"With Flakes of Light" - Transfiguation A

Exodus 24:12-18
Saint Matthew 17:1-9

Zora Neale Hurston, wrote a book about the life of Moses beautifully weaving the biblical accounts with those of the rich storytelling tradition of her ancestors who were slaves.

Here is how she described Moses as he descended from the mountain after spending forty days communing with God.

Moses lifted the freshly chiseled tablets of stone in his hands and gazed down the mountain to where Israel waited in the valley.  He knew a great exaltation.  Now men could be free because they could govern themselves.  They had something of the essence of divinity expressed in order.  They have the chart and compass of behavior.  They need not stumble into blind ways and injure themselves.  This was bigger than Israel itself.  It comprehended the world.

With flakes of light still clinging to his face, Moses turned down the mountain with the tablets of testimony in his hands. 

“Joshua,” Moses said, “I have laws, Israel is going to know peace and justice.”1

I love that.  It is beautiful writing.  “With flakes of light still clinging to his face.”
 
That is a certain sign that someone has had something majestic happen to them.  You’ve seen it.  You’ve experienced it.  This isn’t just something that happens to characters in the bible because it has happened to all of us.  Not being as eloquent as Ms.  Hurston, we might have to settle on the words “She was beaming!” to describe what we meant. 
 
It is moments like this that sustain us.  It is those times when we have felt especially wonderful, fully alive, exceptionally happy, in the darker or even the more humdrum moments of life.
 
It is the reason we take pictures at momentous occasions.  We want to remember the joy, the excitement of those moments.

Think of what a big moment it must have been when Moses, his face flecked with  left over light from being in the presence of God descended down the mountain with the commandments. Unfortunately, Moses time to shine didn’t last very long because of what was going on back down in the valley with his people.

You remember the story.  

Moses had been gone so long that the people had given up on him and God and asked Aaron to cobble together another god for them to worship.  Either out of fear of the mob, lack of leadership skills, or an absence of faith, he fashioned a golden calf for them.
 Here is Zora Neale Hurston’s fictionalized account of what was going on with Moses and Joshua on the mountain while the people partied down below.

Moses looked down at the stones in his lap and passed his hand over the carved figures reverently and then looked back up the mountain as if he would retreat up there.  Then he brought his attention back to the tumult below.

“Does it sound like the voice of the people shouting for victory, Joshua? 

Well,’ he said haltingly, ‘does that sound to you like they are crying out for help?  What do you reckon could have happened to Israel, Joshua?

 “Oh, that’s singing and dancing that I hear.  Sounds like the dance songs to Apis, the Bull-god to me.  Listen to those drums!”
 
 Moses snatched his face away from Joshua and the last glimmer of light that had clung to his face from God, died to ashes.2

That has happened to us to when mountaintop moments of majesty are interrupted and tarnished by other events. 
 
That is why it makes so much sense for Peter to want to stay on top of the mountain with Jesus.  He and Jesus had just had a very nasty row.  Peter had confessed Jesus as the Christ, the Messiah, the Savior.  And for a moment he was a hero, a theologian of the first order, until Jesus started to talk about the cross. 

When Jesus began to talk about a cross, Peter crumbled.  He had been trying to tell them what it would mean to be the Messiah.  But all Peter had wanted was for Jesus to stop talking.  He had felt as if the Jesus he had known and loved was slipping through his fingers.3

He also must have felt that a majestic moment might slip away if he didn’t do something.

Poor Peter has taken a lot of grief over the centuries for his response to the appearance of Moses and Elijah there with Jesus and most of it is unjustified.
 
This is a moment worth preserving.  This is a moment that is worth keeping for if not eternity at least as long as possible.  How often does one get to witness a meeting of the minds of three great religious leaders?   It is as if the four presidents on Mount Rushmore started to speak.  At the risk of dating myself that would be a Kodak moment!
 
Lutheran Pastor Brian Stoffregen has always wondered, how did they know it was Moses and Elijah? 

Did they have pictures of them hanging in their synagogues? Did they have their names over their pockets on their presumably white robes -- or perhaps their names were printed on the back, across their shoulders like football players? However they knew who they were, they represent the law and the prophets; and there were traditions about both that they had never died.4

 This is not only a moment worth preserving but it would serve another purpose: It would keep Jesus safe.  All of those predictions about his suffering, and dying could never take place if he was safely ensconced in a house on the mountain.  Nothing could ever happen to him in a mountaintop retreat.
 
'At this moment it is almost as if the LORD God had to blow a whistle, pull back on the reigns and say, “Whoa!  Whoa!  Whoa!” 

While [Peter] was still speaking, (Still babbling on) suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!”5

At that the two disciples fell on their faces, frightened, terrified, scared to death.
 
It is at this point Jesus comes over and does something vastly different from everything else we have been talking about this morning.  “Jesus came over and touched them.  ‘Get up,’ he said, don’t be afraid.’”6
 
This may even be a more powerful, lasting image than all the fire and smoke of Moses’ mountaintop experience and even the bright light with the bright stars of Scripture with Jesus, Moses and Elijah.

Transfiguration Sunday is such a weird and wonderful day to celebrate. In so many ways, nothing really happened. Nothing changed. The world wasn’t turned upside down. The disciples weren’t suddenly flooded with a new understanding of God or of Jesus.  

It doesn’t change Jesus’ fundamental ministry. It doesn’t even change the timeline or the outcome of Jesus’ challenging message. He continues to heal. He continues to teach. He continues to frustrate the religious folks. He continues to expect more from his disciples than they ever are able to follow through on. Ministry just continues, which makes this sacred moment on the top of a mountain all the more interesting.7 

Because in that moment we catch a glimpse of God’s grandeur and God’s love.
The grandeur is amazing but the love sustains.

So too, it is for us.  There will be mountaintop moments when we feel that God is in total and complete control and we feel God’s presence in all of its glory.

 There will also be moments when we fall on our faces in fear wondering if life can go on and if we ever be able to see our way though.  When the last glimmer of light in our life seems to die.

 It is at both of these times we can feel God’s tough in Jesus and, when we do, we will discover that the flakes of the light of God’s love are still clinging to our face.

 Thanks be to God who makes this so.  Amen

__________

1. Zora Neale Hurston, Moses: Man of the Mountain.  (New York: Harper, 2009.)

2. ibid.

3. Kristin Adkins-Whitesides, “Wrapped in a Cloud.” A Sermon for Every Sunday. Accessed February 22, 2020. https://mailchi.mp/asermonforeverysunday/this-weeks-sermon-1744129?e=b84b5994b2.

4. Stoffregen, Brian. “Matthew 17.1-9 Transfiguration of Our Lord Last Sunday after the Epiphany - Year A.” Exegetical Notes at CrossMarks. Crossmaks Christian Resources. Accessed February 22, 2020. http://www.crossmarks.com/brian/matt17x1.htm.

5.  Saint Matthew 17:5.  (NRSV) [NRSV=The New Revised Standard Version]

6.  Saint Matthew 17:7.  (TLB) [TLB=The Living Bible]

7. Faulhaber, Patrick. “Life Goes On.” Modern Metanoia. Modern Metanoia.org, February 10, 2020. http://modernmetanoia.org/2020/02/10/last-sunday-after-epiphany-a-life-goes-on/.