Saturday March 26, 2011

Matthew 17:8-9

"When the disciples raised their eyes, they saw no one else but Jesus alone. As they were coming down from the mountain, Jesus charged them: 'Do not tell the vision to anyone until the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.'"

I've been waiting to get to this one all week, because it's what I'm currently most interested in in this story. I've also been worried all week that I won't do it justice.

In a way, Jesus' injunction to wait until after the Resurrection was imminently practical - after all, they wanted to make him the prophet who would take down Rome [when, if you look at history, they already had Rome's protection for their religion. They were almost the only religious people that weren't forced to convert to Roman gods because Rome had respect for their Yahweh and their practices so, really, what did God have to interfere about?]. A spectacle like the Transfiguration could be misconstrued easily to be Jesus' coming out as the Son of God.

What it must have felt like to hear Jesus call Himself the Son of Man after that day on the mountain. But this appearance only makes sense in its place with the Crucifixion and the Resurrection.

There are two bits of the book Life of Pi that I think about a lot (great book, if you haven't go read it). When the character talks of his conversion to Christianity (without dropping Hinduism or Islam, long story), he expresses profound confusion over the impatience of the religion (and Jesus' petulance cursing a fig tree) and his utter awe that God would die. Because it could not be a fake death, a meaningless death, he said. Now God would forever have death at His right hand. He allowed Himself to become changed forever in order to save us.

I know, I covered this over Advent when I talked about purity, but I guess it still bear another minute's meditation. Because God also spoke like this at Jesus' baptism, when the Holy Spirit descended on Him, and said the same message: "This is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased; listen to Him." For the Son of Man, who could hunger and thirst and for whom it was right that any rite of mankind be practiced upon. Then later for Jesus in His true form - although the other would now forever also be His true form, or perhaps His only true form after the Crucifixion - the same message. Listen to Him. Both are His beloved Son, the Son of God and the Son of Man both.

Only when the Son of Man had defeated death could the full extent of this day be understood. Only once this day was revealed could the full gift of the death of the Son of Man be revealed. For this was not just one perfect sacrifice chosen from amongst God's people, His many sons via Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, from the line of David. It was God Himself, who was willing to change Himself forever. By letting humanity overcome Him and death to forever change Him.

By doing so, He defeated death. By doing so, He freed humanity. But by joining the ranks of the humans and the ranks of the dead, God also changed. Gave up part of His nature, or the purity of His nature, in order to save us. And His transformation after the Resurrection made Him strange to His disciples in a way that this Transfiguration did not. It wasn't only the light that made Him strange after the Resurrection, for His three disciples knew Him well enough on Mount Tabor.

But that's also the thing: we always know God on the mountain. But a private little room at what was no doubt a seedy inn perfect for hiding out in? That's where the glory of God appears to His most trusted followers? Really?

We look for God on mountaintops, in burning bushes and great loud voices carving for us the Ten Commandments. But after the Death and Resurrection, God made Himself into the kind of God who shares our entire lives with us - not only the times we climb the mountain in search of holy meditation. He is with us always. He became human, He became vulnerable to death, so that He could appear to us anywhere and everywhere - to share all of our lives with us. So that we could never really turn away from Him again.

And then the Spirit was free to come down and truly into our hearts and souls and spend our entire lives within us. Not only when we were ready to listen to the whisper of wind after thunder and lightning. Not only when we made our way out into the desert. Not only when we climbed the mountain. When we were hiding out in fear in a seedy motel feeling our faith slip slowly away.

God reclaimed the world for Himself, gave Himself the right to be a part of every bit of human experience. He is not something different now, something far away and removed from daily life, kept for places that are sacred and special and always a long journey away - because He joined us. Of course, He is always God, but now He is not a God that we must seek. We must only turn around and have the wit and faith to see Him. He is everywhere. With everyone.

It is no longer Mount Tabor only. Golgotha saw to that. Now God is everywhere. Because He became human, and He died. So that He could be with us always.

Such is His love.

Dear Lord, please be with us always, and help me to know that You are always with me. That You are always at my side, watching me and guiding me. Give me the wit to see You there. Thank You for the extent and glory of Your love for me. Give me the heart to love as You do.