Where Jesus Is

 

Mark 9:2-9

It’s so cold out there that one of our church families froze clothing into statues in their yard, and someone in my facebook feed froze an egg half cracked open, balanced in the air on a frozen puddle of egg white on the sidewalk like a pedestal. It’s so cold you can hammer a nail into wood with a frozen banana, and throw boiling water in the air to make a puff of cloud that doesn't fall back down.  Maybe those are the ways to celebrate what has come to be called The Transfiguration, because words can’t do it justice.
 
Jesus knew words couldn’t work here. He tells them not to talk about this moment till after he’s risen from the dead, when they’ll recognize that the laws of physics, and life and death, and time and space don’t always apply, and it will be fun to recall that one time on the mountain when Jesus all glowey and the mvps of the faith were back from the dead chatting him up.  
Still, they whispered to each other all the way back down the mountain, “What does he mean by risen from the dead?” 
Because, whattity what??
 
So maybe next year on Transfiguration Sunday we’ll just listen to ethereal music, or watch amazing colors, or contemplate some unfathomable intricacy of nature or boundless mystery of space instead of turning to words to try to understand what’s happening here. 
 
But perhaps the gift of this scene –for us today but for the disciples there on the mountain and for Jesus himself – is the mystery of it. The inexplicableness of the encounter.   
 
Peter at least has his wits about him enough to recognize that whatever this is, it’s important, so he jumps in with a strategy, Let’s just stay here never leave; we’ll make each of you a dwelling.  But he’s quickly shushed by an almighty cloud, and by the words of the gospel writer apologizing for him – he didn’t know what he was saying, you guys, because they all were terrified.
 
This captures it all! Peter thought. The glory of Jesus revealed! Here is where we should stay. Here is where the truth is, the way is, the life is. Right here. 
 
But the moments of mystery and wonder are not where Jesus remains.  As soon as they get back down the mountain they are confronted by the utterly anguished father of a child tormented by illness and demons, whom their prayers couldn’t heal. And in Matthew, Mark and Luke, these two scenes come back to back, like a boxed set, like they belong together: the mountaintop glory and the valley despair.  You can’t have the one without the other. 

Who is Jesus? Both of these. We see him revealed in the limitlessness of the inexplicable mystery and wonder on top of the mountain AND in the heartbreaking barriers of impossibility below. Both are where Jesus is, and both are part of the disciples’ experience of following him. 
 
Jesus says to the boy’s dad, “How long has he been like this?” And he invites the father to tell his story of pain, to speak of the affliction his son has experienced his whole life. How long have you suffered? And Jesus listens and receives him. Then he heals the boy, and blesses the father, and calls the disciples again to follow.
 
The voice on the mountain said, This is my son, the beloved, the embodiment of my love, listen to him. The same voice said at his baptism, This is my son the beloved, in whom I delight. Then immediately Jesus was sent into the wilderness where he was tempted to use his power to protect and save himself, tempted to get the recognition he deserves. Hungry, tired, weak and emotionally spent, he was tempted to claim and stay in the glory. But instead, he chose to claim and dwell in his humanity and weakness. And there is where God’s angels were able to minister to him, and restore his strength. And he was sent to minister from that place of being met by God in his weakness and need. 
 
Why can’t we just live up on the mountain in touch with the transcendence all the time? Peter thought, What else matters when there is this? 
 
And yet, there is also that. And Jesus came for that, not for this. Jesus came for the broken children and the anguished fathers and the temptations we all face. 
We swing between the mountains and the valleys, the transcendent glimpses that there is something more, tastes of joy or terror, moments where we feel absolutely alert and awake to the deeper, where words don’t make sense and can’t contain it, and the complications, temptations, stuckness, brokenness, sorrow, desperation, impossibility.
 
The world the needs redeeming; we need ministering to. And while the inexplicable glimpses of glory feed us, God’s redemption ultimately doesn’t come through these mysterious, unexplainable moments of transcendence.  It comes through the transcendent one taking on our humanity and letting what breaks us break him too. It comes when Jesus dies, just like every one of us and all those we have loved and will love will die. It comes when Jesus goes through death and comes out the other side and death no longer has the power to define or determine reality, and the glory and the brokenness come together in the person of the risen Christ.  
 
And so much of life is lived not even purely on the mountains or in the valleys or even in the wild swings between, but in the midst, the both/and – where in the midst of the sorrow we have a flash of joy, in the midst of the tension, a feeling of letting go, in the midst of fear, a moment of trust and absolute love. And very often we don’t have words for these glimpses of glory; they are not experiences that make clear, logical sense.
 
So we are asked to live in the paradox. Always. In the tension and the honesty of it –that the complications and temptations and divisions and weakness are real and they feel insurmountable. But also that we are held in a reality that transcends all the limits and boundaries of this world and calls us to something deeper, and wider, and eternal, that holds us all together in love. Both are true at the same time. Just like Jesus was both fully God and fully human. 
 
We exist inside the constraints of this world in all our messy, broken, impossible situations, but also inside a bigger story of love so powerful it transcends all limits of space and time. We live in the paradox of the piercing division in our families, communities and country, and also connection and belonging so deep we are joined not only with those around us but also with those gone before and those to come.
  
Our faith exists in tension, the paradox that runs deeper than logic.  
So we watch for the glimpses of beyond while we live utterly here.
 
Can we entrust ourselves to the one who embodies absolute love and walks this earth as the great paradox of God’s unlimited otherness and also persistent nearness?  The father of the boy trapped in seizures says it best, I believe, help my unbelief. I trust, help my untrusting heart. 
 
Jesus will soon say again to Peter, James and John, “Come with me” and they’ll follow him to the garden, where he will pray with so much fear and intensity that he sweats blood, begging God not to have to face death. I can’t help but think these three needed thismoment to get them through that moment.  But maybe so did Jesus.  Unspeakable glory and wonder exist alongside unspeakable horror and suffering.  Jesus takes on our horror to bring us into his glory.
 
There is one command in this text: Listen to him. Listen to Jesus. And sure, you could go back and read the things in the bible that he said and let those in. That would be a lovely way to listen to him.  See who Jesus is, what he says, what he does, let that speak to you. 
 
But also, just listen. Maybe we can cultivate a posture of openness to Jesus. In his humanity, in his divinity, in his risenness and presence with us even now. 
 
Jesus, help us listen to you.  

You who were tempted and afraid, who cried and died, you who sits at the right hand of God far above all powers, through whom the whole earth had its life spoken into being. You who listen and receive the whole of us and our stories when you set us free and bring us healing. 
 
We’re tired, Jesus. We’re despairing. We’re divided and in pain. We’re struggling. Some of us are sick. Some of us are angry. Some of us are lost, or hopeless, or afraid.  
 
Help us listen to you. We want to see you and what you are doing. We want to live guided by your love—nothing less, nothing else. 
 
So help us to follow you where you lead, and seek you where dwell – right alongside one another in our weakness and our need – where you minister to us as we minister to each other. There is the way, the truth and the life, there you are.  

And from time to time, to help us through the valleys, please give us the mountaintop moments of mystery and wonder too. Thank you.  

Amen.