I’m sure we all have moments
from our past that we love to revisit in our memories; moments that we would
have loved to freeze-frame when they happened, that we long to have been able
to package in a way that we could open them up again and again, and let their fragrance
revive us from any spiritual drowsiness we find ourselves in. There are big, obvious moments like a
wedding, your first child’s first smile or, for me, my profession of perpetual
religious vows, or my ordination; and any number of more unique moments we each
cherish. What’s amazing about those
moments though, is that each of them look forward, prepare us for something
totally new, something that we could never have begun to embrace without that
amazing moment, but we also could never have gotten to if we hadn’t climbed
down from the mountain and dared to walk in the plain.
This
Transfiguration moment was one of those for Peter, and I’m sure for James and
John too. I think we can easily underestimate
that it must have been one for Jesus too.
Imagine the amazing intimacy of being able to reveal your divine glory
to your closest human friends, being able to show in the brilliance of your
shining visage the still greater blazing brilliance of the fire of your
love. Imagine being Peter, or James or
John, and being lit up by that brilliance of your Lord, your Master, and your
friend. It is no wonder that Peter
wanted to freeze-frame that moment, to dwell in it. It’s a natural human instinct; in fact it’s
the foundation story of almost every Greek or Roman shrine – some god appeared
here, so we built this shrine – and Peter knows his Jewish Bible well enough to
think of tents as a very appropriate shrine.
But the cloud intervenes. Peter’s
call is not to build tents on a mountain, but a church on earth. He must climb down, transformed by this
experience as truly as Jesus was transfigured, and put that cherished memory at
the service of his walk on the plains.
And Jesus has warned them, and will warn them again, that this walk will
not be easy. It will be the kind of walk
that is characterized by taking up a cross and following after him. But, we follow, and we walk, knowing he walks
with us, that glorious lover of humanity, and we walk grateful for God’s
command to listen to him, for we know he speaks. And we know that when we walk following our
Master’s voice, following his path, he leads us to the glory of the kingdom.
We, like
Jesus, have had an experience of being named as God’s chosen son, chosen
daughter. We have been chosen and
claimed and adopted by God in baptism.
We hear a voice as amazing as a heavenly one whenever we hear God’s word,
and we see the glory of God’s love for us whenever we participate in the
Mass. But we don’t cling, we don’t try
to freeze-frame: we let ourselves be sent forth; we climb down the mountain and
walk with Him. This image may, probably
should, seem strange to many of you watching our celebration of Mass on tv: you
are watching precisely because you can’t go out physically; whether by illness
(physical or mental), frailty, lack of access to transportation or
incarceration. But, in a very real way,
God is inviting you to understand your predicament as a walk with Christ. You may very well not be having a glorious
mountaintop experience right now. But
you have had one, and the memory can sustain you, refreshed by the ongoing gift
of Jesus’ word.
You may
well wish you were back on the mountain, easily able to see God’s brilliant
glory and rejoice, but that’s not where many of you are. You’re on the plain, truly walking Christ’s
path in your bodies, even if your legs can’t do much literal walking
anymore. Your closeness to Christ has a
very different hue. It’s a closeness
that your parish priest or chaplain really can help you to encounter, through
counsel and through those sacraments that can be celebrated at home, in
hospital or in a jail. But, the
closeness is real, no matter how hard it is to feel. Christ has strengthened each of us through
amazing mountaintop experiences, through the embrace of baptism, and continues
to refresh us and accompany us, as he beckons us walk the sometimes painful
path he trod, the path that leads to the Father’s eternal embrace.
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