Inglorious

Propers: Transfiguration, A.D. 2019 C

Homily:

Lord, we pray for the preacher, for You know his sins are great.

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Poor Peter. He’s really not crazy, you know.

The Transfiguration is a rather peculiar moment in the story of Jesus’ ministry. I’ve had confirmands describe it as “that time when Jesus got all glowy.” For one brief moment, the glory of God shines clearly through the flesh of Jesus Christ. A whole bunch of things all happen at once. Moses and Elijah show up, the great Lawgiver alongside the greatest of the Prophets.

The Shekinah, which is the divine cloud of God’s presence upon the earth—the same cloud that appeared atop Mt Sinai, and at the dedication of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem—now surrounds Peter, James, and John here atop this new mountain. And the same great Voice that thundered at Jesus’ Baptism in the River Jordan sounds out once again: “This is My Son, My Chosen. Listen to Him!”

It’s almost as though every possible sign of God’s presence on earth has been gathered from the far corners of the Hebrew Bible and combined as one in the person of Jesus Christ. I mean, that’s the take-home message here. Jesus is God on this earth, the Creator entering Creation, Heaven itself breaking into space and time here upon the mountaintop.

And Peter—poor Peter—wants to pitch tents. “It is good that we are here, Lord!” he babbles excitedly. “Let us build tabernacles”—which is to say, shelters, tents—“one for You, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” And generations of Christians have wondered if Peter here hasn’t gone out of his mind.

But of course Peter, for all his impulsivity, is wiser than we know. In Jewish tradition, Peter’s tradition, it is well known that God spoke to Moses, face-to-face, as it were, within the Tabernacle, the mobile temple of God amongst His people. The Garden of Eden is spoken of as a tabernacle. Noah’s Ark is spoken of as a tabernacle. And we even drape the elements of Holy Communion here upon this Altar to resemble a tabernacle, the place of God on earth.

The Jewish people believe that in the end we shall all see God face-to-face, as Moses knew and spoke to Him, in little tabernacles of our own. There’s a whole holiday dedicated to this: Sukkot, the Feast of Tabernacles. Peter wants to pitch a tent because he knows it’s the end of the world. God has come down to inaugurate His Kingdom. This is the End of the Age. Hallelujah!

But then suddenly, abruptly, it all goes dark, like someone flipping off a switch. No more Moses, no more Elijah, no more Cloud or Voice or Light of God. But just Jesus. Plain old, earthly, unglowy Jesus, who comes down from the mountain. Down into the Valley of the Shadow of Death. Down towards Jerusalem, towards the Cross, towards the Tomb. And Peter, James, and John, baffled and amazed, can do little more than follow, still blissfully unaware of what all lies ahead.

We are about to enter, my brothers and sisters, into the long journey of Lent: Jesus’ journey to the Temple, to the lash, to the rock of Crucifixion. At either end of this narrative valley lies a mountain: here at the beginning, the Mount of Transfiguration, with Jesus lit up like the Vegas Strip. This is the Jesus we want to see: glorified, miraculous, triumphant and victorious; a glimpse of glory before the long march down into hell and up into heaven.

At the other end, a very different sort of mountain—just a twisted bit of rock, really, with some post holes to hold up crosses. This is Golgotha, Calvary, the Place of the Skull. And here He will appear as anything but glorified before our fallen eyes. Stripped, beaten, torn, humiliated, His brow wrapped in thorns, His side pierced with a spear. Yet it is here, at the Cross, that He inaugurates His Kingdom, that He establishes His New Passover for the New Covenant.

And He shall be housed not in a tent, not in some mobile temple amidst the wilderness, but in a little Tomb hewn out from the cold, stark rock. This shall be His true tabernacle, where the Crucified God shall descend to the dead.

I often long to see God in His glory. I grow wistful for miracles, dreams, signs, visions. I want to see the supernatural with my own eyes, that life may be a wonder, and faith some wild adventure. And I have seen a wonder or two in my day. But if the Transfiguration teaches us anything, it’s that salvation is not to be found in glories, wonders, and astonishments. It’s not to be found in high adventure and miraculous signs. Would that it were. Would that life could be a bit more like The Lord of the Rings.

But when God comes to earth in Christ Jesus, He does not come as Conqueror, or King, or as the invincible Hero of high fantasy and myth. He is all those things, of course, yet not in the way that we expect, not in a sense we can readily see. Instead He comes in humility, poverty, disreputability. He joins the broken, the fallen, the weary, forgotten. We find Him—rather, He finds us—amongst the lost, the last, the little and the least.

And He fails. He suffers, He dies. He is betrayed by the ones He loves the most. No glory to be seen. No lights, no clouds, no sound effects. No great prophets at His right and at His left. His once dazzling raiment now stripped away, His once shining skin now bloodied and flayed. And this is how He conquers. This is how He saves the world.

The Church still seeks for glory. I know that I certainly do. I want a steady paycheck and positive feedback. I want to know that I’m doing a good job. I want fuller pews and greater giving and statistics that are forever pointing up. Because that’s how churches are judged, aren’t they? By numbers and growth and how slickly the website loads. By praise bands, projection screens, and bottom lines.

But the truth is that the Church in the West is well on the wane. We are dealing with massive socioeconomic forces that elevate the flesh above the spirit and popular preference over truth. Consumerism is the new and all-consuming faith. And no program or pep band or caffeinated young preacher is going to change that.

There are cycles to such things, of course, periods of death and resurrection. But the glory we once knew is gone. No more free lunches or societal adulation. It’s not the 50s anymore. We’ve come down from that mountain. To be honest, cultural Christianity died generations ago, even if we’re just now noticing the smell. The Church, alas, no longer glows.

And it is because of that—because the Church descends now from the mountaintop of glory—that we have our greatest hope. Because there is nothing stronger than a Church that is marginalized, forgotten, and ignored. There is nothing more dangerous than the Body of Christ when it is ridiculed, abandoned, and abused. If we descend into the valley, we descend along with Christ, and at the other end of this journey are a light and a glory and a resurrection unlike anything we’ve seen.

The more we are like Jesus, the more we are the Church. And Jesus is not up there on the mountaintop of glory. Jesus is down here, in the mud and the blood, healing the sick, forgiving the sinner, instructing the ignorant, speaking truth to power, and raising the dead up and out from our graves.

When Christ is most despised, then is He most Risen. And here in this place, we shall rise in Him as well.

In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.