Preached to the Congregational Church in Exeter, U. C. C., on Transfiguration Sunday, March 2, 2003, by Michael L. C. Henderson, pastor.

II Kings 2:1-14; II Peter 1:16-19; Mark 9:2-9

And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them.

                      –Mark 9:2-3

     Sounds like a detergent commercial, and it suggests a terrific slogan for an evangelism drive: Jesus gets your laundry whiter than white! That oughta pack 'em into the church. But white is the color of martyrdom. In the Book of Revelation, thousands of people in white robes from all tribes and nations and languages appear before the throne of God, worshiping and singing, and the angel says these are those who have suffered and died when their faith brought them into conflict with the ways of the world.

     So this transfiguration of Jesus is a prefiguration of his death on a cross. In the Greek the word is metamorphosis. In English that's a biological term, for the process by which a caterpillar becomes a butterfly — a marvelous happening, except in the hands of Franz Kafka, who wrote that story about the man who went to sleep and woke up changed into a gigantic cockroach.

     That's ugly, but there's ugliness in this transfiguration too. It pretends to be a glimpse of glory for Peter, James, and John, but it portends cruelty, injustice, pain, grief, abandonment, abuse of power, and murder. Or could it possibly be both what it pretends to be and what it portends? I think so. I think that's the whole point of it, that Christ's glory is precisely his willingness to lose his life rather than betray God.

     But it's a point that Peter doesn't get: He doesn't see the omen of martyrdom in it, he sees only the glory, which is why he wants to prolong the moment, he babbles about building little shelters for Moses and Elijah and Jesus so they can bivouac there and hang out for a spell. He's already forgotten how Jesus warned him of what was coming, and he, Peter, rejected the warning in horror, and Jesus told him to stop talking the Devil's talk and thinking the Devil's thoughts.

     And of course, Peter on that mountaintop is a stand-in for you and for me, who are no more eager to "get it" now than he was then. But remember that eventually the memory of this Transfiguration became for him, as he wrote, the dawn of a new day and the rising of the morning star in his heart, and God intends that for us too.

     Moses and Elijah were there, Moses the lawgiver and Elijah the prophet. The Law and the Prophets, or in other words the Hebrew Bible, the Bible of Peter, James, John and Jesus. All of Scripture is witness to the meaning of Jesus' passion and death, and we who undertake to follow Christ must read and understand all of Scripture through that lens.

     This Transfiguration story is the turning point of the Gospel and also of the Christian calendar: Epiphany season gives way to Lent. The shining light of the Messiah is swept into the world's darkness. And this mountaintop moment is a gift to Peter, James, and John, to encourage them, to recharge their spiritual batteries for what's to come, because they will need it.

     And so will we. What we ritualize in Lent is actually a life-event that we all go through more than once — some might even say continually. It's inevitable that those who trust in a just and loving God will find themselves at odds with all that is unfair and cold-hearted in the world and in themselves, and the tension will tear at their souls, and it will cost them dearly.

     Given the cost, it's not enough that we should be mere observers of this bright epiphany of Christ. The metamorphosis has to get inside us. The elements of our makeup have to be re-arranged in such a way that faithfulness is not just an option or obligation but an internal necessity, an essential aspect of our nature. If that doesn't happen, then the Law, the Prophets, the Scriptures, the tradition, the covenant and the church will sooner or later get hijacked by sin and become a cheerleader for the way we already are, have been and wish to remain. It happens to every religion; why should it not happen to Christian religion? It happens to every culture and nation; how do we dare to think of ours as the exception?

     A research physicist who happens to be a religious man — a Methodist — was interviewed by a magazine. He said a professor of quantum mechanics once asked him, "Is quantum mechanics theory a deep truth?" And he said, "No, that's a simple truth. 'No man is an island' — that's a deep truth. 'Every man is an island' — that is also a deep truth. Scripture doesn't tell us about the wave nature of particles; scripture tells us about really deep things."

     The really deep things are the things that determine your apprehension of reality, your experience of the world, and what you do in response to it, the way you go about being in it, being part of it. Your life and your soul take their shape from these things. They change you. They transfigure you.

     St. Francis of Assisi underwent such a metamorphosis that he became a permanent embarrassment to the church that venerates him but tramples daily on his example with its smug piety, wealth and arrogance — and I don't mean just the Catholic church! It's said of Francis that during the Fifth Crusade, accompanied by only one monk named Illuminatus (which means The One on Whom the Light Shines), he marched right through the battle lines to the other side, into the Muslim camp, and into the tent of the Sultan al Malik al Kamil, and announced that he was there to care for the Sultan's wounded and dying soldiers because Jesus loved them. The Sultan was so astonished at his stupidity that he didn't kill Francis as he so richly deserved, but seized the moment to offer a truce to Cardinal Pelagio, who was the Pope's commanding general.

     It didn't work — the Cardinal took it as a sign of weakness and re-attacked, and the carnage was awful. Unfortunately, transfiguration isn't necessarily contagious, which is why faithful behavior can only be maintained for its own sake, and not for any impact it might have on events. But not we're not in it for the results, are we? We're in it because we've had a glimpse of God's glory in Christ, a taste of the Kingdom, and it has re-arranged us.

     Amen