AT THE HEART OF THE GOSPEL week 6

"And Jesus was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white."
Matthew 17:2  
 
 
"There’s the light.  Where’s the tunnel?"
Shimon Peres 
 
 
 
Dear Brothers and Sisters,  
 

When Jesus climbed the mountain that day with his friends Peter and James and John, he was taking steps that led him beyond the ordinary flow of life and events.

Just a few days earlier, Jesus had been asking his followers, “Hey, who are people saying I am?”  [He’d been doing some healing, feeding the multitudes, flashy stuff like that, and he was pretty sure that folks would be wondering, and speculating].  “So, what do they think?”

“Uh, well,” his companions said, “some people think you’re John the Baptist.  Others say that you’re one of the prophets, you know, maybe Elijah or Jeremiah.”  Uh huh.  You’re making an impression, Jesus….

“Well,” Jesus pressed them, who do YOU say that I am?”

And Peter, as always first to respond, said, “You are the Messiah, the anointed one, the heir, the offspring of God.”

And then Jesus began to explain that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things, and that anyone who wanted to follow him must be prepared to take up the cross, for “those who want to save their life will lose it and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.”

Heavy words.  Profound knowledge of the future.  Up to the mountain to let it all sink in.

And then something happens.  Ascending to the high peak, they find themselves somewhere beyond the pull of gravitational forces, on a new spiritual plane.
 

Jesus was transfigured right in front of Peter and James and John.  “His face shone like the sun,” as Matthew describes it, “and his clothes became dazzling white.”  Moses and Elijah appeared, talking with Jesus.

Peter—man of action—plunges into this moment of awe and mystery to say to Jesus.  “Let’s stop the action right here. There’s the light!  And here’s the tunnel:  We’ll build three tents to commemorate our 3 great religious heroes, Moses, Elijah, and you, Jesus.  A Mt. Rushmore kind of thing.  Maybe we could sell tickets, or at the very least, live in the reflected glory of our association with the One who lived through such a moment.”

But God’s voice booming through the cloud cover shattered that particular daydream.  “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!”  And at that, even Peter had nothing more to say.  He’d seen the light.  But he seriously blew it when it came to laying out the blueprints for tunnel construction.

Whether Peter was blinded by the light or mesmerized by the light show, his impulse to capture and memorialize the event, to freeze-frame the vision rather than transform the rest of his life by its radiance, bypassed  the heart of the Gospel. 

In my reading and re-reading of this passage of scripture, it seems to me to be all about movement.  Movement from the unsettling teaching that those who would save their lives will lose them, but those who would lose their lives in following Jesus will gain life.  Movement up the mountain to the Transfiguration, and then, “on the next day, when they had come down from the mountain, a great crowd met Jesus, and a man from the crowd shouted, ‘Teacher, I beg you to look at my son……’”  [Luke 9: 37-38] and the Chosen of God wades back into the river of human need and brings healing, and the revelation of the compassion of the Almighty.  Movement.

There’s the light.  The tunnel, the passage, the way, lies in following Jesus.  Movement.

Digging in.  Digging deep.  Rooting out the extraneous and the harmful.  Keeping focused.  Enduring some claustrophobic moments.  Frustrated that Jesus isn’t equipped with LoJack.  Slogging on where no one has ever gone before.  Relying on our companions—who don’t always share our interpretation of the construction plans.  As we make our way toward that light of good news, that beacon of hope, the great love at the heart of the gospel, the Light of the world.

“Tunnels must remain…in stasis, in balance, in equilibrium so that they can bear the loads that are placed on them.  There is dead load [which] refers to the weight of the structure itself,…[and] live load [which] refers to the weight of the vehicles and people that move through the tunnel.”  [from Yahoo’s “How Stuff Works”]

Keeping in balance the weight of the structure itself—the ideas, inspirations, interactions, and altercations that form the enterprise of following Jesus—opens the passageway so that all of us can move through it.  Move.  Through the tunnel.  Toward the light. 

"Since, then, we have such a hope,
 we act with great boldness…..
 Since it is by God’s mercy we engage in this ministry,
we do not lose heart.
 
II Corinthians 3: 12, 4: 1
 
Take heart and be of good courage,