The Last Sunday After Epiphany - February 19, 2012
9:00am, 11:15am, 5:15pm

"Light"

The Rev. David Frazelle

Audio recording.  (Please be patient while it downloads.)

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     St. Paul wrote, “The same God who said, ‘Out of darkness let light shine,’ has caused his light to shine within us, to give the light of revelation - the revelation of the glory of God in the face of Christ.”

In today’s gospel passage, three disciples come apart to a high mountain and encounter the radiant glory of God in the presence of Jesus. His dazzling white clothes recall the light of God’s creative power. The cloud overshadowing the disciples recalls God’s direct, face-to-face self-revelations to Moses, Isaiah and Ezekiel. The presence of Moses and Elijah points to the unique and personal nature of this revelation in Jesus. Peter’s suggestion of three tents recalls the Jewish festival of Booths, which celebrated God’s immanent presence with his people in the desert of the Exodus. This gospel uses all these details to convey that God’s glory is fully revealed in Jesus, to a group of three disciples, who have come apart to a high mountain. The same God who said, ‘Out of darkness let light shine,’ gives the light of the revelation of his glory in the face of Jesus.

Earlier this morning, as we held our annual parish meeting, we looked ahead to a year of some uncertainty, much of it around our parish buildings. When will construction begin? Where will all our ministries happen during the construction phase? What will it look like when we move back in?

In light of this gospel passage, we can be sure about one thing in the midst of those questions: What we are building is a place to come apart, as disciples, and encounter the glory of God in Jesus Christ. We are building a place to encounter Christ face to face. We are building a place to listen to Jesus as God commands the disciples in today’s gospel. We are building a place to hear God’s voice of love, the voice of our baptisms, proclaimed as clearly as in today’s passage, “This is my Son, the Beloved.” All of this would be true without literal construction plans. But our upcoming project makes it all the more necessary to be clear about the spiritual reality of the place we are building with brick, stone and wood. We are building a place to know the light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, and to be changed into that light.

In the Christian Tradition, we understand that sacred symbols are transparent. They contain the mystery to which they point. As we gaze at sacred images in sculpture or stained glass, we discover that God is Gazing back at us through them. As we contemplate at the cross and its dimensions, we find that that cross defines the shape of our lives. The text of the music sung by the choir reads us. God searches us out and knows us through the sacred texts and traditions that we study, so that we become what we study. The arched lines of sacred architecture draw us towards light. What we are building is a place where the same God who said ‘Out of darkness let light shine,’ will cause his light to shine within us, to give the light of revelation of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

Just as they were for the disciples, this light and this transformation are not about us. Our openness to God’s revelation is about the increase of God’s kingdom, and about what we will do as we leave the place we have built. In our gospel passage, when the disciples leave the holy mount of Transfiguration, the first thing they find is an argument, a sick child, and a man who cries out to Jesus, “Help my unbelief!” We are building a place, like the Mt. of Transfiguration, from which to carry the light of the knowledge of the glory of God into a world full of discord, sickness, and people who hunger to believe. In the end, we are building a place whose light will shine on us, shine in us, and shine through us, so that like the bush we will burn without being consumed. We are building a light on this hill, where all who encounter it may know the truth of St. Paul’s proclamation: “The same God who said, ‘Out of darkness let light shine,’ has caused his light to shine within us, to give the light of revelation - the revelation of the glory of God in the face of Christ.” And this is why we pray on this day:

O God, who before the passion of your only-begotten Son revealed his glory upon the holy mountain: Grant to us that we, beholding by faith the light of his countenance, may be strengthened to bear our cross, and be changed into his likeness from glory to glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.