Mardi Gras / Transfiguration
February 11, 2024
William G. Carter
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, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them. And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus. 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.” He did not know what to say, for they were terrified. Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!” Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them any more, but only Jesus. 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.
I’m in church, so it’s time to confess. I have been preaching the Gospel for thirty-nine years, yet I’ve never been able to wrangle this text. It is wild. It is unmanageable. It is so big that it cannot be reduced to a simple lesson. What should we do with it?
Jesus climbs a high mountain with the three boys in his inner circle. At the top of the hill, he begins to shine. It was more than the glistening perspiration on his brow. Jesus lit up like a solar flare. Peter, James, and John froze with their eyes wide open. They never saw anything like that back in their hometown of Capernaum.
They knew Jesus, walked with Jesus, ate with Jesus. Never seen him catch fire before! It was such a strange moment, the Gospel writers had to invent a word to describe it: “transfiguration.” Mark turns it into a verb, saying Jesus was transfigured, and never quite explaining what that means. Did he change into something else? Or, in the words of the poet Madeleine L’Engle, did they see him the way he was, the way he always was? Your guess is as good as mine.
It's a moment when the distinction between past, present, and future collapses. Moses and Elijah appear suddenly. They had been gone for centuries, but here they were, completely alive. Matthew says they were “chatting” with Jesus. Moses, the greatest teacher of God’s Law, and Elijah, the greatest prophet in Israel’s memory speak with Jesus as if they were contemporaries.
And then the moment is gone. It would not be captured or reduced. What we have here is an insight into the nature of spiritual experiences. The insight is this: they come and go. Peter, James, and John see something about Jesus. They hear the Big Voice. Everything is changed. Then it’s back to normal. Well, almost. It’s a new normal, a normal punctured by a heavenly intrusion.
Do we have these experiences, you and me? Seeing Jesus burst into flame? Not likely. At least, not on the top of a mountain in Palestine. But what about a moment of insight? A flash of awareness? A sudden awakening? A burst of holiness? These moments can come. They probably do come – and we shrug them off. Sometimes they get through our defenses, though, and they change everything.
In November, I was invited to a church meeting in Louisville, Kentucky. Since I had been elected the moderator of our local presbytery, somebody figured they should teach me how to moderate. It was a short conference. I have friends who would be there. I was glad to go.
We gathered in the national office of the Presbyterians on the Ohio River. When the opening night reception was over, I decided to stretch my legs. The hotel was just a few blocks away. It was a warm night. So, I took a stroll around the city. There’s an enclosed street mall on South 4th Street, between Liberty Street and Muhammad Ali Boulevard. All the hipsters were hanging out at the Maker’s Mark lounge, the Grolsch microbrewery, and Guy Fieri’s Smokehouse. All those revelers were feeling no pain.
Suddenly, in the midst of all that revelry, I saw it. It’s a street sign that I’ve seen before. On one side, it honors Thomas Merton, the well-published monk who lived in a monastery about an hour south of Louisville. He often went into the city for errands and medical appointments. Frequently, he slipped into a jazz club on Washington Street and enjoyed the music. Merton was a big jazz lover. One side of the sign pays him homage.
It's the other side of the sign that knocks me out. It says, “A Revelation: Merton has a sudden insight at this corner March 18, 1856, that led him to redefine his monastic identity with greater involvement in social justice issues. He was “suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all these people…’ He found them ‘walking around shining like the sun.’”
Another holy moment. He was in a city, not on a mountain. He didn’t see Jesus beaming bright, but for the moment, the people in front of him were “shining like the sun.” Merton knew he loved them as God loved them. Just as the friends who saw Jesus heard God say, “This is my Son, the Beloved.” It was love that set him and them ablaze.
And what do we do with moments like these? For Merton, it signaled that prayer must be joined with action, all in the name of love. He took a stand for voting rights, protested wars that he believed were unjust, and worked to promote understanding between people of differing faiths. It was all about love embodied in shining glory.
For Jesus, the transfiguration was a turning point in his story. It is the hinge upon which the door opens between his work in Galilee to make his way to the cross. Up north in Galilee, Jesus gave himself to healing, teaching, and casting out evil spirits. When he steps off the mountain, he will move toward Jerusalem. There he will give himself in the ultimate sacrifice to set people free from all that enslaves them. For God loved him – and God loved all people – and glory shines brightest in the work of self-giving love.
