Rise and Shine
By Rev. Dan Smith
February 18, 2007
This past week, I had the privilege of taking a full week off from all things First Church. With Mary’s Sabbatical officially underway this week, the timing could not have been better. After our send-off lunch last week, Nancy and I and Julian and Nellie piled in the car and headed north to Vermont for our first family only vacation. No friends. No in laws. Just us! We stayed at the Trapp Family Lodge which rests atop one of Vermont’s many scenic hillsides and overlooks the quaint New England town of Stowe. The location was perfect. That said, we spent much of our time under the weather, both literally and figuratively. Literally, we were covered by a blizzard which brought 4 feet of fresh snow to our door on Wednesday alone. It made for fabulous sledding, snowman making and skiing (from which I’m still sore) even though they had bring in an earth mover to extract our car. Figuratively, we, all of us, were at one point or another under the weather with our share of colds, coughs and nasty sore throats. Overall though, we all enjoyed the amazing gift of five days rest, each of which began with Nellie or Julian climbing into our bed and saying in my face “Rise and Shine, Sleeping Beauty.” The line has become something of a reveille in our household lately for those who sleep in, and by sleep in, I’m only talking beyond 6:45.
Did you notice who else was sleeping or almost sleeping in our text from Luke for today? They were not little children resting up for a day of winter fun or a big bear of step dad in winter hibernation. It was Peter, John and James who were also on a mountain top, along with Jesus and two unexpected guests, Elijah and Moses. The text says the disciples were weighed down with sleep! Its only when they get a glimpse of Jesus and his companions standing there in all their shining glory that they’re up and at ‘em, standing at attention, and ready for action. Imagine be woken up by the voices of Jesus, Moses and Elijah chatting away, or by the light of God’s glory shining through them. Talk about a wake up call! Talk about a reveille!
Back to the mountain where I stayed last week and what besides the kids yelling woke me up. Have you noticed how much clearer the sun seems to shine when there is fresh snow on the ground? From bed, we could peer out our windows and sense the brightness not only of the sun, but of the sun’s reflection off the snow. Gorgeous. It was as though the whole hillside and valley were arrayed in a bright white robe of snow, perhaps like the one Luke tells us Jesus was wearing in our text. It all brought to mind a line that begins a favorite poem by Mary Oliver: “Every morning, the world is created, under the orange sticks of the sun.” Allow me to repeat it. “Every morning, the world is created, under the orange sticks of the sun.” Every morning, the world created anew. It felt like that to me this past week. More than merely an affirmation of the beauty of God’s creation, its an affirmation of hope and faith. To forget that world is created anew, each and every day, is to sleep through God’s mystery, to doze off in the face of God’s glory, and to lose hope that God’s light is there to guide our way.
Today, the Protestant church celebrates the Transfiguration which is the name given to our scene from Luke wherein Jesus’s face and body, along with Moses and Elijah’s are transfigured into a shining star of God’s glory. Transfiguration Sunday is the last Sunday of the season of Epiphany and the first before Lent, which begins this coming Ash Wednesday. This day is about more than some saccharine connection between the ways that the both the sun and Jesus’ face can shine on the mountaintops and bring hope and light to our lives. It is a day for us to wake up, to wake up in the light of God’s glory, to take stock and to look out over the horizon of what’s in store for Jesus and for us. With Jesus, Moses and Elijah all lit up on the mountain top, its easy to be blinded by all the radiance and lose sight of what they’re talking about together as the disciples perk up. But, the key to the tarnsgifuration, for Jesus and for us, lies not so much in the light but in the conversation to which the disciples are privy.
The text tells us “they were speaking of his departure which he was about to accomplish in Jerusalem. Hmmm. Departure as in Jesus’s death? Or, departure as in Jesus’ resurrection? The text is ambiguous about what it meant by Jesus’ departure, but clearly its important if it’s a topic of discussion for this trifecta of religious figures. In the end, its probably safe to assume they were talking about both Jesus death and resurrection, both his end and a new beginning for him and for us. From their vantage point on that mountaintop, they may have even been pointing to the horizon and perhaps even the cityscape of Jersusalem where Jesus would soon go to suffer, to die and to rise again.
