Matthew 17:1-9

Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. Then Peter said 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.” While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!” When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear. But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Get up and do not be afraid.” And when they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone. As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus ordered them, “Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.”

Ok friends, let’s just get one thing clear: as far as Bible passages go, this is really really weird. The story that we have just heard defies interpretation, although that has not stopped legions of interpreters from trying.  It is the bizarrely luminous story of a supernatural encounter, not only between God and Jesus, but also between those at the center of the story and those who watch.  Those at the center are Jesus, Moses and Elijah.  Those who watch are Peter, James and John.  And then, of course, there are all of us watching all of them, most of us operating under the assumption that our job is to figure out what the story means.

I am not sure where we got this idea, but it seems to dominate the way that many of us read the Bible, and the way I was taught to prepare a sermon for a congregation.  Give me a passage of scripture and I will put on my thinking cap, doing my best to decipher the symbols, read between the lines and come up with the encoded message that Jesus or Matthew or God has hidden in the passage for us to find.  The idea seems to be that the story itself is a suitcase for conveying the meaning inside of it.  Discern the content of the story and you do not have to go rummaging around inside of it every time it comes up.  Instead, you can pull the meaning out of it and place it neatly folded in a drawer where you can find it the next time you need it.

In the present passage, the most common decoded message that I’ve come across is that Moses stands for the Law, Elijah stands for the prophets, and Jesus, of course, is the Messiah.  And then by singling Jesus out as “my Son, the Beloved,” God sets the gospel over the law and the prophets.  Listen to him, says the voice from the cloud.  There are two secondary messages as well–one about how it is better to keep your mouth shut in the presence of the holy than to blurt things out like Peter does; and another about how the purpose of such mountaintop experiences is to strengthen us for the climb back down into the valley of the shadow of death, where our real work remains to be done. My assumption is that you’ve heard all that before.

Besides, for all I know, those are exactly the meanings that Jesus or Matthew or God meant for us to get from the story; but it’s important to note that the passage itself does not say any of those things.  Instead, it describes something so beyond ordinary human experience that most of us are perfectly content to watch it from at least this far away. I mean, has this happened to any of you, or anyone you know? Let’s imagine it. Close your eyes…

It starts with a long climb up a windy mountain at dusk, searching for a place to pray, searching silently. You find a place, you sit down, and you get your headspace and heartspace into an attitude of prayer. You pray until you feel sleepy. You pray until you know it’s nighttime through your eyelids… except there is light when there shouldn’t be. Strong light. You don’t really want to open your eyes to see where the light is coming from, lest someone catch you not praying.  But you open your eyes and look.

And there he is: someone you thought you knew really well, standing there pulsing with light, spilling light everywhere.  Face like the sun.  Clothes dazzling white.  Then, as if that weren’t enough, two other people are there with him, all of them standing in that same bright light.  Who are they?  Can’t be.  Moses.  Elijah.  Dead men come back to life.  God’s own glory, lighting up the night.  And now they’re leaving.

You see your friend Peter standing up and saying something. We need tents, he says. He must think we’re on Mount Sinai. But before you get to answer him, you see a thick large cloud rolling in way too fast to be normal weather, a terrifying cloud. We’re all covered in this cloud, and it smells like a lightning strike. We can’t see a thing.

Then, out of nowhere, you hear a voice from the cloud that lifts the hairs on the back of your neck. And you’re struck with fear so fast and primitive. The voice doesn’t say “listen to me”, it says “listen to Him.” Listen to the Son, the Beloved, your friend Jesus. But listen to what? Jesus isn’t saying anything; he’s shining, or at least he was. Now he’s not. Now the experience is over… what was that?!

So if anything even remotely that strange has ever happened to you, then you know why Peter, James and John were relieved when Jesus told them to keep what had happened to themselves.  Supernatural light, famous people come back from the dead, God talking to you from inside a cloud.  Things like that may happen in the Bible every so often, but try talking about them now and someone’s going to refer you to a good psychiatrist.  Really, if I’m worth my salt as a preacher, I’m probably better off sticking with the Bible commentaries.  Rads, just say the thing about Jesus surpassing the law and the prophets, poke a little fun at Peter, bury the rest.  It might have been God.  Then, again, it might have been last night’s Chinese food. But I’m not doing that.

