“Rubik” Image by Toni Blay via Flickr licenced under CC BY-NC 2.0
St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, Lowry, MN
Transfiguration Sunday – Mark 9:2-9 – 02-15-2015
The Transfiguration…what do we do with a moment like this? This bizarre, awesome, amazing moment—like so many elements of the faith it might cause us to ask, “How do we figure out what’s going on? How do we make sense of this?”
One scholar captures the confusion of this scene quite nicely: “if there’s any scene [in the Bible]…that defies easy interpretation and serves to rock the world of those who witness it, it’s this one. Jesus takes Peter, James, and John up the mountain with him, and there he is changed – transfigured – dramatically before their eyes. Mark seems to struggle to find vocabulary to do justice to what happens. Jesus’ clothes, he reports, became dazzling white, adding, ‘like no one on earth could make them.’ It’s as if Mark’s saying, ‘No, you don’t understand, it’s whiter than white, more dazzling than dazzling, like nothing you’ve ever seen.’ And if this isn’t enough, Jesus is then joined by two figures from the past, Moses and Elijah, representing…the heart and essence of Israel’s history. What do you do with a moment like this?”[1]
And here we are, confronting this wild and stunning story, staring at it as if it’s abstract art and trying to solve the equation of what’s going on.
Now, I have said before, sometimes I don’t deal that well with art. I usually look at it and want to know so much more. I want to figure out exact meanings. As a kid I remember being tormented in 8th grade art class because we viewed so many art works from paintings to sculptures, so many of which I just didn’t understand (clearly, I was a weird kid…12 years old and brought to existential angst by art work). But a random movie line from a film I don’t even remember has helped me out when it comes to viewing art, especially abstract art. The quote, roughly paraphrased was, “Don’t try to figure the painting out. Just experience it. How does it make you feel? And that might become the truth of the painting.”
And that makes a lot of sense to me. I mean think about it—if we were to see a painting with a snowy landscape and wooded area with a cozy cabin tucked in the woods with chimney smoke billowing out and bright lights and Christmas décor seen through the window, along with people gathered around a piano, that picture likely does something to us emotionally. For me I would feel warmth, joy, and longing for my own family and memories of Christmas past, as well as hopes for Christmas future. Yet, perhaps for some of you such a picture brings you darker feelings of a past you never had, loneliness, or grief for the times that are no longer.
Or maybe you see a painting of a seascape, cloudy overcast, and a small fishing vessel being tossed about by November gales, seemingly inching closer to a rocky shore. That picture also does something to us emotionally. For me I would view such a painting with anxiety, fear, suspense. But perhaps for some of you such a picture brings you an adrenaline rush, excitement, and envy of those who get to spend their careers in the elements.
The point is, perhaps the best way to approach art is not to ‘figure it out’ or crack the code, but to simply appreciate it and have it stir up feelings within you. Stand in front of it and experience it as evocative, emotional, or beautiful. It’s not science or math. Art contains great truth, but it isn’t ‘figured out’ by equations or litmus tests, but witnessed and experienced (by the way, I think my 8th grade art teacher would be really proud right now).
And beyond art, think about witnessing beauty of any kind. We don’t try to ‘figure it out’; rather, we simply take it in. When we look west at a sunset over Lake Minnewaska we don’t take out our calculators and solve the theorem of sunsets. And if we do, if we try to analyze the sunset rather than experience it we just might miss out on its beauty. This returns us to Peter in today’s Gospel, who, while trying to ‘figure out’ what was happening, came “perilously close to missing an encounter with God. For just after he stops speaking, almost interrupting him, in fact, a voice from heaven both announces and commands, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved. Listen to him!’ Peter wants to fit what is happening into [an equation, whereas] God invites him instead to experience the wonder and mystery of Jesus.”[2]
And perhaps that is the best way to encounter today’s story of the Transfiguration. The analytical side of me wants to treat the story of the Transfiguration like a Rubik’s Cube or theorem:
Peter + James + John ({Elijah + Moses} x {Jesus + dazzling white})/3 dwellings){exponent—voice from a cloud}…
…and eventually I think I’ll solve the theorem. But maybe this is the wrong way to engage this story.
Again, Peter tries to do this! He takes his Old Testament knowledge, sees two major Old Testament figures with Jesus and he tries to solve the equation: Well, three powerful dudes…this calls for three tabernacle booth thingys, and then the text says, “He did not know what to say,” (Mark 1:6a)—in other words, Peter just wasn’t getting it.
You see, Peter and me want so badly just to figure this situation out![3] But that voice from some forgettable movie repeats, “Don’t try to figure it out. Just experience it.” Or in the case of our text, God interrupts us and says—“This is my Son, the beloved” (Mark 9:7). Don’t try to figure it out.
“The transfigured Jesus isn’t supposed to be figured out. He is supposed to be appreciated”; here God insists not that we figure Jesus out, but that Jesus is seen, experienced.[4] You don’t figure out art. You don’t figure out beauty. You don’t figure out the Transfiguration. Just take it in. Just listen.
In fact, maybe this is a healthy way to understand faith as a whole. It’s not always (or ever?) something to be mathematically, philosophically, or scientifically solved, but simply something to be experienced, lived into and out of.
Today, we look at the Transfiguration of our Lord and God like he did Peter implores us to simply stand in appreciation of the moment where he is taking delight in his Son, our Savior. Like a Pope County Sunset, like a Picasso, like a Warhol, like a Glacial Lakes State Park vista, like a Rocky Mountain National Park hike…we encounter the art of the Transfiguration as beauty, as something promising and joyous, something dazzling white and mysterious, and powerful. Here we witness God the Father take delight in his Son, our Savior who now turns his compass towards the cross to display a love unfathomable. Like a sunset, painting, or vista, just take it in. Amen.
[1] David Lose, “Transfiguration B: There is No Plan,” In the Meantime, http://www.davidlose.net/2015/02/transfiguration-b/.
[2] David Lose, “Transfiguration”, http://www.davidlose.net/2015/02/transfiguration-b/.
[3]Cf. David Lose, “Transfiguration B: There is No Plan,” In the Meantime, http://www.davidlose.net/2015/02/transfiguration-b/.—“Peter, you see, has taken this momentous encounter with God’s prophets and fitted it into a pre-existing narrative and religious framework that helps him make sense of this otherwise inexplicable and somewhat terrifying event.”
[4] Mary Gordon quoted in—Matthew Skinner, “Commentary on Mark 9:2-9,” Workingpreacher.org, http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2341.
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