Dr. John Tamilio III, Pastor

Gospel Lesson: Matthew 17:1-9

When I was eight years old, my parents bought a camp on Mousam Lake in Maine.  It remained in the family until recently.  In later years, my siblings and I would divide weeks throughout the summer to spend time at “the camp” with our respective families.  When we were little, we would spend two weeks at the camp each summer.  “It was the best of times,” if I may borrow the first six words from A Tale of Two Cities.  My parents’ best friends (the Tanzella’s) owned the cabin on one side of us, and the O’Brien’s (who to this day are close friends of ours) owned the cabin on the other side.  Those summer days were filled with warmth and fun — fishing, water-skiing, the weekly Wiffle Ball championship playoffs.  I never wanted our time at the lake to end.  In fact, I remember thinking to myself after, say, the first few days, “It’s only been three days!  Look how much fun we’ve had in such a short amount of time.  We still have eleven days to go!”  I would will the days to go slow.

The last day would eventually arrive, of course, and we had to pile our luggage and boxes of leftover food into my parents’ station wagon and make the hour and forty-five minute drive back to Beverly.

Have you ever had such an experience?  It could have been a vacation.  It could have been a time that you were spending with a close friend before he or she moved away.  It could have been anything — a time spent with anyone that you did not want to end.  Why did that moment have to come to an end?  The cynic will say, “Well, all good things must come to an end.”  This ethos is in our blood — especially in Congregationalists, heirs of the Pilgrims and Puritans.  When things are going well — say, when we have a beautiful spring day — what do people say?  “We’ll pay for this!”

Imagine how Peter, James, and John felt when they climbed the mountain and saw Jesus Transfigured before them.  Jesus was Transfigured and they were Transfixed!  They didn’t want to leave the mountain, especially when Jesus was joined by Moses and Elijah.  “Peter said to Jesus, ‘Lord, it is good for us to be here.  If you wish, I will put up three shelters — one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.’”  I don’t know why, but whenever I read Peter’s words, I think of the kid who says, “Mom, Dad — if you let me stay at Billy’s house tonight, I’ll mow the lawn or wash the car!”  Peter wants to stay on that mountaintop so bad, he’s going to build huts so that Jesus will agree to stay.

But I guess all good things must come to an end.  They can’t stay on the mountain.  They need to descend into the valleys of the world to proclaim the kingdom of God, to heal the sick, and to minister to the oppressed.  There is a lesson here — one that I have preached about several times in the past: we cannot stay on the mountain either.  We also must descend the mountain and venture into the world; we must get our hands dirty ministering to others and being witnesses for Christ.  Joel Hart writes, “As Christians, we long for experiences of the transcendent that we believe will forever change our perspective on life.  We long for the mountaintop.”

But that is not what I want to discuss today.  I want to focus on the event itself: the actual Transfiguration.  I have avoided preaching on this miraculous event in the past, because it is hard to explain, let alone understand.  Jesus’ clothes become dazzling white and he is all a-glow on the mountain.  But why?  Why is this done?  What is the significance of the Transfiguration?

In an article on the website Christianty.com, Brannon Deibert seeks to answer this question.  He writes, “The transfiguration of Jesus Christ was a powerful demonstration of His divine nature and manifestation of His glory, which Jesus possessed prior to coming to earth in the human body.”  The people who followed Jesus knew that he was fully human.  That was obvious.  But did they know that he was fully divine as well?  Some did.  They were convinced based on his healings, miracles, and exorcisms.  Some didn’t know.  Even the disciples: they believed he was the Messiah, but Thomas doubted that he rose from the dead, Peter denied him, Judas betrayed him, and the rest of them ran for the hills when he was crucified.  It makes sense that there would be a moment in the narrative when the fullness of his divinity would be revealed.  It happened on the mountain in the presence of Moses (who represents the Jewish Law) and Elijah (who represents the prophets).

But let’s go back to Deibert’s observation for a moment.  He says that Jesus possessed this divinity “prior to coming to earth.”  This makes me think of the opening of John’s Gospel: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”  Before the Word became flesh, it existed in the beginning.  Jesus (the Word) was always with God, because he is God.

It’s difficult for us to think of Jesus as being fully human and fully divine, just as it is difficult for us to conceptualize the Trinity: how can God be three-in-one and one-in-three at the same time?  Furthermore, the depictions we have seen of Jesus (be they in art or film) portray him as looking quite…human.  When people see someone with long, straight, brown hair and a beard, they often say, “Hey, he looks like Jesus.”  There is a very human aspect to him, because he was fully human.  But he is also fully divine.

The Transfiguration gives us a glimpse of the divinity of Christ when he walked the earth as a person.  We get to see him (along with Peter, James, and John) in all his glory.  No wonder they wanted to stay on the mountain.

But the truth is that we do not need to go up the mountain to witness the glory of fully human and fully divine Christ.  As I’ve said many times before, he is here — with us.  We see him in this sanctuary.  We see him in the chapel in throughout summer months.  We see him in the Fellowship hall, whether it is during coffee hour after church or during the Senior Suppers.  We see him in the Christian Education classrooms.  We see him in our Bible studies.  We see him all around this place.

And it’s not so much about coming down from the mountain as it is inviting others to the mountain.  Who are we reaching who isn’t here?  Who has given up on religion because the legalistic and intolerant nature of it has made many think that Jesus is nowhere to be found: on the mountain or anywhere else, for that matter?

The divinity of Jesus calls us up the mountain.  The humanity of Jesus brings him to us and, therefore, us to him.  Amen.

© 2020, Dr. Tamilio

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