Most of us are allowed at least one direct experience of God (within bounds)–something that blows our minds, and calls all our old certainties into question.  I’ve had two: one that made me decide to give my life to Christ, and one where I felt called to be a minister. Some churches even require you to produce one as proof of your conversion and realness of faith.  But even in congregations that welcome signs and wonders on a regular basis, there seems to be a general consensus that life in Christ means trading in your old certainties for new ones.

Now, once you emerge from the cloud or fire or whatever, you are supposed to be surer than ever what you believe.  You are supposed to know who’s who, what’s what, where you are going in your life and why.  You are supposed to have answers to all the important questions, and when you read the Bible you are supposed to know what it means.  You have your Christian decoder ring, now use it – activate!

But, what if the point is not to decode the cloud but to enter into it?  What if the whole Bible is less a book of certainties than it is a book of encounters, in which a staggeringly long parade of people run into God, and are never the same again?  Think about it, what don’t people run into in the Bible?  Not just terrifying clouds and hair-raising voices, but also crazy relatives, persistent infertility, armed enemies, and deep depression, along with life-saving strangers, miraculous children, food in the wilderness, and extraordinary love.

Whether such biblical encounters come disguised as “good” or “bad,” they have a way of breaking biblical people open, of rearranging what they think they know for sure so that there is room for more divine movement in their lives.  Sometimes the movement involves literally traveling from one place to another.  Sometimes it means changing their angle on what is true and why.  Sometimes it involves the almost invisible movement of one heart toward another.

Certainties can become less so in these encounters, or at least those certainties that involve clinging to static notions of who’s who and what’s what, where you are going in your life and why.  Those things can shift pretty dramatically inside the cloud of unknowing, where faith has more to do with staying fully present to what is happening right in front of you than with being certain of what it all means.  The meeting–that’s the thing. The point is the moment.

Now there is no way to be sure, but I think Peter sensed that.  When Jesus lit up right in front of him, Peter knew what he was seeing.  The Bible calls it “God’s glory”–the shining cloud that is the sure sign of God’s capital P Presence.  In Exodus, when Moses climbed Mount Sinai to fetch the tablets of the law, the whole top of the mountain stayed socked in divine cloud cover for six whole days.  In 1 Kings, when Solomon dedicated the Temple in Jerusalem, a dense cloud filled up that huge place so that the priests could not even see what they were supposed to be doing.  When Ezekiel had his vision of the four living creatures, he saw them in the middle of “a great cloud with brightness around it and fire flashing forth continually.”

That’s what God’s glory looks like, apparently: a big bright cloud – both dark and dazzling at the same time–an envelope for the capital P Presence that would blow people away if they looked upon it directly–so God in God’s mercy placed a cloud buffer around it, which both protected the people and made it difficult for them to see inside.

Before the cloud rolled in, Peter knew what he was seeing.  What he did not see was a tent of meeting, a dwelling place, like the one where Moses met with God during the wilderness years.  So Peter offered to set one up – one for each of the great ones who appeared in glory before him.  “Lord, if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”  Peter may not have known what he was saying, but his instincts were good.  He knew that he was in the presence of the capital P Presence.  He knew that God was right there, and that tent or no tent, he was standing as close as he was ever going to get to the only kind of meeting that really matters.

You might know that this is the swing Sunday between the seasons of Epiphany and Lent. Ash Wednesday is this Wednesday. Today is the day that followers of Jesus look down at our maps, and say “uh oh…” because it is time to turn away from the fairy lights of Christmas towards the desert of Lent. But as gloomy and miserably as that might sound, this is actually very good news. Most of us, myself included, are so distracted by our gadgets, so busy with our busyness, so addicted to our pleasures, and so resistant to our depths that a long spell in the wilderness might be just what we need.

After all, no one can make you go. But if you have been looking for an excuse to head to your own mountaintop or beach or cave or whatever and pray, this is it. If you have been looking for a way to trade in your own certainties for new movement in your life, this is your chance to enter the cloud of unknowing, and listen for whatever it is that God has to say to you. Tent or no tent, this, now, is your chance to encounter God’s glory, so that a little of that razzle dazzle rubs off on you.

The story of the Transfiguration is really weird. But it is a story you can take with you when you go. The story tells you that no one has to go up the mountain alone. It tells you that sometimes things get really scary before they get holy. Above all, it tells you that there is someone standing in the center of the thick cloud with you, shining so brightly that you might never be able to comprehend him, but who is worth listening to anyway – because he is God’s beloved, and you are His, and whatever happens after this moment, you are up to it. Amen.