DON’T FREEZE THE GLORY

Transfiguration Sunday

February 26, 2006

United Lutheran Church

You have created us full of trouble, O God.

*Trouble me with the smallness of my work.

* Trouble me with the greatness of your command.

* Trouble me with my unholiness and my slowness to obey.

* Trouble me with time running out and every lost hour.

* Trouble me with the troubles of your Church which reflect the stumbling of your people.

 * Trouble me when I try to hang on to the vision but fail to deal with the sticky issues of 

* Trouble me and make me to watch continually for your judgment.

* Let me go forth desiring the coming of your glory even as you revealed it to your disciples.

* So don’t let me stay overnight on the mountain, but let me be a part of the

            transformation of the whole of society which Jesus made possible on the cross.

THANKS FOR TROUBLES, LORD!

            Blaise Pascal was one of the great geniuses in the realm of mathematics.  One of his great achievements was the invention of the first adding machine. But he also had a spiritual dimension to his life which was very exemplary. From time to time he jotted down thoughts which he intended gathering together into a book on the Christian faith, but he didn’t live long enough to complete. 

            Shortly after Pascal’s death there was found a bit of parchment, sewn into the lining of his jacket, on which he had inscribed half a dozen cryptic lines, telling briefly of an experience of transformation from being a philosopher only into a radiant Christian believer. This is what he wrote:

In the year of grace, 1684.

Fire, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob;  Not of the philosophers and scholars

Certainty, peace!

            Thy God shall be my God--Only through the Gospel;

Joy, joy, tears of  joy!

Pascal wrestled with the truth, - with God, even as God had been wrestling with him. And in his transformation he came not only to know but to believe in the light, the truth and the power of God in Christ. There was a transformation in the life of that man, because of the gift of grace from another man, Jesus Christ. And that’s what this Transfiguration Sunday is all about, to discover how different life can be because God in Christ has passed before us in all his glory and has lived with us through all his suffering and dwelt within us in all his love,  and that’s just got to make a difference.

            Look for a moment at the Banner before us, - it’s very descriptive of what we’re talking about this morning: it has a centrum which simply cannot be contained, but it sends its rays out in all the directions possible of human endeavor.  And the banners on the back wall: notice the direction of the rays: they do not radiate inside this place, but the directive is outward, - into the world. It is alive, pulsating, directive, searching out a goal, exhilarating and frankly, quite beautiful as it seeks to manifest the Glory of God!

            Which reminds me: what Irenæus, the grand old Church Father of the 2nd century wrote: The Glory of God is Man fully alive! That’s where our faith ought to take us, - not to be caught up in idolatrous swooning of the Godhead on the mountain-top, but rather focused on the mission to which the Christ on the mountain top has directed us, - which, moments later in our text, he demonstrates in and with his own life as he ministers to the needs of those crying out for help.

We’ve got to say that from our Gospel text this morning we have a visionary experience which was great. Never had anything like this had ever happened before to the disciples, and, of course, Peter stepped forward to suggest that they memorialize the event to keep the Glory going. It was so special, so exhilarating, so absolutely other than the hum-drum of everyday existence, that they did not want it to go away. 

I think we’ve all popped into that mode a time or two, haven’t we?

                 1)  In spite of the number and severity of the spills taken at the Torino Olympics, it’s going to be a bit difficult to leave this mountain-top experience where we the top athletes in the world perform with grace and beauty.

                 2)  It’s hard now to say goodbye to Weiping Huang (Mark), our Sister Cities             exchange teacher here from Quzhou, China  for the last four months, who has given a kind of mountain-top experience to literally hundreds of students both in the Red Wing School District and some of the surrounding schools.

                 3)  And the mountain-top experience which comes to us, particularly this season when, after the concert of the Cathedral Choir from Luther College, we will have hosted and heard four of our great Lutheran College Choirs on tour, all coming to a little village with its own mountain-tops in it. In some ways we would like to freeze the glory of all these moments; how can things get better than that? But perhaps we ought to think about freeing these mountain-top experiences rather than freezing them: 

            1)  For the Torino, Italy Olympic experience we must exercise in our own way, to do the very best we can, to be the best that we can be in whatever endeavor in which we are involved.

