Last
Epiphany B 2015
Father Adam Trambley
Feb 15, 2015 St.John’s Sharon
Today is the last Sunday before Lent. The readings all speak of some kind of
experience of the glory and presence of God made manifest to human beings. They are a preparation for us to recognize
what we are striving for during our Lenten devotions. We, like Elisha, like Paul, like Peter, James
and John, hope that we and those around us have an experience of the blinding
radiance of God’s light. When we enter
Lent on Wednesday to follow Jesus to the cross, we do it with the faith that
the resurrected, transfigured Lord Jesus will come to encounter us.
In the Gospel, Jesus takes his three closest disciples,
Peter, James and John up to a high mountain.
The disciples get a glimpse of Jesus arrayed in his glory. Whether Jesus is revealed as he was in heaven
or as he will be after the resurrection or both or something else is hard to
say. Mark is trying to write down
something that is probably indescribable.
All he can really say is that Jesus’ clothes became whiter than anybody
on earth could bleach them. (I’ve
actually thought Transfiguration Bleach would make a great fundraising
product.) Once Peter, James and John
have seen Jesus transfigured, Peter babbles a bit because he doesn’t know what
to say but he feels a need to say something. Then the disciples get their
instructions in a voice from the cloud, “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to
him!” They have this amazing experience
of Jesus and are told to go out and do what this brilliantly radiant Son of God
tells them to do, which is to be quiet about what they have seen until after
the resurrection. Implied is that after
the resurrection, they should probably tell some folks.
In the first reading, Elijah is being taken up to
heaven. He isn’t transfigured himself,
but his assistant Elisha is able to see God’s heavenly radiance in the chariot
that comes to take Elijah into heaven.
Elisha babbles a bit, too: “Father, father! The chariots of Israel and
its horsemen!” whatever that means. But
Elisha has asked for the right thing. He
told Elijah that he wants a double share of his spirit, or a double share of
the Spirit of God that has come upon Elijah and given him the ability to
prophecy and do other works that proclaim the power of God to his people. No voices tell Elisha what to do, because he
has already asked for the gifts needed to go out and do God’s work.
Then in Second Corinthians, Paul is talking about how the evils and the distractions of this world
are pulling veils over the minds of people who are not able to see God’s glory
in Jesus Christ. In Paul’s time, people
in the Middle East would have worn veils to protect themselves from the
brightness of the sun or to keep from being seen. Today, we might imagine sunglasses as a
modern American equivalent. Imagine
Jesus standing here, transfigured, blindingly white, illuminated like the sun
bouncing off all the snow and ice we have around us, with every sparkling ray
not only filling our eyes with light, but also our hearts with love and our
minds with truth. Then imagine people
putting on huge wrap-around sunglasses, dark and polarized, so they can look
straight at Jesus and not even see anything interesting. Their eyes are shaded from the light. Their hearts are hardened to the love. Their minds are oblivious to the truth. The sunglasses can represent any number of
sins, compulsions and distractions that make us oblivious to the miraculous
power of God all around us. We all have
our own favorite lenses that we put on from time to time. The goal, however, is to keep our own
sunglasses off and help others remove theirs, as well.
Helping people take off their sunglasses is what Jesus
wanted his disciples to do after the resurrection. This work is what Paul spent his life
doing. This work is what Elisha begged
Elijah to be able to do. This work is
our work, and it has two components. One
component is evangelism. We are to tell
people how beautiful, how brilliant, how warm, how loving is this person Jesus
who is waiting for us to turn toward him.
We are to describe the miraculous work of Jesus in our lives and the
lives of those around us in such compelling ways that people want to take off
their sunglasses and see. Sharing our
enthusiasm and genuine excitement for seeing Jesus transfigured is the work of
evangelism.
The second component of our sunglasses-removing work is
intercessory prayer. Since we can’t go
around and rip people’s sunglasses of their heads, God has to be working in and
through them, as well. In prayer we pour
out our hearts in love for other people to have the kinds of experiences of God
that will change their lives. We pray
that Jesus Christ will make himself present in all his glory to individuals and
groups of people and communities and nations.
We pray that God will stir people’s hearts to make them bored or
unsatisfied with the drabness of the world they see through their
sunglasses. We pray that rays of God’s
glory will shine so brightly that their eyes will recognize shimmers of
something brighter. We pray that they
will encounter those who can describe the radience of God’s world to them. We pray that people will be willing to keep
their eyes open as their lives adjust to living in the brightness of God’s
light, and that they will be able to make the necessary changes in their
lives. We pray that our hearts will
expand in love for people so that we see each and every person as Jesus sees
them, lit up by God’s love, with any of our own shades removed. We pray that everyone will come to see the
transfigured, resurrected Lord Jesus on the mountain and want to live according
to his very good instructions.
This Lent, as a parish, we are sharing a tool to help us to
pray in this way. The booklet, Seek God for the City, provides a number
of ways for us to focus our prayers from Ash Wednesday to Palm Sunday to help
people remove their glasses, open their eyes, and experience the fullness of
Christ’s radiance. Everyone should have
received a booklet in the mail, but if you didn’t or if you need another, there
are some at the tables near the doors.
You can also download a smartphone app for 99 cents that has the booklet
and other resources, including an alarm you can set to remind you to pray.
I’d like to highlight a few ways to use the booklet. First each week has a special theme, and each
day has a focus within that theme. There
are two short scripture passages for each theme – one from the Old Testament
and one from the Gospels. After those
readings are some specific prayers.
Going through these passages and prayer themes is similar to other
Lenten booklets with short meditations and prayers that we have used in the
past. The only difference is that these
prayers guide us toward the coming of Christ as King on Palm Sunday with
ourselves and all people experiencing the glory of God in that encounter. Weekly themes include the revival of God’s
people, the awakening of lost and broken people (or helping them take off their
sunglasses and open their eyes), transformation of our communities,
evangelization of every people, and reconciliation among the peoples.
We can also pray for every nation in the world to experience
Jesus’ radiance and glory with this resource.
In the corner each day is a list of countries to pray for. Praying daily will take us through every
country in the world during these forty days.
If you download the app, you can also click on each country to learn
more about them and what specific prayer needs they have. These prayers could also be opportunities as
a family or group to learn something about countries being prayed for that
week.
Along the sides of the pages are also a specific group of
people that can be prayed for, such as men, government leaders, children,
gangs, business people, prisoners, or physically disabled people. These include a short scripture verse that
can be used to pray for the group, and a great Lenten discipline would be to
memorize these verses each day and then be able to use them to pray whenever is
appropriate. A few specific prayer
requests for each group follow. Then
finally we are given some ideas for praying for that group while
prayerwalking. Prayerwalking is probably
not our priority when it is below zero, but we’ll talk more about it in the
coming weeks as things thaw out.
If you have questions or want to pray through these items
with others, please let me or Deacon Randy know. This Lent, we hope that everyone in this
parish has a deep experience of the radiance of the risen and transfigured Lord
Jesus, and we hope that our prayers bring that experience to others in our
community and throughout our world.
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