Last Sunday after the Epiphany (Green), Transfiguration, rcl yr a, 2023
EXODUS 24:12-18; PSALM 2 OR PSALM 99; 2 PETER 1:16-21; MATTHEW 17:1-9
Lord, it is good for us to be here
One cloudy winter day, in the forests near Sarov, Russia, St. Seraphim was sitting on the forest floor. He was teaching about the Holy Spirit to Motovilov, who was sitting across from him on a stump. “It is necessary that the Holy Spirit enter our heart,” said St. Seraphim “Everything good that we do, that we do for Christ, is given to us by the Holy Spirit, but prayer most of all, which is always available to us.”
As is often true of disciples, though, Motovilov didn’t get it; he didn’t understand, even as St. Seraphim gave him all sorts of examples from the lives of the saints and apostles. Finally though, St. Seraphim prays for Motovilov’s understanding, at which point St. Seraphim said to Motovilov, “We are both now in the Spirit of God […]. Why don’t you look at me?”
“After these words I glanced at his face,” writes Motovilov, as he recounts the story, “ […] Imagine in the center of the sun, in the dazzling light of its midday rays, [in] the face of a man talking to you. You see […] only a blinding light spreading far around for several yards and illumining with its glaring sheen.” And Motovilov felt, according to his account of this, a calmness and peace, a sweetness and a joy, and a warmth that he can’t express.
Motovilov wanted to understand the Holy Spirit; St. Seraphim prayed that the Holy Spirit would be revealed, and so they were both transfigured together, experiencing the fulness of the Spirit of God. And this basking in the light of the Glory of God happens not on some high mountain, nor in chapel or church, but simply right there, two friends talking, one sitting on the forest floor, and another sitting on a stump.
And if the glory of God can be seen there, and life in the Spirit known there, then Glory of God and the life of the Spirit belongs just about anywhere, like St. Serpahim teaches: “[e]verything good that we do, that we do for Christ, is given to us by the Holy Spirit, but prayer most of all, which is always available to us.”
Something happens in the Transfiguration that doesn’t happen anywhere else in the story of Jesus. Whenever someone says something to Jesus, Jesus always responds. But in the Transfiguration, Peter says something to Jesus, and Jesus in return remains quiet. So when Peter says to Jesus, “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,” it comes across as a bit odd. Because most of the time, when the disciples (in particular)say something, Jesus replies and says, something like, ‘Sigh. You all really do have a hard time understanding me. Just when I think you might get it right,’ we can imagine Jesus saying, ‘you get it wrong again.’ ‘So let me explain it again.’
This is the part the disciples play in the story of Jesus; the disciples are the ones who always get it wrong. I imagine this is, partly, so we can feel at least a bit better about ourselves. You know, as we constantly get it wrong. At least in getting it wrong we are in pretty good company.
And so when Jesus doesn’t respond to Peter’s request, it does feel odd. Perhaps we can imagine that this time, Jesus is finally so exasperated with the dimwittedness of his disciples, that Jesus’s patience has finally been tried to the point of speechlessness. Perhaps there is no smart retort, no correction, no ‘be quiet for once, can’t you see I’m being glorious over here,’ not even a sigh, because there is just nothing at all that can be said about this loony idea about putting up tents.
The Methodist preacher Jason Micheli wonders, though, if this is a moment not of Peter getting it so wrong that Jesus is left only to shake his head in irritation; but wonders, rather, if this is the time that Peter actually gets it right for once. “Lord, it is good for us to be here,” says Peter; and there isn’t anything for Jesus to say because, indeed, it is good for Peter, James, and John to be there and indeed, to remain there, delighting and rejoicing in the light of the glory of God in Christ.
But there is something still odd about this scene. Is this not taking place in the middle of Jesus’s life? Jesus has yet to be crucified, revealing the strange glory of the cross; Jesus has yet to rise from the dead, revealing another strange glory; the Holy Spirit has yet to be sent and shared through Jesus. Exactly what glory of God is this, if it isn’t the glory of the cross, or the glory of the empty tomb, or the glory of the Holy Spirit?
Scottish theologian Thomas F. Torrance speaks of the Transfiguration in terms of revelation. “We do not see Jesus of Nazareth,” he says, “apart from the light of [his death and resurrection].” Part of what Torrance means here is that when we read of Jesus, the man born, who lived and ate and taught and healed, that in the whole of Jesus’s life we always see Jesus according to the fulness of the glory of God.
So the Transfiguration belongs right in the middle of Christ’s life, because the light that is seen in the Transfiguration is the glory of the cross, and the glory of the resurrection, and the glory of the Spirit, a full glory that breaks into the every-day of his life, a glory revealed in all Jesus does: a glory revealed in all his living, eating, teaching and healing; all are done in the light of the glory of what comes next: crucifixion, resurrection, and life in the Spirit.
And so Peter is right to say, ‘let us remain here, this is where we belong, we belong here with the Jesus whose whole life is infused and lit by the glory of the cross, and the glory of the resurrection, the glory of the Holy Spirit, all that is yet to come,’ even if Peter doesn’t quite have all the words to say it. And if it is good for Peter, James, and John to remain there, delighting and rejoicing always in the glory of God in Christ and the Holy Spirit, so would it be good for us to remain, for us to always delight and rejoice in that same glory.
Accordingly this doesn’t mean spending all of our lives standing before the altar, as if standing before the altar is the only place that we really can find ourselves in the light of the glory of God. St. Seraphim and Motovilov were sitting, one of them on the forest floor and the other on a stump, with St. Seraphim teaching on the ubiquity of the Spirit in prayer, that was when they participated bodily in the light of the glory of God: “Everything good that we do, that we do for Christ, is given to us by the Holy Spirit,
but prayer most of all, which is always available to us.” By this Holy Spirit we too can live the whole of our lives in the glory of the Transfiguration, the glory of Christ crucified and resurrected.
So yes, Peter may well be right—that we should, indeed, find a way to abide, to remain, before this Jesus, the one who reveals the whole glory God in the whole of his life—from his own getting up, to his own going down, and in all things between. And so would we, in all we do, remain in the light of that glory too—from our own getting up, to our own going down, in brushing our teeth, walking the dog, feeding children, doing the laundry, giving alms to the poor, sitting down for dinner … this is all done not in darkness, but in the light of the glory of God, revealed in the Spirit who prays unceasingly for us from within us—in life, in death, and in all that comes between. It is all shot through with the glory of God, the glory of the Jesus who is crucified for us and who rises to life that we would have life, the glory of the Spirit who abides within, the Spirit that prays within us with sighs too deep for words: the Spirit that confirms us as the Beloved children of the God of glory.
The Revd Dr Preston Parsons