According to the records that I can find, we have had an annual Mardi Gras service for a dozen years or so. Maybe to you it seems longer. Nobody resisted when I first suggested the idea. It’s a last gasp of joy before the hard work of Lent. It’s a nice break from the winter blahs. Truth be told, the Dixieland music is shaped a lot like our church hymns. In fact, it sounds like what would happen if the choir director had too much caffeine.
I think it’s time that I confess why I cooked up the idea: because I had run out of ideas for talking about the Transfiguration. The event comes around every year on the church calendar. I didn’t know what to say about it. But after a dozen years in, it hangs together a good bit better than I thought it would. We are halfway between Christmas and Easter. The joy of the Nativity now moves toward Cross and Resurrection.
All of it is glued together by this account of a spiritual experience. We didn’t dream it up. Just as we cannot create those moments when they come. Sometimes the Holy Spirit finds us. The lights go on. The glory shines. Something in our souls wakes up. In the ancient words of the psalms, “Steadfast love and faithfulness meet, righteousness and peace kiss one another” (Psalm 85:10).
To make sense of all this, I turn again to Thomas Merton, the Trappist monk and jazz lover. Merton would understand that the Transfiguration of Jesus and our own spiritual experiences dwell together under a huge umbrella that he called “contemplation.” What did he mean by the word contemplation? Here’s what he wrote:
(Contemplation is) life itself, fully awake, fully active, fully aware that it is alive. It is spiritual wonder. It is spontaneous awe at the sacredness of life, of being. It is gratitude for life, for awareness, and for being. It is a vivid realization of the fact that life and being in us proceed from an invisible, transcendent, and infinitely abundant Source. Contemplation is, above all, awareness of the reality of that Source.[1]
What’s he talking about? That God can sneak up on us in silence. Or God can dance with us in jazz. We are not abandoned or cast off. We are beloved, holy beloved. And that love calls us to wake up. To engage. To sink deeply in the work God gives us to do while we keep breathing and dancing. The invitation is for us to come alive, completely alive.
And when the lights go on, even if only to flicker for a moment, there’s nothing in heaven or earth that can take that away, for it is a reminder the Holy One is with us, we are loved, and there is work to do..
(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.
-------------------------------
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, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them. And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus. 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.” He did not know what to say, for they were terrified. Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!” Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them any more, but only Jesus. 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.
I’m in church, so it’s time to confess. I have been preaching the Gospel for thirty-nine years, yet I’ve never been able to wrangle this text. It is wild. It is unmanageable. It is so big that it cannot be reduced to a simple lesson. What should we do with it?
Jesus climbs a high mountain with the three boys in his inner circle. At the top of the hill, he begins to shine. It was more than the glistening perspiration on his brow. Jesus lit up like a solar flare. Peter, James, and John froze with their eyes wide open. They never saw anything like that back in their hometown of Capernaum.
They knew Jesus, walked with Jesus, ate with Jesus. Never seen him catch fire before! It was such a strange moment, the Gospel writers had to invent a word to describe it: “transfiguration.” Mark turns it into a verb, saying Jesus was transfigured, and never quite explaining what that means. Did he change into something else? Or, in the words of the poet Madeleine L’Engle, did they see him the way he was, the way he always was? Your guess is as good as mine.
It's a moment when the distinction between past, present, and future collapses. Moses and Elijah appear suddenly. They had been gone for centuries, but here they were, completely alive. Matthew says they were “chatting” with Jesus. Moses, the greatest teacher of God’s Law, and Elijah, the greatest prophet in Israel’s memory speak with Jesus as if they were contemporaries.
And then the moment is gone. It would not be captured or reduced. What we have here is an insight into the nature of spiritual experiences. The insight is this: they come and go. Peter, James, and John see something about Jesus. They hear the Big Voice. Everything is changed. Then it’s back to normal. Well, almost. It’s a new normal, a normal punctured by a heavenly intrusion.
Do we have these experiences, you and me? Seeing Jesus burst into flame? Not likely. At least, not on the top of a mountain in Palestine. But what about a moment of insight? A flash of awareness? A sudden awakening? A burst of holiness? These moments can come. They probably do come – and we shrug them off. Sometimes they get through our defenses, though, and they change everything.
In November, I was invited to a church meeting in Louisville, Kentucky. Since I had been elected the moderator of our local presbytery, somebody figured they should teach me how to moderate. It was a short conference. I have friends who would be there. I was glad to go.
