Sermon, Last Epiphany A

Today we celebrate the apocalypse. I looked up "apocalypse" in a thesaurus and these are the words listed as synonyms: disaster, catastrophe, destruction, end of the world, day of reckoning, Judgment Day. But that, remember, is not what apocalypse means.

Apocalypse means to reveal. It's a revelation, or a revealing, of God in this world, his kingdom, or his eternal plans for the future. An apocalypse, then, isn't some great and terrible disaster, but a revealing of God. So we could call this passage the Apocalypse of Jesus, or the Revelation of Jesus. But we don't.

Instead it is known as the Transfiguration of Jesus. Matthew's record of this event says that Jesus' face shone like the sun and his clothes became dazzling white. What happens here? What happens to Jesus?

Let me take you on an imaginary walk for a few minutes. Imagine walking along a quiet street. It's night. Imagine that you go on this same nightly walk every night for weeks, maybe even months or years. Along this walk you pass a house. It has two stories, a big front porch with a few chairs and a swing, a chimney, decorative shutters around the windows, a front door with leaded glass, and a large picture frame window. Every night when you pass this house it's dark inside. No lights. No smoke from the chimney. No signs of activity whatsoever. And because of the time of night, when you look at the windows all you see are a few reflections of a street lamp or the moon or stars. The house is a shadow of possibilities in your mind.

But one night on your walk, just as you get to the house, the lights come on. It startles you for a moment, but then you look. Suddenly you can see inside the house. You can see chairs and a sofa, pictures and decorative hangings and the banister leading upstairs. You see a big stone hearth fire place and a man starting to kindle a fire. And you can see past that to the dining room where a large table that seats 12 is being set; a young child weaves in and out of the chairs carefully placing dishes.

The house hasn't mutated into something it isn't. All of those things have been there before; you just weren't able to see past the darkened windows. You weren't able to see inside without the light. In short, the house has been transfigured into a home. Thanks to the light, what was already true has been disclosed to anyone who was looking.

This is what happens at the Transfiguration. Jesus isn't changed into something he's not. He doesn't morph into something more glorious, like a caterpillar morphing into a butterfly. What happens here is that the divine nature of Jesus is revealed to show what was, and is, true about him. Like the light of the house let us see it for what it truly is, a home, the light of the divine lets us see Jesus for who he truly is, the Son of God. The light of the house and the light of the Transfiguration let us see the whole picture with clarity.

That whole picture reveals his humanity and his divinity; fully human and fully divine. The whole picture, however, doesn't tell the whole story.

An important part of that story comes towards the end of this passage after the disciples hear the voice from heaven, "This is my Son with whom I am well pleased; listen to him."

After hearing that voice, the disciples fall on the ground overcome with fear. When Jesus sees this, what does he do? He goes to them, touches them, and says, "Get up and do not be afraid."

Now we might hear those words and have an image of a few poor, uneducated fishermen cowering on the ground and wonder what the big deal is. But that's not the important part; the important part is the words Jesus uses: get up and do not be afraid.

Get up. Those words, or that phrase, have the same root as "got up." And why is that important? Because back in Matthew 9:25 Jesus goes to see the sick daughter of the leader of the synagogue. The girl dies before Jesus gets to the house. Putting everyone out of the house, he touches her and "she got up." Get up; got up . . . the meaning is to rise up, or to be raised. Jesus raised the girl from death to life. Jesus is raising up the disciples from death to life; from a life of fear into a new life where they aren't afraid. He raises the disciples, and us, into a life where we don't fear death, but look forward to our new, resurrected life in Christ.

He then tells the disciples not to say anything about this vision. Why is that? They knew the baptismal story. They had seen the miracles. They heard the teachings. They had just witnessed the Transfiguration. But they didn't have the whole story yet.

The whole story involves the road to Jerusalem, the triumphal entry, the trial, the crucifixion, death, burial and resurrection. If they tell the story now, they are only telling half of it.

Let's go back to the house. What you don't know about the house is that every five years that family comes together in that place to retell the story of parents, grand parents, great grand parents and great-great grandparents. It is remembered that one man and woman started this family and that they decreed every five years the story gets retold. And every time the story is told it changes with new deaths and new lives being woven into the fabric of the family. And that is the whole story.

We are in the same place. We can't stop here with the Transfiguration. We need to make the journey through Lent and Holy Week and Easter. We need to continue to tell the story, the whole story; from it's inauspicious beginnings, to the glorious mountain top experiences, to the difficult times of death, and ultimately to the resurrection and new life.

But for us to tell that story, we need to turn on the lights. As we begin Lent this week, and as we begin our journey through 2008, this congregation needs to ask itself some serious questions. Are we willing to follow Jesus through the hard times? Are we going to go away quietly, or are we going to allow Jesus to raise us up? Are we going to cower in fear, or are we going to not be afraid?

In short, are we going to let our light shine forth and tell the whole story; or are we going to leave this place in the dark, allowing passersby to only see the shadow of possibilities?