Last Epiphany C

­Today, we celebrate the Transfiguration.  I’ve heard about and celebrated the Transfiguration for years, but not until this year, when I had to spend time praying and thinking about the readings, did I appreciate its placement in our calendar. 

This is the last Sunday of the season of Epiphany, which also makes this the last Sunday before Lent begins. This week, we begin our Lenten journey with Ash Wednesday.  We’ll spend 40 days in that penitential and prayerful season of Lent, preparing for Holy Week and Easter, for the death and resurrection of Christ.   It’s in the shadow  of that imminent journey we’ll make that we get these readings today, full of light. 

In the Old Testament reading, we hear about Moses going up to Mount Sinai, where he receives the Law, or the 10 commandments. The reading tells us he was talking with God.   Wow.  Talking with God sounds so . . other worldly, so incredible, so something inaccessible to me.    When he returns, it says the skin of his face was shining.  After sharing the Law with Aaron and the other leaders, Moses took that shiny illumined face, and covered it with a veil.  He’d remain veiled until he went back and talked with God, when he’d take the veil off, get lit up again, and then put the veil back on, covering up his face to return to his people. 

In the Gospel, we hear a seemingly similar story, except this time, the story is different.  Jesus goes up a mountain to pray, bringing with him Peter, John and James.  

In both cases, Moses and Jesus are up a mountain.   I love that feeling of looking out over a landscape from a higher place.   There really is something weightless and feeling a little closer to God, when I’m at a place to look out over and across a vista.  There’s something immense and Holy about such spaces.  I certainly experience that when elevated on a real mountain, but I also get that sense when looking out over a valley, even from Skinners Butte, or Mount Pisgah.   Anywhere the elevation gives you a higher perspective, there’s something that feels beautiful and calm.  

So Jesus goes up the mountain to pray, to that beautiful and calm place.  While he’s praying, his clothes became dazzling white, and the appearance of his face changed.  That sounds pretty similar.  Go up a mountain, and get illumined.  

But then, Jesus  companions see Moses and Elijah with Jesus.    What an amazing, and possibly terrifying series of events.  And yet, at that moment when I might be pretty scared,  Peter turns to Jesus and says, “Master, it is good for us to be here”.  He senses this is a good place.  

At this point in the story, Peter, John and James try to fit what they’ve seen into their human paradigm, into their world of what they understood.  They offered to make three dwellings, possibly three shrines for Jesus, Moses & Elijah.  Peter and James and John were trying honor, memorialize or retain this amazing truly mountain-top experience they were having.  Of course, Moses & Elijah didn’t need shrines to be honored, dwellings to be  housed, and  couldn’t be retained or contained in any case.  

God then overshadows them with a cloud.  This could be another possibly terrifying thing to occur at the mountain top, with dazzling Jesus, and the apparition of Moses & Elijah.  God tells them, “This is my Son, My Chosen, Listen to him”.  At that point in the story, Moses & Elijah disappear and Jesus is again alone with his friends.  They tell no one. 

To me, this year, the greatest difference in these stories is not the presence of other human witnesses, of Peter, James and John, to this transfigurative event.  It’s not the presence of other prophets, or even God’s commandment to those there that they were to “Listen to Him”.  To me, this year, the greatest difference in these two stories is not something present in Jesus story.  It’s something that was absent from Jesus’ story.   

Unlike Moses, Jesus didn’t veil himself.  He didn’t cover his illumined face.  That light remained visible for all to see.  

Origen, a priest and theologian from the third century, compares Christ and us, the Church,  to the Sun and the moon.  Even on a cloudy Oregon night, the light from the moon makes the night not totally dark.  And on a clear night with a full moon, the nighttime light from the moon is startling.  And yet, the light isn’t from the moon at all.  The moon, on its own has no light to offer.   The sun is so amazingly bright that it can illumine the moon, 93 million miles away.  The light is so bright it can reflect off the moon, and can cast shadows in the darkest night.  

In the readings today, the light from God illumined Jesus and Moses.  Where Moses veiled his face, Jesus let that illumination be seen and shared.  We too are illumined by God.   Like the moon, it’s not anything we do to be illumined.   God’s light is so great that it lights us up just like the sun lights up the moon.    The moon does not choose whether to be lit up or not – it just happens.  We cannot chose to be lit up or not.  It just happens.  

But like Moses and Jesus, we can choose what to do with that light.    

Like a cloudy Oregon night or Moses’ veil, sometimes things get in the way to obscure our gifted light.  Sometimes we put the veil on ourselves.  We cannot bear the love and light and forgiveness that is given and do not have the strength to reflect that love and light and forgiveness.  We put the veil on ourselves, so no one knows.  So no one sees.  So no one else is illumined.  No one can see our transformed transfigured self.  Sometimes not even ourselves.  

 Sometimes we don’t know the light is there.  Sometimes it doesn’t feel like the light is shining on us.  We feel like a new moon, with something like the Earth that is so big that it fully blocks the light.    I’ve had times when I’ve felt so down, or so bad, or so undeserving, that I feel like there’s a big thing between me and God’s transfigurative light.  Talking with women in prison, I’ve heard their stories about big, bad horrible things that they’ve done, that they believe permanently separates them from that love. 

But unlike the new moon, God’s love and light is always on us and in us. We are a transfigured people.   We cannot escape it, regardless of whether we want to, or believe it. 

So here we are, sitting at the beginning of Lent.  Lent, for many – including me, can be a time of self-inflicted distancing from God.  I’m not worthy.  God doesn’t love me.   That wrong I’ve committed is so big that God’s love cannot reach me, cannot illumine me.   If I’m not careful, I mistake the penitential somber season of Lent for a time to punish myself with guilt or remorse over what’s happened in the past.  Then that remorse or sense of unworthiness can grow to the size of the Earth, which can totally eclipse the moon, so the sun never reaches it.  

 If I’m not careful, I can grab for the veils. I cover my illumined face, so it cannot be seen by others – including me.    

With Lent upon us, we are not asked to veil our faces, or hide our light.   We are not asked to deny the light and illumination from God.  We are not asked to distance ourselves from God, to voluntarily put ourselves in the Earth’s shadow, with no light or love.

 We are no less loved, no less illumined, no less transfigured during Lent than any other time of the year. And throughout the year, throughout our lives, things happen that make us grab for our veil, or make us feel that God’s love can’t reach us.  

And while Lent is not a time to distance ourselves, Lent is a time we are to pray and think about all of those things in our lives that makes us feel veiled, or makes us grab for those veils ourself.  We are asked to think about our relationship with God, and with others.  

Yes, it’s a penitential season and we’re asked to do some soul searching.  But sitting at either end of our Lenten Journey every year are pretty uplifting and comforting events.  We start with celebrating the Transfiguration, and end with the Resurrection.  Every year.   Lent sits between these promises of illumination and new life.  As today’s collect says, “Grant that we, beholding by faith the light of his countenance may be strengthened to bear our cross and be changed into his likeness”

People often want to give something up during Lent.  Another option would be to add something to your Lent.  During Lent, pray more.  Talk with God more.  That’s precisely what Moses was doing when he was transfigured.  Talking with God.  It’s not something unattainable, reserved for other better more holy people.  Talking with God is for us.  And when we pray, when we talk with God, we too are illumined and transfigured.   Take that transfigured illumined shiny self with you all day, all Lent, and reflect the light in the world to everyone.  And please,  leave your veil at home.

Amen.