son didst reveal his glory upon the holy mount: Grant unto us that we, beholding by faith the light of his countenance, may be strengthened to bear our cross, and be changed into his likeness from glory to glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
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Scripture citation(s): Matthew 17:1-9; Exodus 24:12-18; II Peter 1:16-21
A Sermon by
Fr. Spurlock
on
Matthew 17:1-9; Exodus 24:12-18; II Peter 1:16-21
✛
From the Mountains to the Plain
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When Moses was summoned to the top of Mount Sinai he was given six days to prepare before God revealed himself. A cloud descended and the glory of the Lord appeared to Moses causing his face to glow with the reflected glory of God. But after communing with God, receiving his wisdom in the form of laws written on stone tablets, Moses had to leave the mountain and get back down to life on the plain. Mountaintop experiences don’t last forever.
After running away in fear from the wrath of Ahab’s wife, and after a period of preparation in the Negev, Elijah went up Mount Sinai to meet the Lord. The wind whirled, the earth shook, fire rained down from heaven, but Elijah couldn’t discern the presence of the Lord in any of these goings on. It was in a still small voice that he felt God’s presence, and God asked Elijah a simple question: what are you doing up here? Your life and work are down below. So, Elijah descended the mountain and once again took up his prophetic work down on the plain. Mountaintop experiences don’t last.
After Jesus was baptized; called his disciples to follow him; imparted wisdom unlike anything folks had ever heard before; performed numerous miracles from the curious blighting of a fig tree to the awesome raising of the dead; all of which excited people and got all the nation wondering who is he, at some point Jesus had to break the news to his closest followers that all this was going to end in a way they did not expect.
In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus breaks this news to them just prior to the account of the transfiguration. The conversation did not go well. Peter, particularly, objects and for his resistance to the news that Jesus will be betrayed and executed, is likened to an enemy of God. The rock on which Jesus hoped to build his church threatens to become a stumbling block. After a strong rebuke by the Lord, Peter, and the others are given six days of preparation to absorb the news that Jesus will die before he takes three of them, including Peter, to the top of a mountain.
Peter, and the other two, James and John, witness a reunion. They are on top of a mountain. And there’s Moses, and Elijah! A cloud has descended. And right in the midst of these giants of the patriarchs and prophets, is their friend, Jesus. And Jesus is talking with the embodiment of the law and the prophets as if they are friends. They are having an old and familiar conversation about an exodus, an exodus that Jesus will lead, and in the midst of it all Jesus’ face is glowing fiercely bright, he is transfigured right before his disciple’s eyes. And then a voice issues from the cloud, “This is my son, hear him.”
The disciples are overwhelmed, they hide their faces; it’s too much for them to bear. But when they look again, Jesus is himself, and he’s telling them it is time to get back down on the plain.
When they were on top of the mountain in the company of the law and the prophets, and could see they were companions of God’s own son, the Christ, Peter suggested they set up some tents or dwelling places. As frightening as it might have seemed, there is another part of us that wouldn’t mind staying, even living on the mountaintop. We want to keep the experience alive, keep God near, let him envelope us. But God keeps reminding us, our life is not to be hid in a cloud ascended above our neighbors, but to be on the plain and in their midst. To seek and follow God’s wisdom and will, to confront idolatry and wickedness, to resist temptation to sin, to fight the devil, and to encourage the faint-hearted, to lift up the lowly, to rouse the faithless, to persevere in running the race of faith that is set before us.
I don’t have to tell you that I am no Moses, I’m no Elijah, and I am certainly no Jesus. But like all of them I once had a mountaintop experience. This is just to point out that our God is a living God, and he his appearances and manifestations to his people didn’t stop with the 22nd chapter of the book of Revelation.
When I was Vicar of my small, heavily indebted, and needy parish in Tennessee, the needs and responsibilities seemed overwhelming at times, such that one day I ran away to the top of a mountain. My wife was with me that day, and watched as everything unfolded. While there, I encountered two figures. The first was a soybean farmer from Missouri who we met hiking a trail in the middle of a lonely forest. At the time of our meeting one of my parish’s most expensive needs, because we had begun farming the large tract of land our church sat on, was for a 1000 gallon water tank mounted on a trailer with a gas powered pump attached, a piece of equipment that even used could run $10,000, and $10,000 is all the money that parish ever had in the bank at any one time. When this farmer and I met on the trail we began talking and I discovered he owned a 1000 gallon water tank mounted on a trailer with a gas powered pump attached, and he gave it to us.
The other figure I met on that trail was the living God, and as he did with Moses in the desert, God permitted me to know, in some small way, what is was like to be longing for water and watch as a rock is struck in the wilderness and water gushes out. That miraculous provision of a water tank in the middle of the wilderness not only furthered our work, but it refreshed my weary soul beyond description.
At the same time as God was refreshing my soul, he was also rebuking me, as he did Elijah, for even being up on the mountain to begin with. My work was down on the plain, and that’s where I needed to be, not trying to run away from my responsibilities. God had called me to this work, would sustain me in it, as he had just proved by this miraculous provision in the wilderness, but he expected me never to be so faithless again. I suppose it would have been nice to pitch a tent and to stay up there on the mountain, communing with the living God, but my life was down on the plain, and in the fields of my parish. It would not do to prolong the mountaintop experience beyond what was necessary.
That’s what these kinds of encounters with God on mountains are, they are brief glimpses of God’s glory, and they are at once harrowing, yet profoundly refreshing for the soul. And they can be immensely helpful for those who live down here on the plain, because life on the plain can be hard. The Lord knows.
When Jesus descended from the mount of transfiguration, he continued his journey to Jerusalem. There he had another mountaintop experience, though nothing as impressive as a Sinai or a Tabor; just a scruffy hill outside the gates of the city where there is no wind, no earthquake, no fire, just the screams and the ringing of hammers on nails. It’s all so harrowing, some people weep and hide their faces for shame, but some shout and deride, there are demons there. Jesus thirsts, but there is no Moses to strike a rock, his enemies surround him, but there is no Elijah to slay them, it’s just God, up there all by himself, and God is dying, he’s dying. This isn’t the way it’s supposed to be. It’s not supposed to end like this. God doesn’t die on mountains, he forms them. He is the whirlwind, he is the earthquake, he is the consuming fire, he is not nailed to a tree, God doesn’t breathe a last breath, he can’t give up the ghost.
Jesus can’t die.
But he does. And there is darkness, and silence.
A soldier walks over to Jesus and thrusts a spear into his side and water gushes out.
And then the earth begins to quake again.
And we remember… mountaintop experiences don’t last…
Thanks be to God.
There’s more life to be lived, even after death, down here on the plain.
