A Fourth Church Sermon by Martha Langford

February 3, 2008 | 6:30 p.m. Vespers

Moments on a Mountain

Martha Langford
Pastoral Resident, Fourth Presbyterian Church

Psalm 99
Matthew 17:1–9
2 Peter 1:16–21

In the soft dark of a February winter evening, she stood at the pebble-strewn edge of the camp’s lake. The moon hung low over the bowl of pines trees, a shining celestial orb, so close as to be able to reach out and touch it. The light breeze stirred a chorus of cricket and frog song. The scene was idyllic, but the woman was in anguish—heartbroken, angry, afraid; her prayers gasped out in sighs too deep for words. Then, in the space of a single heartbeat, there was peace, the presence of God hemming her in behind and before. In the parlance of Christian experience, this was—for her—a mountaintop experience. It changed nothing, yet somehow it changed everything.

Our text today contains a mountaintop experience, perhaps the mountaintop experience: the transfiguration of Christ. We come to this narrative each year on the Sunday before the beginning of Lent as a foretaste of the season to come.

We’re at a pivotal moment in the gospel story. Just six days earlier, Peter made his stunningly insightful confession: “You are the Messiah,” he proclaimed, “the Son of the living God.” Then with equally stunning denseness, Peter rebuked Jesus for predicting his own suffering and death at the hands of the authorities: “God forbid it, Lord!” he cried, “This must never happen to you.” Jesus is very clear in his censure of Peter—“You are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things”—and very clear in his words to the disciples: “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”

I can imagine the confusion and perhaps the discomfort of Simon Peter and of the other disciples as they struggle to see and understand who it is they follow. Yet even in their uncertainty, they continue on. Six days later, Matthew tells us, Jesus takes Peter and James and John aside, and parting from the crowds and other disciples, they journey together up the mountain.

It sometimes comes as a pure crystalline moment, a transitory second when reality changes forever in front of your eyes. You might even be able to capture it in your memory of the event. There comes a moment when a parent becomes “human,” perhaps even a real person; when a mentor becomes a friend or when a friend becomes a mentor; when a child, your child, becomes a grownup. There comes a moment when the curtain of perception draws away to reveal the truth of “who” it is that’s standing in front of us.

For three years, the disciples have followed the one called Jesus. They have seen him, day in and day out, walking the dusty roads of Galilee preaching and teaching and healing the sick. They see Jesus the man, the rabbi, the teacher, the miracle worker, but perception escapes them. Peter comes closest—naming him Messiah, Son of God—but he’s still somehow unable to grasp the essence of that identity.

But here, in a crystalline moment on a mountaintop, the curtain draws back and the Messianic identity of Jesus Christ is revealed. With their own eyes, Peter and James and John behold the glory of God incarnate in human flesh. And Jesus is not alone but standing and holding what is for him an ordinary conversation with Moses and Elijah. The objective reality of “who” the disciples follow comes into view, and his full glory and majesty shine.

When considering such visions of awe and glory, I think back to a particular night of choral music. You see, at its best, music can be a lyrical vision combining vibrant melody, soaring harmony, striking percussion—and a tangible something more. On rare and wondrous occasions, the final notes of a performance will fade into silence, for there are times when silence is response.

Perhaps you’ve experienced such a moment, when silence best expressed awe in the face of glory. Awe—like silence—can be uncomfortable; that pregnant pause waits and somehow commands us. So it was that night at the concert, the air filled with silent awe, yet when the first clap sounded, we knew what to do. As the ovation reached crescendo, awe and its discomfort passed and the moment became memory.

Peter—blessed Peter, impulsive Peter—breaks into this moment on the mountain with its awe and its discomfort. He knows what to do here: “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”

The suggestion is not without merit. Peter’s merely reaching into the Jewish tradition of Succoth, where Jews celebrated deliverance from Egypt by erecting temporary dwellings. There they waited and celebrated their future deliverance by an unknown redeemer. In Jesus, Peter has recognized the Messiah, has seen his glory, and sees that redemption standing among them. Not wanting this awe-filled moment to pass into memory, he suggests a celebration. After all, celebration of glory is not inappropriate—except when it gets in the way.

The words are scarcely out of Peter’s mouth when the heavenly rebuke comes. “This is my Son, the Beloved. . . . Listen to him!”

The desire to stay and celebrate on the mountain gets in the way of the very real journey that will lead Jesus to the cross. He’s not making the journey to Jerusalem in spite of his revealed identity, but because of it.

Redemption is in the disciple’s midst, but not as the community or the authorities or even the disciples themselves might have imagined it. This is not the celebratory, glory-filled vindication of a nation, but the voice of God calling people to live lives of justice and compassion and peace; the Son of God willing to give his life for the sake of the world.

We still have trouble imagining the redemption that is already at work in our midst. Yet Matthew seeks to stir our imagination, inviting the reader into the text as we relate to “them”—those disciples who travel with Jesus. As they climb the mountain, we climb it. As they see the transfigured glory of the Christ, we see it. As the voice addresses them from heaven, we hear it.

As we come to this moment on a mountain, on this Sunday evening in Chicago, what we see is the power of God and what we hear is the call of Christ, “If any would be my disciples, let them take up their crosses and follow.”

Peter and James and John were terrified at the sound of that heavenly voice, at the message it bore. Hearing the claim that Jesus places on our lives, perhaps we should tremble too.

But Jesus calms their fear, gets them back on their feet, points them back down the mountain.

Theologians suggest that the transfiguration was meant to support and strengthen the disciples for what came next, that the lasting power of this moment would keep their feet steady on the road to Jerusalem, steady in the aftermath of the cross, steady in the light of Easter day, steady in the life of the emerging church; it would steady them with the sure and certain knowledge of who they followed.

Someone once suggested to me that the Christian life was something like improvisational jazz music. The gathered musicians provide the strong rhythm and harmony over which the improvised melody soars. At the music’s center stands a central theme, a chord. When the musicians know this theme to the depth of their soul, know their instruments, and know the part that their instrument might play, then the improvisation of melody can create a transcendent moment.

Our central theme is Christ and his call to follow. “Listen to him!” commands the heavenly voice from the clouds. His road leads us down from the shining spaces on the mountaintop and into the darkness that is the world around us, a world filled with poverty and oppression, warfare and bigotry, religious fanaticism and meager discipleship. We follow Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who so loved the world that he gave his life for it, gave his life for us.

In the season of Lent to come, let us attentively consider our part, how the instrument of our discipleship might combine with others to follow that ancient melody in fresh and new ways. Let us pray that our improvisational interactions might follow the rhythm and harmony of God’s love to create moments of beauty and clarity for the sake of the world.

Three disciples went up the mountain with Jesus, and in a moment the presence of God was revealed. In reality, it changed nothing, and yet it changed everything. I don’t know if the disciples wanted to return to the world, but they did return bearing promises of hope.

Let us hold to the promises of those moments on a mountain and be attentive to them “as to a lamp shining in a dark place,” living them out until the new day dawns and the morning star rises in our hearts.