Coming Face to Face with Glory

I have some distinct memories of spending time with my parents as they aged. In particular, I remember sitting and talking with them for hours on their “porch” (a space which originally had been an outdoor porch that they had enclosed over time and made into a comfortable sitting room; where, incidentally, they could keep a good eye on the neighbors on 3 sides of their house; it was their favorite place to sit when people came to visit).

Both my parents were life long generational Lutherans (they actually met at church!). So of course we frequently talked about church stuff – both the local church where they were members for decades (where I was raised, confirmed and married) and the broader ELCA. Church was important to them and they kept up with church happenings the best they could.

Sometimes it was challenging for them to understand, let alone accept, the ways in which the church was changing over time – in expanding its theology to welcome and include the LGBTQIA+ community, for instance, or in offering new spiritual practices (such as blessing homes at the start of the new year, as their church did one year).

Mom was always more talkative than Dad and she had opinions about …. everything. More than once mom would say to me (rather indignantly, I might add): “My grandfather wouldn’t recognize the church today.” That would be my great-grandfather (of blessed memory) – who died in 1970 – when he was 97 years old. Great Grandpa would not recognize the world, let alone the church, in the 21st century.

The reality is this – everything changes over time; the world; the circumstances in which we find ourselves. Church – how we gather together as the body of Christ for the sake of the world – changes. Even theology – what we know about the nature and divine revelation of God and where we believe God is leading us through the power of the Holy Spirit – changes over time. Hopefully we change as well.

Our gospel reading this morning tells us the story of three followers of Jesus coming face to face – literally – with the reality that everything changes for those who love Jesus.

Going up the mountain with Jesus to pray, Peter and James and John find themselves suddenly coming face to face with the glory of God revealed through the transfiguration of Jesus (that is, a complete change in his appearance; a change in his spiritual essence), as his face shone like the sun and his clothes became bright as light.  Unexpectedly the disciples also come face to face with Moses and Elijah, ancestors of the faith who represent the Law and the Prophets.

Remember – Peter and James and John – and Jesus, as well – were devout Jews. They knew their scripture well; they knew who Moses and Elijah were; they knew God’s covenant to God’s people was given to them through the Law and the Prophets and the promise of the coming Messiah.

Now something new is revealed to them – in the voice coming from the bright cloud that over shadowed them (reminiscent of the Exodus reading, when the Lord told Moses to go up the mountain and the cloud covered the mountain for 6 days – and the Lord called to Moses from the cloud and gave him the 10 commandments); in that voice from the clouds, Peter and James and John hear these words spoken to them: This is my Son, the beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!

This is my Son, the beloved; with him I am well pleased – these words echo the same words said by the voice from heaven when Jesus was baptized. (Matt 3:17).

This glorious event points the disciples – and us – to a deeper reality – Jesus is the Messiah, the Promised One, the one for whom the disciples had been waiting; the one sent by God to reveal God’s love for all people and all creation; the one who comes to gather all of creation back into right relationship with the divine Creator and to show them a new way of living, embodying peace and justice and love.

Listen to him… the voice says.

What’s he saying?, we might ask. We are given a clue in the first words of this passage…Six days later…

Six days before this adventure on the mountain, Jesus told his disciples that he had to go to Jerusalem and suffer and be killed and on the third day be raised. Peter, in particular, did not take this bit of news well; rebuking Jesus by saying – God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you. (Matt 16:21-23). But, of course, it is to happen. It must happen.

Then Jesus goes deeper with the disciples – he tells them – face to face – that if they wish to follow him, they too must take up the cross – and loose their own lives. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? (Matt 16:24-26).They too must be willing to change – even to die – for the sake of sharing the good news of Jesus Christ.

Now on the mountain the disciples see the revelation of what Jesus had told them six days earlier – Jesus has been changed; he has surrendered his life to God and set his face toward Jerusalem; he rises before them in glory; displaying his new life in all its brilliance; taking his place with the ancestors of faith.

The words spoken by the voice coming from the cloud on the mountain are spoken to us today as well: This is my (Child), the beloved; with (you) I am well pleased….

We are God’s beloved people. The our baptism promises us new life in Christ and that promise is fulfilled through our resurrection with Christ. Our hope as people who follow the example of Jesus is to live fully in the new life that he has promised us; as God’s people gathered by the Holy Spirit, broken and given to the world to be signs of healing, wholeness, justice and peace; as people willing to change and do the right thing in the name of Jesus.

Listen to him…

Here is the call we hear from Jesus – Take up your cross….lose your life…give it up for the sake of Jesus; endure the suffering; change how you live; let go of old habits that no longer serve you or anyone else; live out your baptismal promises in public; do all this for the sake of the world God so dearly loves; for the sake of the glory and new life you receive through your baptism into resurrection with Christ.

The good news for today is that the glory of God is revealed to us – face to face – through the light of Jesus Christ; it is spoken to us through scripture and prayer and song; received by us in the water and word of baptism and given for us in, under and through the bread and wine of communion; lived out by us in community with signs of faithful love for God and acts of steadfast love for our neighbors. Today, may you come face to face with the glory that shines through the resurrected Jesus Christ; and may that encounter change who you are and change how you live so that you may shine in glory, revealing God’s love for all creation, here in this place and in all the world.