Can you imagine being James, John and Peter and waking up to this news flash that their beloved leader, and their savior, had a departure to accomplish? They must have been terrified at first, and probably deeply curious about the why’s, when’s and how’s of his leaving, all those questions for which they didn’t really want the answer. Frantic with fear, and the text tells us they were indeed terrified, they say to themselves, “don’t just stand there, do something!” First century “guys” that they were, their instinct was to build something of course, maybe some shelter so that Jesus and the others would consider staying awhile. But before they can put their hand on a tool, a divine cloud comes over them. God’s speaks to them a somewhat familiar word, one that we at least remember being spoken to Jesus at his baptism. “This is my son, the Beloved.” This time, God adds, “Listen to him!” In other words, don’t just do something, stand there! Stand there and learn what you can on this day of your new awakening. Learn that eventually you will walk with Jesus, and Jesus will walk with you down from the mountain, through the valley of death in Jerusalem, towards a new horizon of resurrection. We see now that the conversation between Jesus, Elijah and Moses plots the course not only for Jesus, but for James, John and Peter and for us too. We start with a mountaintop experience that wakes us up, shines a bright light in our face and calls us to attention. We learn that we need to listen before speaking and acting. Then, its down to the valley, into the wilderness, and into the darkness of suffering and death, before we can rise again to a new light and dawn, and before a new light and dawn arises in us.
The Frenchman Victor Hugo, who wrote Les Miserables, once penned these lines. “Nations, like stars, are entitled to eclipse. All is well, provided the light returns and the eclipse does not become endless night. Dawn and resurrection are synonymous. The reappearance of the light is the same as the survival of the soul.” Nations, like stars, like souls even are entitled to eclipse. While I’m not sure entitled would be my word for it, what I think Hugo is saying is that nations, stars and souls will inevitably experience extraordinary moments of fear and darkness. And yet, just as inevitable is the reappearance of light, and I might add the re-ignition of hope. Our text, with its mention of Jesus departure, looks ahead and prepares us for the eclipse of Jesus’ soul on Good Friday. By offering us such a stunning image of radiance, where Jesus is standing flanked by two other great leaders that have long since died, this passage gives us hope that the light of Christ will return too and that there will be no more endless nights for his followers. In the words of the hymn we’re about to sing, God’s grace will shine like the morning. God’s grace will sweetly pierce the dark nights of our souls.
It is among the greatest privileges of my job to witness what I’ll call an inward dawn, a dot of light on the horizons of individual souls. I know I’m not alone in experiencing this. I know many of you have had mountaintop experiences where no matter where you are standing the ground becomes holy because God is shining through someone you know. Moments of pure laughter. Moments of grief. Moments of shared silence. Moments of shared song. Moments of utter confusion where you have desired for the half-light of that inward dawn to be at high noon. Think about it, many of you have seen it in other people. You have been there for someone as their souls have risen and broken through the darkness of grief and fear. You have witnessed yourselves or others rise and break through horizons of insecurity, of self-doubt and of false expectations that have been forced upon you. Unfortunately though, we all know the soul is less predictable than the sun. Sadly, none of our souls are in the habit of rising with each day. We need help, tons of it, and we need guidance. We need reveilles to wake us up and light to show us the way lest we lapse into naps of cynicism, selfishness or despair.
Thoreau wrote at Walden, “To him whose elastic and vigorous thought keeps pace with the sun, the day is a perpetual morning. It matters not what the clocks says or the attitudes or labors of men. Morning is when I am awake and there is a dawn in me.” As Christians, to keep pace with the sun and to locate that dawn with us, we can do no better than to try to keep pace with the Son of God, Jesus himself. Bearing witness to Jesus on the mountaintop, keeping present to his journey through Lent and the suffering and joy that is Easter, will call you to perpetual morning, bringing a new dawn to your very soul. If your ears are open, Jesus may offer your life blaring alarms, but he will always lovingly welcome, support and encourage the soul to rise. For us he broke his body. For us he broke a new day. For us he rose to every challenge that life could bring and for us he rose from death.
On the day that Moses and Elijah spoke to him of this journey, his whole being radiated light and life. God shows us the way of that journey for our own lives, that one day Christ’s soul will rise within each of us. On this Transfiguration Sunday, may each of your souls be transfigured! May they rise and shine! May God’s grace light our journeys through this upcoming Lenten season.