We gathered in the national office of the Presbyterians on the Ohio River. When the opening night reception was over, I decided to stretch my legs. The hotel was just a few blocks away. It was a warm night. So, I took a stroll around the city. There’s an enclosed street mall on South 4th Street, between Liberty Street and Muhammad Ali Boulevard. All the hipsters were hanging out at the Maker’s Mark lounge, the Grolsch microbrewery, and Guy Fieri’s Smokehouse. All those revelers were feeling no pain.
Suddenly, in the midst of all that revelry, I saw it. It’s a street sign that I’ve seen before. On one side, it honors Thomas Merton, the well-published monk who lived in a monastery about an hour south of Louisville. He often went into the city for errands and medical appointments. Frequently, he slipped into a jazz club on Washington Street and enjoyed the music. Merton was a big jazz lover. One side of the sign pays him homage.
It's the other side of the sign that knocks me out. It says, “A Revelation: Merton has a sudden insight at this corner March 18, 1856, that led him to redefine his monastic identity with greater involvement in social justice issues. He was “suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all these people…’ He found them ‘walking around shining like the sun.’”
Another holy moment. He was in a city, not on a mountain. He didn’t see Jesus beaming bright, but for the moment, the people in front of him were “shining like the sun.” Merton knew he loved them as God loved them. Just as the friends who saw Jesus heard God say, “This is my Son, the Beloved.” It was love that set him and them ablaze.
And what do we do with moments like these? For Merton, it signaled that prayer must be joined with action, all in the name of love. He took a stand for voting rights, protested wars that he believed were unjust, and worked to promote understanding between people of differing faiths. It was all about love embodied in shining glory.
For Jesus, the transfiguration was a turning point in his story. It is the hinge upon which the door opens between his work in Galilee to make his way to the cross. Up north in Galilee, Jesus gave himself to healing, teaching, and casting out evil spirits. When he steps off the mountain, he will move toward Jerusalem. There he will give himself in the ultimate sacrifice to set people free from all that enslaves them. For God loved him – and God loved all people – and glory shines brightest in the work of self-giving love.
According to the records that I can find, we have had an annual Mardi Gras service for a dozen years or so. Maybe to you it seems longer. Nobody resisted when I first suggested the idea. It’s a last gasp of joy before the hard work of Lent. It’s a nice break from the winter blahs. Truth be told, the Dixieland music is shaped a lot like our church hymns. In fact, it sounds like what would happen if the choir director had too much caffeine.
I think it’s time that I confess why I cooked up the idea: because I had run out of ideas for talking about the Transfiguration. The event comes around every year on the church calendar. I didn’t know what to say about it. But after a dozen years in, it hangs together a good bit better than I thought it would. We are halfway between Christmas and Easter. The joy of the Nativity now moves toward Cross and Resurrection.
All of it is glued together by this account of a spiritual experience. We didn’t dream it up. Just as we cannot create those moments when they come. Sometimes the Holy Spirit finds us. The lights go on. The glory shines. Something in our souls wakes up. In the ancient words of the psalms, “Steadfast love and faithfulness meet, righteousness and peace kiss one another” (Psalm 85:10).
To make sense of all this, I turn again to Thomas Merton, the Trappist monk and jazz lover. Merton would understand that the Transfiguration of Jesus and our own spiritual experiences dwell together under a huge umbrella that he called “contemplation.” What did he mean by the word contemplation? Here’s what he wrote:
(Contemplation is) life itself, fully awake, fully active, fully aware that it is alive. It is spiritual wonder. It is spontaneous awe at the sacredness of life, of being. It is gratitude for life, for awareness, and for being. It is a vivid realization of the fact that life and being in us proceed from an invisible, transcendent, and infinitely abundant Source. Contemplation is, above all, awareness of the reality of that Source.[1]
What’s he talking about? That God can sneak up on us in silence. Or God can dance with us in jazz. We are not abandoned or cast off. We are beloved, holy beloved. And that love calls us to wake up. To engage. To sink deeply in the work God gives us to do while we keep breathing and dancing. The invitation is for us to come alive, completely alive.
And when the lights go on, even if only to flicker for a moment, there’s nothing in heaven or earth that can take that away, for it is a reminder the Holy One is with us, we are loved, and there is work to do..
(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.
-------------------------------
[1] Thomas Merton, New Seeds for Contemplation (New York: New Directions Publishing Corporation, 1971) pp. 1–2.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment