Today’s question is another personal one – one for you to think about for a moment. One which calls upon your memory. My question is this: What event in your life is one you wanted to last? It could be an event that was a major turning point in your life. It could have been brief, or it could have gone on for days. But it’s one you wanted to preserve.
For some, it might be very romantic moments. The time you were dating a very special person. The time of your wedding and honeymoon. It could be the birth of your child, a time of joy. It might be a special trip or vacation. Four days in Disney World. An island cruise or a trip to Europe. Or, perhaps, a few days in Colorado, or even in Galveston or San Antonio. It could be your first really good job, a time when you were respected and appreciated for what you were doing. A time capturing all you really wanted out of life.
Each one of us, if we think about it, can recall a moment when everything seemed to be perfect, when our life was completely “all-together.” Each one of us has beheld, for a brief instant, our own Camelot. If only we could have preserved it. Put it under glass. Protected it, so it would still be with us, every moment of our lives.
Saint Peter experienced such a glorious event. We heard his personal recounting of it in one of his own letters. A passage was read from this letter in our Second Reading for today. In our gospel reading, we, also, heard more about this experience and how he was probably reminded of a similar vision the Prophet Daniel once had about the appearance of the Son of man.
The events we recall in our own lives are not as dramatic as the one Peter, James and John witnessed there on the mountain. After all, we seldom hear, directly, the spoken word of God. They did. For Peter wrote: “… we had been eyewitnesses of [Jesus’] majesty. For he received honor and glory from God the Father when that unique declaration came to him from the majestic glory, ‘This is my Son, my beloved, with whom I am well pleased.’ We ourselves heard this voice come from heaven while we were with him on the holy mountain.”
It was there, where Jesus and his friends had retreated to pray, that Moses, the lawgiver, the founder of Israel, and Elijah, the prophet, the restorer of Israel, met with him. On Mount Sinai, Moses had received the Law, the Ten Commandments from the Lord God. On Mount Horeb, Elijah had seen the Lord God, himself, not in a storm, earthquake or fire, but in a gentle, whispering breeze. And now on this holy Mount Tabor, they spoke with Jesus about his own “Exodus,” his own journey to Jerusalem.
And what was Peter’s immediate reaction? He said: “Rabbi, it is good that we are here! Let us make three tents: one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” In effect, what he was suggesting was: let us preserve the memory of this great event. Let us erect a tent, a tabernacle, a monument so that it will be visible to us and others for the rest of our lives.
There are many of us who are like Peter. We want to preserve in some physical way the major event in our life. We wish we could freeze-frame it with a push of a button on our Tivo. There are, also, some who do not merely remember the past, but rather, try to take the past with them into the present. There are classic stories of the high school football player who still lives out the faded glory of that winning touchdown. There are not-so-classic stories of others who try to say the past is not really over. Today is still the same as yesterday. There are those who have erected tents upon their mountaintops to preserve a magnificent event.
And over the years, the simple tent, the tabernacle, became a temple and then a fortress to keep out all new changes, all new thoughts and ideas. But Jesus did not want to have tents erected for his particular encounter with the past. The event reported in today’s Gospel according to Mark ends with the words: “As they were coming down from the mountain, [Jesus] charged them not to relate what they had seen to anyone, except when the Son of Man had risen from the dead.”
Yes, they had just heard the voice of God say: “This is my beloved Son. Listen to him.” And yet, they were to tell no one of this event. As I said, Jesus did not want them to perpetuate his encounter with the past, his meeting with Moses and Elijah. Rather he spoke to them of his future: his suffering, his death and his resurrection. It was these events he wanted them to remember and to celebrate. And so they did. And so do we.
Each Sunday we gather together here at Eucharist to remember and to celebrate. And to enter into tomorrow. For this is the instruction spoken to us by Jesus the Christ. As great as the events of the past might be, as necessary as they are in making each one of us the person who exists right now, it is even more necessary we move onwards. We must come down from our mountaintop and re-enter the world of suffering, of death, but death coupled with resurrection and joy.
Mountaintop experiences give us strength and conviction for our journey, but they are not the journey, itself. There is more to life than living in the past. Having heard the voice of the Lord God spoken from the mists and clouds surrounding our mountaintops, we now must listen to the word of God made flesh, the word of God who is transformed into the body and blood we eat and drink at this celebration. The word of God who tells us to go forth and be Eucharist for others.
We are asked not to preserve the past in physical structures. We are not to live on the glory of our past accomplishments. Rather we are to join in the new Exodus, the new journey. We must come down from the mountaintop and continue our journey into the kingdom of God.
Transfiguration of the Lord, August 6, 2006
Dan 7:9-10, 13-14; 2 Pt 1:15-19; Mk 9:2-10