Today, called transfiguration, is clouded in mystery and wrapped in wonder. With the exception of Creation and accounts of the Resurrection, the very heart of mystery, this account is the oddest and most other-worldly of the New Testament. It is beyond words yet, like much that is profound in life, words are the best we have. Check that: possibly it is music or painting that tell the story better than words but the gospel came to us in words so it is what we’ve got. In this passage we are on that raw and difficult edge between the human and the divine, what the Celts call “thin places,” where God’s realm and the human domain touch and the categories for either don’t quite hold up. Transfiguration stretches the limits, pushes our language. It can’t quite be held.

Often, when it comes to things wondrous and holy, I feel that our words and images are glaringly inadequate. Like a physicist who first speaks of light acting like a wave then shifts to the characteristics of a particle, knowing that neither can quite hold the truth of what she has observed, so our categories of the divine are simply inadequate. Transfigured? Dazzling appearance? A voice from heaven? It is apparent to me that Matthew is fishing for words, doing the best that he can while knowing all along that words are woefully inadequate to explain what had transpired.

While you may have never been up on a mountain with an appearance of Moses and Elijah (let me know if you have!) my guess is that you know something of the wonder and the mystery of God that is beyond your words, even your images of what you know of God. My sense, my hope, is that you have had a taste of what Peter, James and John encountered on that very strange and frightening-wondrous day, namely, the coming together of fear & wonder, faith & bewilderment.

I often see this combination of emotions in the faces of parents as they welcome a child into the world. (That and fatigue as well!) Laughter, joy and tears all tumble together at the profound, intimate moments of love, birth and death. Following the birth, many spend hours just staring at the newborn child. It’s amazing, wonderful and frightening all at the same time. The joy is followed by the realization that nobody has told you how to be a parent and many often feel that they are venturing into one of the most important commitments ever made completely on the grounds of trial and error. It is frightening! It is wonderful. Then we hope that these little ones don’t catch on to the fact that we have only the vaguest idea of what we are doing. So, we plow ahead in love, in trust, in fear and in faith. Yes, we do know something of wonder and fear dwelling together.

When I meet with couples preparing for their wedding day I often slow down at the point of the vow and read it carefully and deliberately, asking them to consider the words. Just words? Obviously not; they are among the most important and profound phrases that most of us ever speak.

I do solemnly swear before God and these witnesses to be thy loving and faithful husband; in plenty and in want, in joy and in sorrow, in sickness and in health, as long as we both shall live.

These are powerful, wonderful, frightening words. If the future bride or groom seems a bit overwhelmed by the vow I say, “Good for you; you’re supposed to be.” It is rather amazing, wonderful and frightening.

Rightfully, we progressive Protestants have removed the vengeful anger from our images of God. God is not some angry force waiting to pounce on the weak and feeble. But we make a mistake if we domesticate God into something small, passive, weak or indifferent. We do not do justice to the God of Abraham and Sarah, Jesus and Paul, Mother Teresa, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Desmund Tutu if we turn God into a buddy, friend, or quiet little inner voice that says that all is OK. God is wondrous and mighty, God is mysterious and grand. God is God and when we brush up alongside this God it can be a powerful moment of awe, with that grand mix of joy and fear.

Peter, James and John went up the mountain with Jesus and, we are told, some strange things happened that could best be described in terms of a dazzling appearance, the way that the ancients told of Moses when he was in God’s presence. In fact it seemed that Moses and Elijah were actually present. And then the cloud of mystery was so strong that it was like a voice, yes, a voice that echoed the words from Jesus’ baptism, “This is my Son, the Beloved.” And the disciples were afraid. Yes, scared by the wonder of it all. We know that fear of intimacy, even divine intimacy that calls on us, calls us out, knows us so well that our skin crawls and we don’t know if we feel more joy or fright, wonderment or discomfort, privilege or responsibility. When you make a solemn promise... to a spouse, a partner, a child, to a calling or to a life of integrity in faith... it is wonderful and frightening all at the same time.

In our day and age when people use the language of being spiritual the images are often of being warm and cuddly. Methodist Bishop Will Willimon, who has a rather strong sense that God calls us into rather tough places of discipleship, states that the language of spirituality often is based upon “some amorphous, sweet, and always smiling sort of godlet.” Yet our God lifts us up in order to send us out. Our God scared the wits out of James, Peter and John in order that their defenses be broken and imaginations broadened, so that their spirits could soar and their feet might carry them on the road to Jerusalem.

Willimon tells a story about this combination of fear and wonder.

During the first Bush war in Iraq I was visiting with a secretary at a university. She asked me, “Got any yard work that needs to be done? Any chores around the house?” She then told me about how she had befriended an Iraqi student in graduate school at the university. Then the war started and he was cut off, totally without funds. Couldn’t go home. Couldn’t continue as a student. She and her husband had taken this young man into their home and she was trying to find him odd jobs so that he could get a little money.

“What does he think about the war?” I asked.

“Oh he thinks we’re terrible and Saddam is just wonderful,” she replied.

“Well, I find it interesting that you took this Iraqi into your home, wanted to care for him.”

With some indignation she replied, “I decided? I wanted?”

“Well, why did you do it?” I asked.

She slammed her fist down on her desk and said, “Because I’m a Christian, darn it. You think it’s easy?”
(Pulpit Resources, Vol. 36, No. 1, p. 24)

When we brush against holiness, life is upset, demands are made and wonder mixes with fear in that strange way that gives life and re-arranges priorities. “Glimpses of glory,” Christian Coon writes, “tend to stick in one’s soul and pierce the deepest fog.” (Christian Century, January 20, 2008, p. 20)

I’ve made some vows in my life. There was the day in June, 1977 that I pledged my life with and to Alison. Later that month I knelt in the chancel of my home church and in the weight of the hands, I felt the continuity of the ages, welcoming me into the demands and joy of gospel ministry. I’ve stood at the baptismal font with Halsey, then with Dan, making those pledges to raise children in faith--a rather ominous task to put on any parent. I stood in this chancel and pledged to be your minister. And, as all of you who are members of the church, I remember the step to declare that Jesus is Lord. Not the church, not the state, not even my efforts to be good or faithful become Lord. No, we confess that the Christ is Lord. All of these sacred vows are rather frightening at one level. They are a bit absurd in the sense that any mortal can make such vows. Yet, at the same time, they are wonderful... life-giving wonder, I’d call it.

Idols promise power and certainty. God promises mystery and intimacy. It is grand and often frightening. It is life in all its wonder and it is offered to you.