Transfiguration Moments and Dark Nights

​The Epiphany season, which ends today, is all about the Christian life, what it means to follow Christ.
 
Epiphany begins on January 6 with the story of the wise men following the light of a miraculous star to the Christ child, the one who is the true light of the world.
 
Our readings for the next two weeks after Epiphany were stories about Jesus calling his first disciples, inviting them to begin a journey a lot like the journey of the wise men. They, too, followed Christ until they were blessed with a vision of Christ shining with divine light.
 
The disciples didn’t get the full vision of Christ’s glory until after Christ’s resurrection. But in the Transfiguration, which is always the reading on the last Sunday of Epiphany, three of them get a sneak peek of Jesus’ divine light.
 
I need to emphasize this point. The Transfiguration is not something that happens to Jesus. Jesus was already fully divine before he climbed the mountain with his disciples. Jesus was still fully divine when they came back down. What happened on top of the mountain was just Jesus’ divinity becoming visible to Peter, James, and John. This is a miracle of the disciples seeing, truly seeing, Christ’s divinity for the first time.
 
The disciples’ story is our story, too. Like them, we follow Christ. Like them we will eventually see Christ in all his glory, when God’s kingdom finally comes at the end of the ages. And, like them, we get our own occasional sneak peeks of Christ’s glory along the way, our own little miracles of seeing, our own transfiguration moments.
 
Each stage in the disciples’ journey is helpful for us.
 
Before the Transfiguration, Peter and the others had already committed their lives to Christ. Peter and the others saw Christ’s miracles and heard Christ’s teachings. Peter and the others understood that Jesus was the messiah. But before the Transfiguration, they still couldn’t see Jesus’ divinity, not truly. They had not fully encountered God in Christ. They were still, in some important ways, blind to who Jesus was.
 
I suspect that we all know what that blindness is like. But here is an analogy.
 
I have lately been listening to classical music for the first time in many years. I mostly like it, but I definitely do NOT understand much of what I am hearing. So, as a help, I am also working my way through a series of lectures called “How to Listen to and Understand Great Music.”
 
(As an aside, I listened to an earlier version of these same lectures when our son Nicholas was just a few months old. He started waking up at 5:00 every morning, wanting to be held and bounced. I was on morning duty, so I got up with him.
 
Cute as Nicholas was, after a half hour or so of bouncing him, I needed more entertainment. I had videotapes of these same lectures on music, so Nicholas and I watched them together. At the time, I was always too exhausted to enjoy our morning ritual, but I look back on those hours with great love.)
 
Anyway, in these lectures, Professor Greenberg plays a selection of music, explains what we just heard in some detail, and plays it a second time. Usually on the second time through, I can hear the things Greenberg tells us to notice.
 
But then Greenberg plays a different selection and asks us to listen for the exact same things, and I can’t hear them at all. I can follow what Greenberg tells me, but I can’t understand anything on my own. It’ like I am deaf without his help.
 
The disciples were a lot like that before the Transfiguration. They were following Jesus. But they didn’t really get what Jesus was about, and they got totally lost every time they tried to figure it out on their own.
 
That’s often us, too, as we muddle our way along.
 
Then came the Transfiguration. For the first time, Peter, James, and John truly saw Jesus.
 
Thankfully, we have those moments, too, although in my own case they are a LOT less dramatic than the Transfiguration. Sticking with music, at Clergy Conference last May during one of our worship sessions, I happened to sit in the middle of several men with strong and wonderful voices. For once I could really sing out and not worry about being heard. It was great. I could feel Christ’s presence with us. I could sense the movement of the Holy Spirit.
 
Afterwards, I told one of the strong singers, a new young priest maybe thirty years old, that it was a pleasure singing next to him. He thanked me, but did not say the same for singing with me!
 
That worship experience was a little Transfiguration moment for me. And I get to repeat that experience most weeks with Scott in the last verse of our closing hymns!
 
I encourage you to think about some of your own Transfiguration moments. My guess is, you can come up with several that you may not have thought of in those terms.
 
But what I have been particularly thinking about this week is what happened after Peter and the others had their Transfiguration moment.
 
It seems like everything would have been different after an experience like that. It seems like Peter would never have had another doubt or hesitation. It seems like Peter would never get into another stupid conversation about which disciple was the greatest. It seems like Peter would take Jesus seriously when Jesus did things like warn Peter that he would deny even knowing Jesus three times in the next twelve hours.
 
But as we know, that is not how things unfolded. Peter did argue about who was the greatest, and Peter did bluster about how brave and faithful he was when Jesus told Peter he would deny Jesus.
 
And that’s true of us, too. No matter how many Transfiguration moments we have, we eventually find ourselves backsliding in ways we would have thought impossible.
 
It’s true even for the great saints. The Apostle Paul lamented that he sometimes could “not understand my own actions.” Paul complained about the sin that dwelled within him almost like a law in his members at war with the law of his mind and making him captive to the law of sin (Romans 8:15-24).
 
Another great saint from much later, John of the Cross, called those times a “dark night of the soul,” when it feels almost like Christ has abandoned us and when we are in danger of abandoning Christ.
 
John of the Cross was clear that the periods of dark night can in fact be amazingly fruitful. They make us long more intensely for Christ’s presence. And they remind us that we cannot manufacture a sense of Christ’s presence by trying really hard, that we always experience Christ’s presence as a gift.
 
And so, the journey continues. We stumble along, following Christ as best we can. Suddenly the light shines, and all seems clear. But until God’s kingdom comes in all its fullness and power, the clarity will eventually recede and we’ll find ourselves stumbling once again.
 
But knowing the pattern can help us keep going in the dark times. And in the dark times, we can find comfort in the moments of light we have already experienced, as well as in our hope for all the light still to come.
 
And so, on this last Sunday of Epiphany, I thank God for our Transfiguration moments. And I ask God to continue sustaining us whenever we find ourselves in times of darkness and challenge.
 
In Christ’s name. Amen.