            2)  One of the last things Weiping said to us here at United at his Farewell Reception: “As much as we have taught the children about China, now the thoughts and training begin to share with other the beauty and life of those in another land, to be friends, to appreciate each other, to listen to one another and to plan a life of cooperation together.”

            3)  And after hearing all this beautiful music from our College Choirs, to be led into a new understanding of the songs and sounds which are all around us, drawing us into a kind of harmony which must be radically exercised among all the peoples of this earth, with a commitment to involve everyone of different races, ethnic backgrounds, genders, sexual orientation, political persuasion religious and family focus and values.

Before the freeze could take place in our text, on the mountain-top, the disciples heard the voice, This is my beloved Son, listen to him. To be sure, we have the edge on the disciples, because we stand on this side of the Easter story. And what the transfiguration ought to be telling us is not to “freeze the glory of Christ” but rather to “free” the glory, to give us a renewed opportunity to look at our present situation in the light of its future and its purpose and to figure out how, with the Lord, we’re going to redeem it, for we have this hope, that everything shall be redeemed.

            In the Broadway musical, Man of La Mancha, Don Quixote surely believes in the transforming power which will affect a new future. This comic figure refuses to let the present dictate what the future can become. He insists on calling, naming and regarding Aldonza, a woman with a bad reputation, as My Lady Dulcinea.

            This wording actually begins to transform Aldonza. Near the end of the play, Don Quixote is dead and his comrade speaks to Aldonza. She replies to him in a strong but quiet way, My name is Dulcinea. 

            It was from the mountain-top of the transfiguration that Martin Luther King, Jr. found his inspiration and vision for that great speech in Washington, D.C.: I’ve been to the mountain top . . His vision was not the vision of what had been, nor what is now, but of what is to be.

            But the only way this vision of redemption would come to pass was through suffering! This was the clue that Christ was giving his disciples, as he said to them as they were coming down the mountain: Tell no one what you have seen until the Son of man should have risen from the dead.  During the Season of Epiphany many of the texts have dealt with the signs and miracles of Christ which have told us of his glory.

            But at the outset of Lent we must see that the greater power of the Son is found in his suffering, suffering in the events of his time and with the people of his time to redeem the events and the people of all time. And to all of us belongs the very same promise.

            The Christ whom the disciples saw transfigured before them, would one day in the not too distant future be bruised and dirtied and beaten. On that day those shining white garments and that seamless robe would be torn from his body and the soldiers would give him one of their tunics. Rather than acclaim him as King, they would curse him as an imposter. Rather than a crown of gold, he would wear a crown of thorns. Rather than a throne, he would be nailed to a cross.

            But in these moments the disciples were given to see more; beyond the suffering, the cross and the death. They could see the glory which was theirs in Christ to transform the suffering and death all around them into a hope for new life and new direction. Don’t freeze the glory, because then the glory won’t have a chance to grow. When things don’t grow they die! Institutions have a way of freezing in the way they have grown accustomed to existing, to freeze the “glory” of a given era or moment, yes, with the church, the political scene, the culture itself. And the quickest thing to do is build a museum and just leave it at that. That could not only stifle creativity, but it could fail to redeem.

            The transfiguration story gives witness again to the Christ who is the Son of God. He comes to make of all people. And when we listen to the voice from the heavens, we understand how this is done, as we hear: This is my Son ...listen to him.

     It is interesting to note that the early Christians didn’t take time to paint a picture of Jesus, but with careful recall, remembered his sayings, and acted upon them.

            Disciples of Christ discover the secret of being a child of God not by freezing the glory, but by letting that same glory of a suffering Lord also transform the events of our time by the power of its hope, which, as Jesus shared with his disciples with the discipline of these words: I have come not to be ministered unto but to minister; I have come not to be served but to serve.

May these words fully describe our lives, to glorify God in loving our neighbor.