Sermon: It is good for us to be here (March 2, 2025)

Transfiguration C
March 2, 2025
Luke 9:28-43a

INTRODUCTION

Through the season of Epiphany, we’ve been trucking along through Luke’s Gospel and hearing all about the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. But today we will jump ahead, and hear about the Transfiguration. This is the last big event before Jesus “turns his face to Jerusalem,” heads down the mountain, and makes his way toward the cross and his inevitable death (and, spoiler alert, his resurrection). 

On this last Sunday of the season of Epiphany, when we’ve been hearing a lot about light, we get the grand finale of light: the Transfiguration of our Lord on a mountaintop! Our first two readings will set that story up for us. To do this, we hear a bit about veils, and how they have functioned in faith, and how Jesus changes all that. We’ll hear about the veil Moses had to wear after he beheld the face of God and his face shone so brightly no one could even look at him. And then Paul will tell us about how, until Christ came along, we could not see God’s story clearly, as if we had a veil over our eyes.

As you listen, think about what veil is over your face that keeps you from seeing God or getting too close to God, or maybe that keeps others from seeing God in you. Let’s listen. 

[READ]

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Anyone who has had kids knows that the Big Important Questions often come out during bedtime. Here, in the intimacy and safety of darkness and a favorite blanket, kids feel safe to offer up the fears and questions of their hearts. Grace has taken to warning me when she knows she’ll want to talk about something (which I appreciate, because it tells me I should use the bathroom before I go in to say goodnight!). 

The timing can be frustrating, I admit. Everyone is tired, and grown-ups are often antsy to get some adult-time with their spouse before they head to bed themselves. Yet these moments also feel holy. They are special, and I know I will blink and suddenly be longing for these intimate moments when my kids see me as their most wise and trusted and safe person to ask the big questions. In times when I might want to rush through, I try to remind myself, “It is good for us to be here.”

This has always been my favorite line in this story of the Transfiguration that we hear every year on the Sunday before Ash Wednesday and the season of Lent. I love these words, of course, when it truly is a joyful and exciting – or even glorious! – moment, when we are celebrating. It is good for us to be here! Who could argue with that? But I also try to remember these words when that goodness is less obvious. Like standing on the bottom rung of a loft bed ladder, trying to get back downstairs. Like, sitting with a grieving family as they share memories of their loved one. Like, when I’m having a difficult conversation with someone and can feel myself literally shaking. It is good for us to be here, too. These words sound different in these different situations! But I believe that they are no less true. 

Jesus shining on a mountaintop is decidedly a “good for us to be here” moment. I mean, just picture this scene! Can you imagine? By now the disciples have seen a lot of wow-worthy stuff, as they’ve been following Jesus around for a couple of years, seeing him heal the sick, feed the hungry, and preach some mind-blowing sermons. It is no wonder the disciples are weighed down with sleep – I, too, would be exhausted by this time (as I often am, in my nighttime convos with the kids!). The disciples have earned some rest! But suddenly, before they can drop off completely into dreamland, a brightness shines in their eyes. Their teacher has become dazzling white, face shining! And Moses and Elijah, two giants of the faith, have suddenly appeared and started a conversation with Jesus! Like, WHOA. And while Peter has a reputation for sticking his foot in his mouth (and he will, later), his first response here is just right: “It is good for us to be here!” This, he recognizes, is a moment, a moment simply to be entered into, to be present in, to be experienced. 

Of course, Peter and the others can’t stay there, as much as they’d like to. Peter even offers to build some dwellings for everyone to stay comfortably and happily on the mountaintop, like one big, glorious family. But it is not to be. With a cloud’s rumbling reminder to everyone to “Listen to [my son, my Chosen!]” suddenly, the overtly glorious atmosphere dissipates. Jesus is found alone. Everything (and everyone) is silent. 

But, my friends, it is still good for them to be there. Together, sharing in that experience. That presence together, with Jesus is good. And then the next day when they walk down the mountain back into the valley – that is also good, for the call to discipleship is not a call to sit on a mountain and pray and never do anything more. Discipleship, after all, means action, and movement. That’s good! When they encounter a desperate father, pleading for his son – it is good for them to be there, too. When Jesus heals that suffering child – it is good for them to be there, too. And as they continue along with Jesus, whose sight is now set for Jerusalem, and what will be his suffering and his death – it is good for them to be there, too.  

It was easy for Peter, as it is for us, to say how “good” things are on the mountaintop, when God's glory is obvious, when things are going well. But is that statement any less true at the base of the mountain, where there are suffering children and desperate fathers? Does God cease to be glorious there, down amongst the suffering? 

Of course not. And we know this because we know that there is nowhere that God is more fully revealed than when he is beaten and bloodied and hanging on a cross. There, in that suffering place, is where God accomplishes the greatest act of love in all of history, in which Christ dies in order to liberate us from power of sin and death, and ultimately rises to give us new life. That is where God shows us the extent of His love for us: that He would give absolutely everything to free us and give us life. That is, indeed, glorious! 

And so, it is good for us to be here, even in the suffering – in the pain and fear at the base of the mountain, in the agony of the cross, in whatever sufferings of this world that we are currently enduring. It is good for us to be here, not because it is good to suffer, but because in the suffering is where Christ is, where he promises to be, where his glory is most profoundly revealed. 

And, here, in the suffering, is also where we can be Christ's presence, where we can show Christ’s loving presence through our presence. How easy it is to turn away from the suffering, to ignore it, since it doesn’t affect us anyway. To let someone else deal with it. But this is not the way of Christ, and it is not the way of a Christ-follower. No, we are drawn into the ministry of presence even with those at the foot of the mountain. As Paul says in our second reading today, “It is by God's mercy that we are engaged in this ministry [and] we do not lose heart.” I know, it is so much easier and tempting to look away – but don't do it! Don't cover it up, as with a veil! See the suffering, know that Christ is there, and then to the best of your ability, be Christ's hands and feet and heart, IN that suffering. 

It is good for us to be here, my friends, in whatever way we are able. It is good to see Christ’s light shining through the broken places. It is good to BE Christ’s light, shining among the suffering. It is good to stumble forward, just doing the best we can do to manifest God’s glory in service to the poor. So do not lose heart. It is good for us to be here.

Let us pray… Radiant God, we love the glorious moments we get to spend in your presence. Help us also to love the moments you are present in suffering. Be with us as we journey down the mountain and to the valley, that we might be a part of shining your glorious light into a world in need. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.