TRANSCENDENT LORD
6 August: Feast of the Transfiguration of
Jesus Christ
“Lord, it is good to be here”
High above Jerusalem, on Mt.
Tabor, Jesus was transformed and transfigured. His human body, suffused with
divinity, was a dazzling spectacle. How infinitely splendid Jesus must have
appeared during his glorious transfiguration, outshining a million suns in the
divine glory that was properly his. The Old Testament figures of Moses and
Elijah appeared by his side, absorbed in conversation with him. By the
transfiguration the old dispensation was swept up into the new. The three
apostles, Peter, James and John, would be the leaders of the New Testament
community, centred on the Son. The voice of the Father, “listen to him”, bore
witness to his Son, the chosen, the fulfilment of his promises of old and the
pledge of life and hope for the future. The transfiguration of the Lord was
charged with promise.
Jesus’
three disciples were bedazzled and ecstatic in their wonderment, privileged, as
they were to glimpse for a moment his transcendent state as he prayed to his
Father. Peter hardly knew what to say. His words came tumbling out, the best he
could find in his wonder and awe at what he saw and heard: “Master, how good it
is for us to be here.” Peter confused but desiring to capture the glory for
keeps, suggested pitching separate tents for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah. It was
not to be. But others have since built the tabernacle that he never built for
Jesus. The place is still remembered, still visited, a hallowed spot for prayer
and worship by countless pilgrims.
For
what happened there is what we have surely found, though perhaps less vividly
than Peter, in our own lives. If we look back through our experience, if we
take into account moments that have been rare but none the less real; if we
remember how we have felt and at times still feel, we find something very near
to what Peter felt. We have known moment
of transfiguration. And the truth is it is likely we can find no better words
than Peter found, inadequate though they may be, to express what the moment has
meant. The words give no explanation, they attempt no description. There is no
time and need for such things - they only come later. The words are simply
and solely an immediate response to what at the time could neither be
questioned nor denied. “How good it is for us to be here,” said Peter, and
meant it with all his heart.
This
experience runs through the Bible like a golden thread. Ultimately it is what
the Bible witnesses to amidst all that might seem to deny the presence of God.
It is repeated again and again in the Old Testament, and nowhere more vividly
than in the story of Jacob in the wilderness and on the run from his
involvement in a mean and wretched deceit. In that desolate place he finds his
loneliness broken through by an experience of which he can only say, as much as
Peter said, “Surely, the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not.”
But
Peter and his fellows could not prolong their peak experience. They had to
realise that even though they saw “the Beloved Son”, pointed out by the Father,
in the glory that was natural to him, that beautiful Son would not get away
with glory. He would descend Mt. Tabor only to ascend Mt. Calvary. That’s the
kind of God we have come to know - a God whose glory is spelled out in wounds,
painful cries, darkness, and death. A God pretty much like we are; worse off
than we are. The Bible story is about how God makes himself known and about his
dealings with us. His presence is realised in the here and now of human life.
Jesus stayed with that human life, was wholly involved in it. In him that life
was transformed. In him that life was transformed and transfigured by a
transfusion of the divine. And on Mt. Tabor Peter saw it and knew it: “Master,
it is so good for us to be here.”
Those
words have come so often in the various circumstances of each one’s life. The
moments of certainty, when there could be neither question nor denial, have
been rare. But the response we have felt at those moments has spilt over into a
growing awareness, a kind of discerning, of the activity of God in our lives
and in the lives of those who have touched ours. And in some ways, in between
the certainties there come the doubts. For the God who comes to make himself
known in the here and now of human life has so much to contend with, as he did
even in the time of Christ. And that is true in the Church and all human
endeavours. We are all awkward customers, plagued by our own follies and by the
very many difficulties of being human in a world that runs to so much of
inhumanity. We are not easy to work with or to work through, though that is
God’s loving purpose in our lives. It is important to handle each
experience - peak, poetic and prosaic - to
the best our ability. We may have to practise more patience, strive that much
harder, reach inside our selves for a little more strength, muster a little
more faith in God and ourselves. Like Peter’s and his fellows’, our
discipleship is limited. And yet we can experience the inner peace of those who
know they gave their all. We shall be better, not bitter, knowing that in God’s
presence we did our best. So we can say, and with all others who bear witness
to the work of God in the midst of us, with thankfulness and wonder:
“Lord,
it is good to be here.”
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