Down the Mountain

Mark 9:2-9 (NRSV) 2 Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, 3 and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them. 4 And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus. 5 Then Peter said to Jesus, "Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah." 6 He did not know what to say, for they were terrified. 7 Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, "This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!" 8 Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them any more, but only Jesus. 9 As they were coming down the mountain, he ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead. Picture I started reading this week's lectionary text feeling like an outsider: what on earth is going on here (are even still ‘on earth’)? I re-read Mark’s first eight chapters and the rest of the ninth, but this transfiguration episode felt just as bizarre, just as “out of nowhere.” I guess the uneasy feelings put me in good company with the disciples, who “did not know what to say.” Peter being Peter speaks the first words though, following his impulse all the way through: “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah." Peter did not fully understand the mystery in front of him, but he saw that whatever it was, it was good. He desired nothing but to stay put, to be with God in the fullness of his glory. I started to think about how often this is my desire too: I travel up the coast to Big Sur and think to myself, “Wow, this is beautiful. God’s beauty and power are on rich display. I don’t want to move”; or, I sit around a table with fellow seminarians talking about Julian of Norwhich’s theology and I think, “It is good for me to be here. I'll just dwell in the academy forever.” ​ These intense moments of awe and glimpses of divine glory are necessary. Although Peter says, “It is good for us to be here,” Jesus is the one who desires Peter’s presence first. Jesus is the one who takes the disciples up the mountain. Jesus chooses to bring them into this holy moment, having them bear witness and receive assurance that this is indeed the Beloved Son. Sometimes we forget God’s desire for us. God’s desire for us to see God as God truly is. Creation is certainly one way the divine delights in transforming themselves, as Bernard of Clairvaux says. It makes me wonder what sort of moments of transfiguration generations lose as we quite literally remove mountaintops for coal mining. Damage to creation limits divine demonstration and ultimately is a significant loss of intimate interaction with God. Picture Damage to creation limits divine demonstration and ultimately is a significant loss of intimate interaction with God. Jesus does send the disciples back down the mountain though. We don’t experience divine glory for ourselves, but to be sent back into the world. Pope Francis captures the point quite well, and more explicitly involves the third person of the trinity: “To put it simply: the Holy Spirit bothers us. Because he moves us, he makes us walk, he pushes the Church to go forward. And we are like Peter at the Transfiguration: 'Ah, how wonderful it is to be here like this, all together!' ... But don't bother us. We want the Holy Spirit to doze off ... we want to domesticate the Holy Spirit. And that's no good. because he is God, he is that wind which comes and goes and you don't know where. He is the power of God, he is the one who gives us consolation and strength to move forward. But: to move forward! And this bothers us. It's so much nicer to be comfortable.” Indeed, this is always the hard realization, that, despite what we are so often told, faith is never privatized. In this liturgical season of Epiphany we are celebrating the manifold “manifestations” of who God is: starting as the baby migrant in a manger, closing as the glorified and transfigured Son of Man. Now, we head into the season of Lent, heading down the mountaintop into harsher realities. ​ The disciples are explicitly told to listen to Jesus as they re-enter the masses and head down the mountain. It is a simple, but difficult task. God gives them, like he so often gives us, a foretaste of the Kingdom, of everlasting life. The challenge is to remember and see that the beautiful transfigured Christ is the Christ who claims to be present in the lowly, the least of these, the places of affliction. Can we carry our mountaintop experiences of God’s beauty into the valleys before us? Where is God’s voice calling us to move in the creation? How are we to surrender our comforts and desires to stay put? Jesus likes to keep us on our toes and is determined to stretch our limited imaginations, which we so desperately need in the Anthropocene. We are not outsiders to this strange scene, but likewise receive the invitation to come, see the Good, and be empowered as lights to the world. ​