Into the Darkness: A Sermon for the Feast of the Transfiguration
The Feast of the Transfiguration is unique in that it is the only feast that we celebrate twice in the same year. So, if you were having an odd feeling of déjà vu during the gospel lesson, that makes perfect sense. On February 23 of this year – the Last Sunday after the Epiphany - we had the exact same stories about Moses, Jesus, mountaintops, and dazzling, radiant light.
The reason we got those readings on the last Sunday after the Epiphany is that Epiphany is the season of light, beginning with the story of the bright North Star guiding the Magi to Bethlehem, and ending with Jesus being transfigured on the mountaintop. So, from the beginning of January through the end of February, we were served a healthy dose of light.
Earlier this morning, as part of our celebration of the Feast of the Transfiguration, we celebrated the sacrament of baptism out in the church courtyard. Travis Avery Meyer, Jr. was grafted into Christ’s Body, the Church, which to me is an appropriate way to add to the dazzling, radiant light of Christ in the world.
That being said, I’m not going to preach about light today. Instead, I want to talk to you about darkness. A while back, I read a book by Episcopal priest Barbara Brown Taylor called Learning to Walk in the Dark. And in it, she had a lot of illuminating things to say about darkness. And not only that, the darkness in the transfiguration readings oftentimes gets overshadowed by the light. But the darkness is there as well…you just have to look for it.
In the book of Exodus, when Moses goes up to Mount Sinai to be in the presence of God and to receive the Law, he must enter into a foreboding cloud. God is in that cloud, but Moses can’t see Him. Just like in the passage before when God told Moses to take cover in the cleft of a rock so that he wouldn’t see the God’s face, but only His back. God’s face is too bright for Moses, or for any of us to see. Oftentimes before we can experience the fullness of God in all of His majesty and mystery, we have to take cover under the cleft of the rock, or enter into the cloud – the darkness so to speak.
When Jesus took James, John, and Peter to the mountaintop, all of the sudden Jesus appeared to be transfigured while having a conversation with Moses and Elijah. After this spectacular display of brightness and light, a cloud overshadowed James, John, and Peter, “and they were terrified.” And out of this hazy, foggy cloud came the voice of God, saying, “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!”
Once again, in order to diffuse the brightness of God, cloud cover was needed. We hear in Exodus that the Israelites were terrified of the cloud in which God was present. And we hear it again in the Gospels. When we hear someone say “the fear of the Lord,” we oftentimes hear it as a warning that we should fear God’s wrath or punishment. But in these two lessons today, the fear of the Lord that His followers experienced was more like their being overwhelmed by the majestic power of God. They were in God’s presence, they heard God’s voice, and it was such an awesomely mysterious encounter that they could only describe it as being terrifying.
But in the case with Moses and in the case with James, John, and Peter, these frightening encounters in the cloud with God ultimately allowed God’s light to shine. The Law was revealed; and the Messiah was revealed. But they had to enter the mysterious darkness of the cloud first.
A couple of years ago, Emily and I were on vacation with my extended family up in Black Mountain, NC. Our family does this most every summer, and we love spending almost all of our time outdoors – hiking, biking, fishing, whitewater rafting, and just enjoying the cool mountain air. But this particular week, the weather forecast showed rain every single day. So we had a decision to make. Either buy a bunch of puzzles and sign in to Netflix or just keep with our plan for outdoor recreation and see what happens.
Well, we chose the latter, and on one particular day, Emily and I had planned to hike up to the top of Lookout Mountain in nearby Montreat. This is a hike we do every year and it is well known for having one the prettiest views of the area once you get to the top. But anybody in their right mind would have looked at their weather app or simply taken the old school approach and looked outside and said this is not the day to hike up to Lookout. It is dark and dreary with a thunderstorm on the horizon. Even if we made it to the top, there’d be nothing to see but clouds and rain, and maybe some foreboding lightening.
But time wasn’t on our side. We were only there a week, and there wasn’t a pretty day to wait for, so we grabbed our raincoats and headed up Lookout Mountain. Of all the times I’ve hiked up this mountain through the years, I’ve never seen it look this way before. As we ascended the trail, it was as if we were entering into a dreary, dark cloud, hoping to emerge on the other side. But it actually never rained, and we just kept ascending the foggy, cloudy mountain. It was eerie because on a pretty day, the trail is full of hikers going up and coming down, as it is the most popular hike in the area. But on this day, we were the only two who dared to hike on such a nasty day.
When we finally made it to the top, the view was like none we had ever seen there before. Usually you can see for miles all around the Blue Ridge Mountains. But today, our visibility was limited, but the view was nothing less than spectacular. Just as beautiful as on a clear day, but differently beautiful. And because we couldn’t see everything so clearly, and because of the eerie silence that engulfed us at the top of the mountain, it actually felt more majestic and awe-inspiring than it ever had before. As we sat on the peak in the midst of the clouds, I wondered aloud if this was what it was like when Moses went up into the cloud. Mysterious, foreboding, and absolutely amazing.
Looking back, I wouldn’t have traded our experience in the darkness of the clouds on top of Lookout Mountain for anything. Emily and I saw what had been very familiar and comforting to us from an entirely new perspective. And by entering into the darkness of the bad weather, we experienced God in a new way. As Barbara Brown Taylor mentions in Learning To Walk in the Dark, we don’t have to choose between light and darkness when we are talking about God. God is God of the light, and God is God of the dark.
Earlier this morning, Avery Meyer received the sacrament of holy baptism. The sacrament of baptism is one in which we, as fellow members of the Body of Christ, all participate. As he was born again through the waters of baptism, Avery will be forever grafted into Christ’s body, of which we are all living members. He will no longer only be proudly claimed by the Meyers and the rest of his biological family; he will be claimed by Jesus Christ and every one of us who are members of Christ’s body. While he will always undoubtedly be a Meyer, he is joining another, much larger family, and we are called to participate not only in the baptismal service itself, but in the raising and nurturing of Avery here at Christ the King.
And as we all know, as Avery grows older, there will be times when the forecast won’t be what he hoped or planned for, and he’ll have to put on his raincoat and hike into the foreboding wilderness. In baptism we are not promising to his parents, his Godparents, and to him that his life will only consist of bright, sunshiny days. What we are promising him is that when he enters into the clouds, God will be waiting for him. God doesn’t only shine like a bright light; He is in the darkness as well. And if we are willing to meet God in the darkness, we just might gain a new perspective, a new outlook, and a new sense of who God is and where we can encounter Him.
Out of the darkness of the cloud came the Law for the Israelites. Out of the darkness of the cloud came the transfigured Messiah. Our prayer is that Avery will know that wherever he goes, and whatever he experiences in life, God will be with him every step of the way, and we, his new brothers and sisters, will be with him too.