Last Epiphany C March
3, 2019
Exodus 34:29-35 Ps. 99
2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2 Luke
9:28-36
How do you and I move from being spectators of what is
great to becoming agents of excellence?
The season of the Epiphany is about how Christ became manifest to the world. How did Christ become the spectacle of greatness? How did he become the example of who we want to model our lives after?
When did Jesus become best known to this world? It really did not happen in his lifetime on earth.
Jesus became manifest to the people in the Roman Empire, as the Risen Christ when they were having spiritual experiences of Christ.
The early church leaders were asking why were these epiphanies of the Risen Christ happening? How are these epiphanies of the Risen Christ connected to the life of Jesus of Nazareth?
The New Testament writings and the Gospels were written to try to explain how the manifestation of the Risen Christ in the Gentile world was connected to the person of Jesus of Nazareth?
Was there any evidence of the resurrection and the post-resurrection appearances before they happened?
The Gospel claim: Well, we knew that Jesus was very special, because we had a visionary event with Jesus on a mountain top. And this visionary event was like the event which Moses was involved in on Mount Sinai. This visionary event was like the events which surrounded the great prophet Elijah. It was a shining event. The face of Jesus shone, just like the face of Moses had shown when he had his meeting with God to receive the Torah on Mount Sinai.
St. Paul said that we all have a spiritual body which can live forever. On the Mount of the Transfiguration, the spiritual body of Jesus was able to become a blazing light which lit up his face for the spectators, Peter, James and John. Before the post-resurrection appearances of Christ and before the appearances of the Risen Christ in Paul and Jewish and Gentiles members of the early church, the transfiguration was an event for the disciples which anticipated the resurrection state of Christ.
Moses had spectators for his epiphany. Jesus had spectators for his epiphany. Elijah had his spectators for his epiphany on Mount Carmel. The spectators were able to witness the glory of the God, the profound fame of God becoming made known.
There is a kind of atrophy which can happen because of the writing of the Bible and the writing of history. The atrophy is because of the cult of hero worship. Other people have become great for us to adore and worship, and so we have the lifelong task of being spectators of the heroes, prophets and saints; we can easily be but spectators of Christ and the saints and the spiritual heroes. Spectator means that we are watchers; we look on and admire greatness. The danger of being mere spectators is that we absolve ourselves of moving in the direction of the greatness in what it would mean for you and me in our quest for continual excellence.
The cult of heroes and our entertainment culture is based upon creating a large passive audience to support the people who can become popular. But this violates the kind of greatness that Jesus was representing.
There are two approaches to perfection; individual and communal. One notion of perfection has to do with the individual quest for greatness in the competitive sense. I want to be more perfect than anyone else because I want to stand out.
The other approach to perfection is communal. I want to discover perfection as completeness within my family and community. My perfection is the experience of the community succeeding in excellence. This loss of the individual identity within community success is not very popular in our culture, a culture of the worship of heroes and famous people. But where is communal perfection significant? It is when mom and dad find total joy in seeing their children succeed and show significance signs of growth. It is when leaders of schools, parishes and communities take more pride in the group achievement than their own personal resumes. It happens when a business cherishes the input of all workers to achieve success together.
Christ came to give his life for many. He did not come just to make us adoring spectators; he came so that he could re-appear to all of us and discover the Holy Spirit as our internal engine to propel us toward excellence. He came, not to make us spectators; he came to make us agents of his values in our time and place.
Transfiguration is Latin based word for the Greek word from which we derive the English word, metamorphosis. Transfiguration is both an event and a process. In the life of a butterfly, what do we often associate metamorphosis with? We tend to focus on the event of the butterfly breaking out of the cocoon. But metamorphosis includes the eggs, the larva, the caterpillar and the cocoon phases of life and those phases don't seem as glamorous as the butterfly.
What is the purpose of the butterfly? Is it to be just a beautiful climax in the cycle of life? A butterfly is one who can produce the eggs to begin the process all over again for many future butterflies.
Let us acknowledge the transfiguration as both an event and a process. Let us not be merely spectators of the butterfly event; let us be a part of the process in seeing the birth of many who will come to know the transfiguration energy of Christ in their lives.
Today, we are not here to be mere spectators of Christ; we are to let the transfigured reality of Christ shine through our lives so that others might be able to catch a glimpse of the excellence to which they are called. Remember that the Risen Christ has a very unique and special way to be transfigured through each of us. Let us allow the same energy which transfigured Christ, to transfigure us so that others can see Christ, too. Amen.
