Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Bernard Delcourt, OHC
Last Sunday after Epiphany - Sunday, February 14, 2021
NB from Br. Bernard: I apologize. I consistentely but erroneously said Elishah for Elijah in the audio version. Jesus appears in conversation with Moses and Elijah. Oops! In my native French, their names differ by a whole syllable. They're easier to differentiate. Oh well...
In the Name of God, the Lover, the Beloved and the Love. Amen.
*****
Jesus often sought silence and solitude to pray. Last week, we heard of how he snuck away in the early morning to pray in lonely and quiet places. On this day, he decides to go up a mountain with only three of his apostles.
It was probably easier to escape the crowds’ attention in a small committee than when he moved with his whole band of disciples. When he did the latter, the crowds followed him or even preceded him where they thought he was headed next. Solitude from the crowds was a necessary but challenging gift to claim.
Jesus, Peter, James and John manage to slip away undetected. And they choose to go up a nearby mountain. It takes effort and concentration to hike up a mountain. I imagine a relative silence settling amongst the four walkers as they pay attention to their footfall and take in the beauty of the landscape.
Eventually, they reach a high point on the mountain. The vista opens up and they can see for miles over the Galilean country. They settle down to rest a while and pray. And as prayer absorbs them, they eventually become aware of Jesus’ transfiguration.
He appears to them as he has never appeared before. He appears glorified. It is even hard to keep your gaze on him so dazzling he appears. And he is in conversation with Elijah, the most prominent of Prophets, and with Moses, the giver of the Law. The company Jesus keeps here assigns the next-to-highest level of honor to him.
Peter feels the moment couldn’t get more solemn and glorious. And he feels compelled to say something rather than stay enraptured in contemplation. But there is really nothing one can say that could meet the occasion.
As it is, Peter wants to capture the moment and perpetuate it. I understand his desire but the event keeps developing. Does God ever allow us to put God in the box of our own making? God doesn’t in this case.
Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!”
The One even more glorious than Elijah and Moses interrupts the scene and overrules whatever the disciples might have concluded from the earlier events. God godself speaks to the apostles. Now Jesus is assigned the very highest level of honor. He is the Son of God. This goes well beyond the Messiah, the Anointed One, that Peter confessed only six days ago. Yes Jesus is the Messiah, and he is also God’s very Son.
The teachings of Moses and Elijah are important, no doubt. But even they simply confer with Jesus. For even more important than the Law and the Prophets is to listen to Jesus, proclaimed the Son of God.
Mark doesn’t bother to tell us what Moses, Elijah and Jesus talked about because the more important content comes directly from God: “listen to him.” Listen to Jesus.
*****
Six days before, the disciples had heard things from Jesus that they found difficult to listen to and accept, if not understand. Jesus told them about his upcoming passion, death and resurrection.
And Jesus had told them that “... those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.” Those are hard words to listen to and to take in, not to mention hard to live by.
It would be so tempting to accept the mountaintop glory without accepting the harder messages that Jesus conveys. Peter would like to bask in the glory that God projects. But instead, God charges the disciples with the mission to do as Jesus tells them. And that isn’t easy and it often will not look glorious in the eyes of the world.
God’s love will prevail in ways that are not the ways of the world. The disciples will prevail if they follow the way of Jesus not the way of the prevailing domination system. Jesus will die an ignominious death, and he will be resurrected. The disciples will lose their lives for His sake. And they will gain true life in so doing.
*****
But it is time for our mountaintop experience to come to a close. And “Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them any more, but only Jesus.” The Jesus they have always known, the very human Jesus, the One they are to listen to. Jesus is enough. Listen to him.
Some of us receive mountaintop experiences. Thanks be to God. But not to all of us. Most of the disciples did not come up that mountain. Yet all of us, whether we stayed in the valley or came back down from the mountain, have to listen to God. What is God’s will for the work to be done in the humdrum valley of everyday life?
We are to listen to Jesus in our very normal and ordinary lives. That’s where God’s work of Love awaits us. And if we were fueled with energy by our mountaintop experiences, lucky us. But we shouldn’t attempt to become spiritual bounty hunters. We shouldn’t keep looking for spiritual highs instead of doing the daily work of Love.
As our Brother Roy calligraphed so beautifully, “Pray often, pray early.” But then step into the rest of your life, feel the holy ground under your feet, and do the loving that God wants us to do.
And as St Benedict wrote in his rule, always, “Listen carefully, my child, to the master’s instructions, and attend to them with the ear of your heart.” (Rule of St Benedict - Prologue).
Amen.
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