March 6, 2011
Epiphany 9A ~ Transfiguration Sunday, Year A
Exodus 24:12-18
Psalm 99
2 Peter 1:16-21
Matthew 17:1-9
Friday night I found myself in the emergency room at North Country Hospital. It is because we have this wonderful son, Nathan, who is also a paramedic (well, almost – he still has some clinical time to put in and his national test to take). Anyway, I called Nathan Friday evening to tell him I was not feeling “right” – that I had a “vacant feeling” in my chest and was a bit short of breath and had puffy legs and feet. He already knew I had been experiencing some problems with a medicine I was taking and had been instructed to stop it for awhile to see what happened. Nathan, as an EMTI, always takes the path of caution. So he talked me into getting checked out at the ER – not something I especially like. There, the tests they ran were all negative – that’s a GOOD thing! And the one puzzling thing was that my always steady, pacemaker-created resting pulse was not the usual 60. And what the EEG showed was that my own Sinus node, and NOT the pacemaker, was firing the electrical impulses to make my heart beat. So all I had to do was move an arm or wiggle a little or take a deep breath, or laugh, or even think an anxious thought and my pulse rate would go up – and it never went down to the programmed 60. Keep in mind that my heart’s own electrical system working all on its own with only an occasional assist from the pacemaker had not happened to me before. That’s why I needed a pacemaker – to get my heart rate at least up to 60 beats per minute. No one could tell me why this was happening, but they assured me I was “doing just fine.” So we, my pacemaker and I, were an emergency room enigma! On Saturday morning, my pulse was back to its usual 60 beats per minute at rest.
It reminded me of a Peanuts cartoon where Linus, in complete frustration with Lucy, cries out, “Lucy, you are a total enigma!” And Lucy goes around asking, “What’s an enigma? What’s an enigma? What’s an enigma?” And getting no answer to her question.
Well, it seems to me that the story of the Transfiguration is a total enigma – a puzzle – something we do not easily understand. Nor can we. It happened in another time and another place, to other people and totally outside of our range of personal experience. To see Jesus standing on a mountain with face shining like the sun and clothing dazzling white and then a sudden appearance of Moses and Elijah, considered the two greatest prophets in the Old Testament – well, that’s more than a little out of our range!
This is a text about a world we don’t have all figured out. And we like to have things figured out. But with this story there are no easy answers to its meaning. The text itself isn’t even clear what kind of event this is, for in one moment we seem to be reading about an event that is happening in time and space, and in the next moment, Jesus is referring to this event as a “vision” when he orders Peter, James and John as they are coming down the mountain, “Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.” [Matthew 17:9 NRSV] Truly an enigma! A Mystery.
The thought occurred to me some time this past week that a sermon that is faithful to this text should leave its hearers scratching their heads and proclaiming, “What was that all about?” So I could stop here and have accomplished that goal. HOWEVER, it also occurred to me that we cannot just walk away from this text declaring it merely irrelevant and inapplicable to our lives.
When theologian Rudolf Otto considered the incomprehensible yet magnetic pull of mystery and holiness in our lives, he coined a term from Latin: mysterium tremendum – a tremendous mystery - a standing over against something “wholly Other,” overwhelmed, awe-filled and yet strangely attracting. This mysterium tremendum, says Otto,
“may come sweeping like a gentle tide, pervading the mind with a tranquil mood of deepest worship It may pass over into a more set and lasting attitude of the soul, continuing, as it were, thrillingly vibrant and resonant, until at last it dies away and the soul resumes its everyday experience. It may burst in sudden eruption up from the depths of the soul with spasms and convulsions, or lead to the strangest excitements, to intoxicated frenzy, to ecstasy. It may become the hushed, trembling and speechless humility of the creature in the presence of – whom or what? In the presence of that which is a mystery inexpressible and above all creatures.”1
It is not of any ultimate importance that we say eloquent words or develop exquisite theologies, or worship in proper forms, or even that we sing music of majesty and grandeur. Theologies and words and symbols and creeds are transient and pass away and take on new and different forms. WHAT MATTERS is that, in the doing of all this, the love of God sweeps through our souls and makes us new creatures. WHAT MATTERS is that here and there, now and then, the life of Christ glistens in bright whiteness in our lives, leaving us speechless. WHAT MATTERS is that somewhere, somehow we stand on holy ground and see the face of Jesus, and even for some brief moment in our hearts, we see his face shine and know beyond any shadow of doubt that he is the Christ, our Savior.
It seems to me we are very much like Peter and the other disciples, who stand dumbly, not knowing what to say or do. I find that a comforting thought. They are muddling through, trying to understand in the midst of their own amazement and confusion. And there is God, giving them the invitation, calling them to the Center: “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!” [v.5b]
Maybe it is not so important that we come away from the mountain with answers, and maybe there is a time when even our questions are frivolous. Maybe this story is one of those times, as Frederick Buechner puts it, “where [we] are left to suspect the reality of splendors [we] cannot name.”2
The story of the Transfiguration is placed at the end of Epiphany and before the beginning of Lent for a reason. It gives us a taste of the mystery that is to come - the Resurrection - and it summons us to enter upon the pilgrimage we call Lent. A pilgrimage or journey that leads us “to suspect" and perhaps even, in some small measure, to experience "the reality of splendors we cannot name.”
EndNotes:
1 Otto, Rudolf, The Idea of the Holy, pp 12-13 in the standard English version. (Born September 25, 1869, Peine, Prussia—died March 6, 1937, Marburg, Germany) eminent German theologian, philosopher, and historian of religion.
2 Frederick Buechner, The Sacred Journey: A Memoir of Early Days, HarperCollins Publishers, NY, 1982. 439.
Copyright: Carol J. Borland, Pastor Emeritus & Interim Pastor,
West Danville United Methodist Church, West Danville, Vermont.
March 6, 2011 – Transfiguration Sunday
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