It’s no small challenge for a church or a
preacher that Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday are falling on the same day
this year. The two are kind of like jalapeno nachos and chocolate sauce—I like
both of them, but not together. I mean, what are you supposed to do with this
conjunction? Send a card that says, “Be mine forever, even though we’re both
dust and to dust we shall return?”
But! I think I can make a nice parallel
(Okay. Maybe it’s a bit of a stretch but I’m doing my best!) between
Valentine’s Day and the Feast of the Transfiguration. In this last Sunday of
the Epiphany season in Mark’s gospel (Mark 9:2-9), we see Jesus dressed in
dazzling white and utterly transformed before his closest disciples in such a
manner that they are completely blown away by the experience.
I experience something similar at wedding
ceremonies. I’ve performed quite a few weddings in my time in the ordained
ministry. I’ve married some pretty plain looking women, but I’ve never seen a bride who wasn’t beautiful
on her wedding day. There’s just something about the nature of the experience
which is transformative. People say that brides “glow,” and I can testify that
they do—I’ve seen it again and again.
But, of course, it’s not just the physical
transformation which defines the experience of a wedding. It’s the fact that
this is a life-changing moment when the two become one. Unfortunately, the
glow, the dazzling white, the intoxication of joy that occurs when the bride
comes down the aisle is a fleeting experience, and like all sublime moments, it
will be gone in a breath and live on only in a memory. (Your really expensive
wedding album might help you remember it, but the feeling can never quite be recaptured. It’s kind of like
our Eagles winning the Super Bowl. There may be other championships sometime in
the future, but the comradery and the chemistry and excitement of this past
season has been unique, and is destined to fade. That’s a shame, but that’s
just how it is.)
For Peter, James, and John on the mountain
with Jesus, there was a moment of sublime realization that Jesus was unique and
so much more than he appeared to be. He was the one. Granted, they really
didn’t know what that meant. Peter, carried away as always by the excitement
and joy of the moment, makes an offer to stay forever on that mountain top, but
that’s just not practical or even possible. The moment had to fade, but the
change in the disciples’ relationship to Jesus had to be permanent.
Again, this is sort of like a wedding. We
see our beloved glowing before us, and we don’t imagine we could ever be more
happy or in love, or lucky than we are at that moment. But we don’t really know
what’s to come, do we?
I appreciate that Jesus orders the boys
not to talk about their experience. It makes sense. They won’t be able to
explain it or make others feel the way they did. Truth be told, they didn’t
really understand the experience themselves. Nevertheless, their lives had been
changed by Jesus—even if they didn’t see quite how it would all play out. They were
just told to be faithful—faithful to his words.
In honor of Valentine’s Day, I’m asking
the folks in my parish to bring in their wedding pictures to church to have
them blessed. We’re also going to invite the married couples in the
congregation to renew their wedding vows during the Transfiguration service. Of
course, when you think about it, we are always renewing our vows to Christ
whenever we gather for public worship. In the liturgy of Confession and
Forgiveness, the recitation of the historic creeds of the church, and the
coming together to meet Jesus in the Sacrament of the Altar we are keeping the
transfiguring moment of our baptism alive and recovering our promise to be
faithful.
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