The Rev. Kristin Krantz, St. James’, Mt. airy, February 14, 2021
Last Epiphany: 2 Kings 2:1-12, Psalm 50:1-6, 2 Corinthians 4:3-6, Mark 9:2-9
Gracious God, take our minds and think through them; take our hands and work through them;
take our hearts and set them on fire. Amen.
Today is the last Sunday after the Epiphany. Lent begins this Wednesday, with Ash Wednesday, bringing us into a season of penitence, prayer, fasting, and giving.
But we’re not there yet. Today we stand on the mountaintop with Jesus and his closest friends to witness him being transfigured.
How did we get here?
The word epiphany means “showing forth.” These last six weeks we have been hearing stories that have showed forth and revealed Jesus’ identity. From his baptism where God called him his beloved, to the calling of the first disciples, to stories of him bringing healing and wholeness, Jesus’ compassion and power have been on display.
And that all happened in just the first chapter of Mark’s gospel, there are seven more chapters in which Jesus continues his ministry of healing and liberation.
Today’s episode at the beginning of chapter nine takes place at almost the exact midpoint of Mark’s gospel, as well as its highest geographical elevation. The first eight chapters have built up to this mountaintop experience, and the last eight chapters will describe the descent into his passion and death, arriving finally at the stunning news of the empty tomb. The Transfiguration stands as the fulcrum, the pivot point between these two great movements in Mark’s gospel.[1]
This is why we stand on the mountain today, at the ending of one season of the church year and the precipice of another. But that isn’t the only takeaway from this story.
Throughout Epiphanytide we’ve encountered miraculous stories. What happened on the mountain is the biggest one yet.
Jesus is described as being transfigured, a Greek word (metamorphoom) used only one other time in the Bible, in Matthew’s account of this event. It’s unclear exactly what this transfiguration was, except that Jesus’ clothes became an unearthly white and his friends had a vision of the prophets Elijah and Moses talking with him.
It terrified them, and that was before they were surrounded by a cloud and heard a voice from heaven declaring, “This is my son, the Beloved; listen to him.”
This is indeed the clearest showing forth of Jesus’ identity we’ve had yet, placing him alongside the prophets of old, and with a heavenly announcement akin to the one made as Jesus’ baptism, which in Mark’s gospel only he had heard.
It is another astonishing story in the series of astonishing stories we’ve heard over the last six weeks.
Stories of miracles and miraculous happenings are designed to do just that, astonish us, as theologian Karl Barth once pointed out – because astonishment, after all, is a blend of belief and disbelief.[2]
Think about that for a moment. Think of a time when you were truly astonished – that surreal feeling of something happening that is tinged with a feeling that it’s not quite real. Astonishment is truly the holding together of both belief and disbelief.
Accordingly, Barth contends that when we read about miracles in scripture, we should neither merely “believe” or “disbelieve” them. Rather these stories are meant to leave us “taken aback” with amazement in such a way that we turn our attention to wondering about the deeper dimensions of Jesus’ actions then, and what they mean for us today.
As we prepare to trek down the mountain and into the valley of Lent this week, I can’t help but think that astonishment would be a good travelling companion for this holy season.
That we would commit ourselves to opening our hearts and minds to being astonished. That we would encounter the stories to come not just as things to mundanely believe, or to dismiss with disbelief as events that happened two millennia ago, but instead to engage with them weekly and truly listen to Jesus (as today’s gospel compels us).
In this way Jesus will continue to show forth in our lives, and indeed our lives may then show forth the love of God for the world. Amen.
[1] SaltProject’s Lectionary Commentary for Transfiguration Sunday.
[2] SaltProject’s Lectionary Commentary for Transfiguration Sunday.