The theme running through all our readings today couldn’t be
more obvious if it tried. What do they have in common? It is glory, shining,
dazzling, brilliant glory. Glory seen in the radiance of Moses’ face, which
shone so brightly that he had to wear a veil, otherwise people were too terrified
to come near him. Paul sees that same glory in the followers of Jesus, whose
lives have been lit up as the Spirit of God has set them free. And of course
the Gospel tells the story of the Transfiguration, when Jesus was seen in
shining glory talking to Elijah and Moses, the story we have in our window at
the back of church
So, it’s all about glory. Or is it?
I think if we were reading Matthew’s version of this story,
or Mark’s, that might be the case, but Luke’s version is slightly, subtly
different, and that makes me wonder if all that glory isn’t actually a bit of a
distraction. Matthew, Mark and Luke are often called the Synoptic Gospels – synoptic
meaning literally “with the same eye”. They tell many of the same stories,
often in very similar ways. But that means that where there are differences
between them, those differences probably matter.
So what about this story? All three Gospels tell us that
Jesus went up the mountain with Peter, James and John. All three describe this
scene in which Jesus talks with Elijah and Moses, two figures from ancient
Israelite history who people thought would appear again when the Messiah came. But
Luke tells us something extra. He tells us what it was that they were talking
about. And that casts this story in a rather different light.
They are talking, Luke tells us, about Jesus’ “departure,
which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.” What that actually means is that they were
talking about his death. The word Luke uses to refer to that death – his
“departure” – sounds like a euphemism. Why doesn’t he say death if he means
death? But actually it is carefully chosen, because in Greek the word is “exodos”,
the same word used to describe that great escape from slavery in Egypt, when
Moses defied Pharaoh and led the Hebrew slaves out across the desert to a new
life in the Promised Land of Israel.
This passage, in all three Gospels, marks a turning point,
the moment when it starts to become clear that Jesus’ ministry is going to end on
a cross, not on a throne. He has started talking to his disciples about the
fact that following him isn’t going to lead to power but to death, but they
don’t want to hear it and can’t take it in. I am sure he struggles with it
himself – who wouldn’t? But those who challenged the forces of oppression in
Jesus’ world knew they were likely to end up paying with their lives, as is
often still the case today, so it isn’t exactly rocket science to see how
things will turn out for him. What
matters is what that will mean and how it will be interpreted. If he dies does
that mean he has failed? If he dies does that mean that God was never with him,
that he was deluded? If he dies does that make all that he has said pointless
and foolish, all that talk of love and of justice for the poor and the
marginalised? Is might right? Does brute force always have the last word? It
isn’t just the pain and fear of death which troubles him and his followers, but
the sense that if he’s wrong that pain and fear will have been for nothing.
This conversation with Elijah and with Moses, that leader of
the first exodus, sets Jesus’ death in a different context, though, and gives
us a long view, if we are able to see it, a view which stretches beyond the
dark clouds of the trouble that is coming. Far from being a disaster, it’s going to be
the beginning of a new life, in a new kingdom, a new sort of Promised Land, the
kingdom of God, here and now, for everyone who wants to be part of it.
Like that first exodus, it will come at a price, wreathed in
death and pain. It won’t be an easy journey for those who take it; it will
involve profound change and challenge. But the suffering and the death won’t be
in vain, and that matters.
Peter, James and John still don’t get it, of course. Luke
tells us they are “weighed down with sleep” when all this takes place, and I don’t think
it is just physical tiredness that he means. These were men who had their eyes
half-closed, who weren’t really paying attention, who were just drifting off,
or just coming to. They don’t want to think about pain and death, so they
don’t. When they are startled back to attention all they decide to notice is
the glory, that shining, beautiful light. Peter’s knee-jerk reaction to jump up
and get building is absolutely irrelevant to the topic Jesus is discussing. In
fact it is a wilful distraction from it. Build some shelters and hold onto this
moment – never mind the darkness that lurks around the corner!
It is easy to judge poor Peter – always the fall guy when
anyone has to get it wrong in the Gospels – but we have the gift of hindsight
and he doesn’t. We know the cross will be followed by the resurrection. Peter,
James, and John don’t have that advantage. They have to live this story as it
unfolds. Talk of death is, for them, talk of failure. What kind of Messiah dies
a humiliating death on a cross between two criminals? No wonder they all desert
Jesus when the moment comes. No wonder they don’t even want to think about the
possibility at this point. We probably wouldn’t have done any better. So
instead of taking the theological high ground and criticising the disciples,
perhaps we should be wondering what this story says to us about ourselves, and
the times we prefer to focus on the shiny bits of life and ignore the darkness
in the hopes it will just go away.
We all prefer success, happiness, health, strength. We all
want things to go well in our lives. We wouldn’t be human if we didn’t. The problem
comes when we put success on a pedestal and worship it, letting it become the
source of our security and worth. For those who manage to find success, it can
be very tempting to sacrifice anything and anyone in order to keep it. It is a
hungry and demanding idol. Perhaps the downfall of Chris Huhne this week is a timely
warning of the danger of being so hooked on maintaining a successful appearance
that we are prepared to pay any price to do so.
The worship of success, though, hits hardest at those for
whom it seems like a distant dream, those who feel they are constantly failing
at the game of life. Despite all the rhetoric about strivers and skivers, the
truth is that life is far more of a struggle for some than for others – it’s
not a level playing field. You can’t overcome all obstacles by hard work and
determination. If you are hampered by disability, poverty, or lack of family
support, you will always have to work twice as hard to keep your head above
water as those who have the advantage of starting with health, wealth and
stability. And however hard you work you might still find that success eludes
you. We often overestimate our ability to control our lives – it is comforting
to think we have that power. Usually, though, more depends on being in the
right place at the right time than we’d like to think. Life deals out random
blows which can fell the strongest looking person, and when that happens, often
the hardest thing to cope with isn’t whatever it is that has gone wrong, but
the sense of shame that overshadows us, brought on by the judging voices without
and within, which label us as failures.
What do we do at that point, when it’s all gone wrong? Do we
give up? Do we opt, like Peter, to ignore the darkness and try to cling to whatever
thin veneer of glitter we can come up with to distract us from it? It is an
understandable reaction, but it isn’t one which will help much in the end. What
is there, is there. The cross lies ahead for Jesus – the only way forward leads
through it if he is to stand by those he has come to serve and to save.
For us too, acknowledging the sorrows and the darkness is
the only way to real healing. This week we will be marking Ash Wednesday with a
quiet and reflective service here as we enter the season of Lent. I’ll be
offering, as usual, the symbol of the imposition of ashes, drawing a cross of
ash on our foreheads as a reminder of
our own frailty, fallibility and mortality. “Dust you are and to dust you shall
return” I’ll say, quoting the words of God to Adam and Eve in the book of
Genesis. It sounds like a rather gloomy service, but actually it is one of the
most profoundly joyful in the year, it seems to me, because it tells us that we
don’t have to pretend, we don’t have to deny the truth. Whatever glory there is
in life – and it is real and lovely – the darkness and the failure are real
too, and God is just as much with us in them as he is in the success. God doesn’t just love us when things are
going well, but all the time. When we are in the dark, he doesn’t just stand
afar off in some distant blaze of light telling us to try to make our own way
to him. He comes to us where we are, in the pain and the failure that seems to
crush us, and goes through it with us in his son. Through Christ’s death and
resurrection, he leads us in a new exodus, to a new land in which it doesn’t
matter where we are in the league tables of life; all that counts is that we know
that we are loved, and, being loved, are set free to love others in our turn.
Amen
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