While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!” (Matthew 17:5)
Glory.
The dictionary tells us it can mean “high renown or honor won by notable
achievement” or “magnificence or great beauty.” What does the glory of the Lord
mean to you? Have you ever beheld anything of such great magnificence that it
had you standing still as rock with your mouth hanging open?
I
can recall vividly being a teenager standing on the lip of the Grand Canyon and
thinking how water and ice were carving that ditch inch by inch for millions
and millions of years long before anything like the upright monkeys we are ever
appeared on this planet. A few years later I stood in the desert at Joshua Tree
National Monument in California. As far as the eye could see there really
wasn’t much of anything to look at, but the absence of any kind of man-made
sound—the total silence of the place—was crushing and a little
frightening. I imagine it must’ve been like the silence Elijah experienced on
Mount Horeb which made him hide his face in his cloak[i].
Have
you ever felt awe like that? I sometimes get the same feeling on a cloudless
pre-dawn morning when I roll my recycle cart out to the curb. I look up at the
stars and consider they’re so very far away and it has taken their light
uncountable eons to reach the earth. The stars themselves might’ve burned out a
million years ago, but the light would still be making its way across the
emptiness of space to be perceived by my tiny brain. I also consider that, for
all the stars I can see, there are so many billions out there which can only be
observed from the middle of the ocean or from some rare points on earth’s
surface not polluted by the artificial light we make down here. Did Moses feel
that sense of God’s magnificence when he stood atop Mt. Sinai?[ii] Just thinking of the
vastness of all God has made and the enormity of time itself makes me shudder
with the knowledge of my own miniscule insignificance.
It’s
no wonder the disciples who experienced the glory of God on the mountaintop
with Jesus fell to the ground in fear. What are any of us compared to the
wonder and mystery and might of God? But these lads who experienced something of
which they were forbidden to speak—even assuming they could describe it—were
given two other important instructions: Listen to Jesus, and don’t be afraid.
I
don’t doubt the disciples had been feeling a little insecure given Jesus’
earlier prediction that he would go to Jerusalem and undergo persecution from
the leaders of the people and then be put to death.[iii] I think Jesus needed to
remind his most faithful friends and followers that whatever was about to occur—whatever
pain and anguish the rulers of this sinful world were about to inflict—was nothing
but a blink in God’s eye. The glory of the Lord is everlasting and so far
beyond our imagining. It’s also far, far beyond the trouble of the present
time. I wonder if Peter, James, and John, cowering in that locked room when the
resurrected Christ appeared before them, said to themselves, “Of course Jesus
is risen! Didn’t he reveal to us the glory of the Father on that mountaintop? What
were we afraid of? Why did we doubt? Silly of us, wasn’t it?”
The
Feast of the Transfiguration comes on the cusp of the holy season of Lent, a
time of repentance and renewal when we in the Church remember our Lord’s
Passion and our sinful nature which grieves the heart of God. It seems we don’t
require much of a reminder as the nightly news keeps slapping us in the face
with tales of violence, injustice, and corruption. It’s therefore important
that we take this festival day to return to the mountaintop, to remind
ourselves of the magnificence of the God we worship, and remember the God whose
glory leaves us shaking in stupefied awe is also the God who loves us. Let the
powers of this world, of sin, and of death do their worst. As the Psalmist
says, “God whose throne is in heaven is laughing; the Lord holds them in
derision.”[iv]
Listen
to Jesus and don’t be afraid.
Thanks
again for your time, my friend. Please leave me a comment and come visit me
again.
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