Transfigured Lives

 

A sermon preached February 10, 2013 for Year C Transfiguration Sunday at St. Michael’s Episcopal Church, Raleigh NC by the Rev. Dr. John Kenneth Gibson.

       I have the rare privilege this year of preaching the beginning and the ending of the season of Epiphany.  Epiphany begins appropriately enough with the feast of the Epiphany, which is always on January 6.  As a result, it falls on a Sunday, as it did this year, only every six or seven years.

Epiphany means “appearance.”  The Gospel lessons all in one way or another during this season show the divinity of Jesus.  The star announces to the magi the birth of the king of the Jews.  The voice from heaven at Jesus’ baptism in the river Jordan reveals that he is God’s son.  Jesus performs his first miracle at a wedding in Cana of Galilee, one of Episcopalians’ favorites, turning water into wine, and on and on culminating today in Jesus’ mountain top Transfiguration.  As I have reflected on this season of Epiphany, I believe it displays more than Jesus’ divinity.  The narrative arc, from infancy to radiant glory, outlines our life in Christ.  The Transfiguration dramatically shows our destiny in Christ, the glorious image of Christ into which we will be transformed one day through the mercy of God.

Today’s Gospel begins with a puzzling detail.  Luke says Jesus’ Transfiguration took place “about eight days after Peter confessed Jesus as the Christ of God.”  Mark and Matthew however say it happened six days after Peter’s confession.  There are many explanations for the difference.

One is that Luke, according to the Jewish method of counting time, included the day of the confession and the day of the Transfiguration in his calculation to get eight.  Jesus, for example, is raised from the dead on the third day although there was only one day between the crucifixion and the resurrection.

Another explanation is that Mark and Luke were making different theological points.  Mark says that the Transfiguration took place six days after Peter’s confession to connect Jesus’ Transfiguration with God’s call to Moses in the Wilderness.  In the book of Exodus, God calls Moses to ascend Mount Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments six days after God covers the mountain in a cloud.  Luke says eight days to connect the Transfiguration with the Resurrection. Jesus was raised from the dead on a Sunday, the first day of the week, but according to early Christians, Sunday was also the eighth day, because it was the day God made a new creation, the day God renewed the creation by raising Jesus from the dead.

The Transfiguration reveals our destiny because in and through our baptism we are raised to new life with Christ.  One of the most beautiful prayers, I think, in the Book of Common Prayer is the baptismal service’s Thanksgiving over Water.  The prayer recalls the Spirit hovering over the formless void to create the world, the parting of the Red Sea to deliver the Hebrew people from their bondage in Egypt, culminating with Jesus’ baptism.  The prayer over the water says at this point, “In it your Son Jesus received the baptism of John and was anointed by the Holy Spirit as the Messiah, the Christ, to lead us, through his death and resurrection, from the bondage of sin into everlasting life.  We thank you, Father, for the water of Baptism. In it we are buried with Christ in his death. By it we share in his resurrection.”  The baptismal font in front of the main altar where we will baptize Turner, Aidan, and Elizabeth is eight-sided as a reminder that in and through the waters of baptism we become a new creation in Christ, as a reminder that this is our true calling in life.

Of course, this does not mean that we believe everything in the world and in our lives is the shizzle, to quote our extraordinary Canon to the Ordinary Michael Hunn, who preached here last Sunday.  After yesterday’s thumping by Miami, any fan of UNC basketball will tell you everything is not the shizzle.  Rampant violence and poverty reveal the world’s sinfulness and brokenness.  This sinfulness and brokenness is visible not only in the world, but in our own lives.  I am often confronted with my own poverty of spirit and brokenness.  But through Christ’s death and resurrection we know that the goodness and love of God are greater than sin and death.  The apostle Paul tells us in his second letter to the Corinthians, “All of us with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit” (2 Cor 3:18).  At the end of time, our lives and the entire creation will be made new and we will appear as the transfigured Christ.

But the new creation is not limited to the end of time.  We see it occasionally here and now.  Last weekend my wife Cindy made an excellent soup that we both enjoyed and were looking forward to enjoying again during the week.  After dinner, Cindy asked me if I wanted to go for a walk with her.  It was dark and cold outside.  I was enjoying reading.  I didn’t want to go anywhere.  She then said that she wanted to take soup to our neighbor whose husband had died a few weeks earlier from pancreatic cancer.  Cindy said she liked the soup so much that she felt she should share it with someone.  Of course, I went with her.  We only visited for a short time, but, it was clear, as our neighbor clutched the plastic soup container with both hands, that it meant more to her than a meal.  Cindy and I both felt warm inside, as we walked back home in the chill night air.  I am sure you have similar stories from your life.  Similar instances where you saw a glimpse of the new creation.

The Transfiguration shows us Christ’s true nature and our true nature in Christ.  Despite the bad news that dominates the headlines, despite our broken sinfulness, the Holy Spirit is at work transforming our lives and the world until one day, in the world to come, through the mercy of God, we will be fully transformed into the brilliant image of the radiant Christ.