It had been a rainy morning. When the bus left us off at the base of the mountain of the Transfiguration, it was clear that the top of the mountain was shrouded in clouds. There is this harrowing taxi drive up the mountain (and even more harrowing coming down). A third of the way up the mountain, we entered the cloud/fog. When they dropped us off in a parking lot, I could only see about 10 -12 feet in front of me. Besides the damp that clings to you, what I noticed in that fog, was an amazing silence. You HEARD the gentle drip of condensation falling from the wrought iron gates as you pass them, heading up to the chapel at the top. There was the ever so slight hush of a breeze as it moves the tall evergreens only at their tips. A gentle shuffle of foot against loose gravel. When you are in a fog that thick, most other sounds kind of fade away.
I have always wondered if that was a part of the miracle of the Transfiguration. I wondered if it was that experience – of being in a thick fog, where your sight is limited to what is right in front of you, and the sounds are so muted that you kick up your listening and all your senses a notch – that allowed the disciples the perspective they needed to truly see Jesus in his glory. A classmate from the seminary wrote a poem years ago that has stayed with me about this.
“Once Jesus took his friends, Peter, James and John, to a craggy mountaintop, far from the madding crowds, where they used to act so officious, like important mediators. Taken up with him alone, gradually, they composed themselves, and their eyes were opened, and they saw him for just a moment, as he really was all the time.”
Will you allow yourself time this Lent/week to be taken up with the Lord alone? To sit in front of His presence in the tabernacle? To find your favorite outdoor spot, and just BE there? Step away from the business and just be with our Lord.
2nd thought: If you notice, Peter, James and John were asleep when the transfiguration began. But then Luke records that the disciples “became FULLY awake.” I suspect he was talking more than just about getting up from a nap. Rather, they ‘see Jesus’ glory’. And there is something in that seeing that allows them to see their own glory because of the radiance of Jesus. It is that kind of seeing that is what we are about as Christians. Seeing the glory in each person, as a reflection of the glory of Christ. Pope Francis and Donald Trump got into a bit of a tiff this week, because the Pope gently said: Any ‘seeing’ that wants to build a wall between “Us” and “Them”; that does not see the goodness in the other is not Christian seeing.
The challenge of the transfiguration is to become FULLY AWAKE, not to our way of seeing, but to Jesus’ way of seeing. Peter gets it partly right in his response. “Let’s build three tents here” – because in this moment, and this place, attentive to you, we see the glory that is always there, not just in you, but in each other.” Sadly, too often we don’t. So the call is to let our vision include all of Jesus’ friends. And they are a strange bunch, I will warn you. Tax collectors, sinners. Crazy folk. Fringe people.
But Peter also gets it very wrong. He wants to stay there in that moment, in that seeing. Wrong answer, says Jesus. We are called to bring what we see down the mountain, back to the people and places where we live and move and have our being. Perhaps we get to how well we are doing that in part by listening to our internal dialogue about people. “What an idiot they are.” Who does she think she is?” “Where do they get off telling ME what to do?”
There are times, when even on beautiful sunny days like this weekend, I/we have to ‘re-enter the fog’ of the mountain of the transfiguration. To let ourselves be divested of all the things we plug into and are bombarded with. There, taken up with him alone, we can see HIS glory, and recognize that glory in each of our brothers and sisters…