Last Sunday After Epiphany

The Last Sunday of Epiphany (Matthew 17:1-8)
They were overcome by fear.

Peter, James and John ascended the mountain with Jesus to meet Moses and Elijah and to hear the voice of God.

It was six days after Peter’s astonishing confession of faith that Jesus is the Messiah and Peter’s even more astonishing failure of faith in rejecting the very plan and purpose for the Messiah.

Jesus had preached to the nation and hundreds had become his disciples. Jesus chose twelve of his disciples for more intense training to become apostles. Then, Jesus chose three of the apostles to be the leadership team of the future church.
Jesus had spoken in parables and performed amazing miracles in very understated ways. During the three years of his public ministry he avoided the dramatic expression of divine power so many people wanted from him. Now, he selected his leadership team to receive what so many religious people claim we want. Jesus took them to the mountaintop to see a clear vision of the Plan of Salvation and an even clearer experience of the divine.

Peter, James and John could deal with the special effects miracle of Jesus radiating a bright dazzling white. They could even deal with the miraculous appearance of Moses, who represented the Law, and Elijah, who represented the Prophets. They stood their ground but were clearly out of their comfort zone.

Peter incongruously asks Jesus if he should build some booths. This was a reference to the Feast of Tabernacles which commemorated the wandering of the people in the desert during the time of Moses. It was a religious act to be sure. But, it was irrelevant at that moment. Something greater than religious acts stood before them.
Moses and Elijah, the Law and the prophets of the Old Covenant, define who Jesus is. Jesus completes, perfects and re presents the reality of the Law and the prophets in a new context for a New Covenant.

It is the Triune God who presents the new context for the New Covenant. The bright cloud that over shadows them is the same reality that over shadowed Mary and brought forth the incarnation. The bright cloud is the presence and the power of God the Holy Spirit.

The voice is the voice of God the Father. The voice proclaims that Jesus is the Beloved. Not “a” beloved. Not just even “my” beloved. “The” beloved. The co-eternal Son of God.

Peter, James and John were doing fine until the Holy Spirit descended. They were managing, however weakly, to take this amazing and miraculous experience and place it within their very limited and distorted religious context. They had the situation under control. Until the Holy and Eternal Trinity manifested Himself in all of his fullness before them.

They lost it at that point. They lost all illusion of control. They lost all grasp of the comforting limitations of human created religion. They thought they were looking for God and now God had found them. The scripture says: it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Peter, James and John did not understand that scripture until they experienced its reality personally.

Law books and prophets and Succoth booths are one thing. The real presence of the living God is something else entirely. They discovered a principle they only vaguely considered possible. Human sin converts divine holiness into wrath.

People throughout history have spoken of humanity’s search for God. As though it is God who is lost. As though it is God who plays hide and seek with the human race. Moses and the prophets tell a very different story.

The story Moses and the Prophets tell is that humanity is lost and does not want to be found. Humanity wants to define God and put God in his place: a Temple, a statue, a book of laws, a set of rituals. What people don’t want is to be found by the Living God who is who He is.

Suddenly, the reality of the eternal breaks into the realm of time. The Infinite has made itself known fully and completely available on the holy mountain. Jesus reveals his divine glory. It is an eternal glory he shares with His Heavenly Father and the co-eternal Spirit.

It is what Peter, James and John thought they wanted. It was the last thing they had expected would ever happen. It was the one thing that inspired sheer terror. They fell to the ground. They not only experienced fear, they were overcome by fear.
God does not want to frighten us. That is why he came to earth as a very ordinary and unassuming human being. That is why he lived in quiet obscurity for thirty years. That is why he did not summon angelic armies to destroy the enemies of Israel. That is why he did not authorize his followers to bring a reign of terror to Jerusalem to punish the corrupt religious and political leaders.

Jesus Christ is the Beloved of God. He is that co-eternal Beloved whom God the Father has always loved and will always love in union with God the Holy Spirit, the very spirit of love.

It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the infinite and eternal unconditional holy love of God.

At that moment on that mountain, Peter, James and John experienced what all religious people and even many atheists claim and demand from God. They experienced God upfront and personal.

It was too much. Too much God. Too much love. Too much holiness.

They fell to the ground overcome by fear. They hid their faces from God. They trembled. The cowered. By their actions they revealed the essential problem that defines the human race. We have chosen to separate from God. In that separation we are lost and do not want to be found. As we are lost we distort our minds, hearts and wills through sin. That sin converts divine holiness into wrath.

At the last judgment all people will experience the reality of God in much the same way Peter, James and John experienced God on the holy mountain. On that day many will cry out in fear. They will say to the mountains: fall on us and protect us. They will say to the oceans: cover us and keep us separate. They will run into the darkest caves and say: embrace us with your darkness and hold back the light.
This is why God comes to us meek and mild. He comes at Christmas as the helpless child. He comes as the wise and gentle rabbi. He comes with healing. He comes with humility. He comes during holy week as the innocent victim of the collective human will to power. He comes at Easter as the one who has transformed sin into love, death into life.

He comes meek and mild in utter humility in the bread and the wine of the Blessed Sacrament. He comes in the real presence of love and compassion.

He comes and people say: why him? Where is the God of our ancestors? Where is the God who drowned the Egyptians in the Red Sea and thundered from Mt. Sinai? Show us this God and we will believe.

Peter, James and John believed this. Their experience on the mount of Transfiguration changed their minds. The transfiguration not only revealed the awesome majesty of the infinite and eternal God it also revealed the depth of sin that enslaves the human race.

For a moment, the real presence of the Living God broke the foolish and very mundane belief structures of human contrived religion and human contrived images of God.
God is who is he. He spoke to Moses and said: I am. I am who I am. I am nothing like your philosophies, religions or science.

God is real. God is personal. God is love. God is Jesus Christ. The prophets saw this from afar and preached: repent and prepare.

When he comes…when God reveals his glory to us…there is no way we can ever prepare for the reality of Who he is apart from Jesus Christ.

And so, Jesus walks to Peter, James and John. He kneels down. He touches them one by one. He comforts them. He reassures them he is not the wrathful deity that the sinful imagination of their sinful hearts experience. He is Jesus… himself… alone… on the mountain… with his friends.

Moses and Elijah are gone. The Father and the Holy Spirit have withdrawn. The Industrial light and magic special effects have vanished. There is only Jesus, alone, on the cool wind swept mountain reaching down to lift up his friends still paralyzed by fear. Hugging them as they rise. Reassuring them they are safe. Manifesting to them the love and compassion of the Lord of the Universe in a simple hug from a simple carpenter wearing a simple working man’s robe.

And then, in a strong quiet voice Jesus says: do not fear.

Human sin converts divine holiness into wrath. Jesus Christ converts human fear into faith. Jesus Christ transforms human pride and human sin into love.
In the Presence of the Living God they were overcome by fear. Then, the perfect love of God in Jesus Christ transformed that fear into faith, into hope, into love.