Transfiguration of Our Lord - B

February 14, 2021

The Wonder of It All

St. Mark 9:2-9

 Epiphany is a season of wonder. 

“I wonder as I wander out under the sky!” 

The readings from Scripture this morning are full of wonder and mystery:

The awesome story of the vision of the fiery chariots where Elisha receives double the ‘Spirit’ of Elijah his mentor.  

Paul speaks of the light of the knowledge of the glory of Christ.

Jesus is transfigured on Mt. Tabor.

Our texts this morning are dripping with wonder.  But has our culture, has our church lost its sense of wonder and awe?

Visions, dreams, wonder and awe are at the heart of every faith.  Mystery and mystical visions that humans experience lead to movements and healing and hope.

Jacob, the Howie Mandel – the ‘Deal or No Deal’ man of the Old Testament flees for his life from his angry brother Esau.  Jacob had just swindled Esau out of his birth right and inheritance.  On his way to Uncle Laban’s Jacob rests on a stone and dreams of the heavens opening and angel’s swarming up and down a ladder in the sky and he wakens and anoints the rock saying:

“Surely God is in this place and I did not know it!”  He calls that place Beth-El – house of God.

Moses encounters a burning bush and in wonder and awe removes his shoes and barefooted walks on holy ground to view the bush that burns and is unconsumed. 

That vision and that voice launched Moses into leading a people to liberation. 

Wonder:  this morning you have had the opportunity to choose your wonder.  As you entered the sanctuary you were invited to select a picture that struck your fancy.  God made us to wonder. 

God made us to enter into the marvelous mystery of God’s good creation – not to figure it out or explain it but to bask in the light and be transformed.

Take a look at the picture you have chosen.  Does it transport you?  Does it elicit a sense of wonder or awe?

Transfiguration Sunday is not a day to explain a vision – but a day to be embraced by the vision of Christ and change and be made new in his image.

The Transfiguration Story is not a mystery to be solved nor is it intended to establish doctrine or dogma about the nature of Christ.  No, it is a burning bush experience. It is intended to strike us with awe and wonder of the mystery of God’s presence among us – a presence that we often ignore or miss. 

The church suffers from a wonder deficit disorder. 

We’ve ceased to wonder.  We are no longer amazed or disturbed.  Look at how we gather in worship in neat rows that inhibit us from looking at one another.  Do we really see each other or do we look past one another and the divine presence in each of us goes unnoticed?

In the James Cameron movie: Avatar the indigenous people of the planet Pandora live in sync with nature and the web of life on Pandora.  The natives are known as Na’vi.

The Na’vi have a saying “I see you,” which means so much more than just physically seeing someone. It means to see into and understand the soul of the person you see.  It means to see the wonder and divine in another.

The Christian faith is indeed an “I see you” life.  But the church has so often smothered the wonder, controlled the vision, and domesticated the divine.

Our roots are indeed in Jesus, the Jew.  The following prayer from the Jewish prayer book Gates of Prayer says it well:  “Days pass and the years vanish, and we walk sightless among miracles.  Lord, fill our eyes with seeing and our minds with knowing; let there be moments when Your Presence, like lightning, illumines the darkness in which we walk.

Help us to see, wherever we gaze, that the bush burns unconsumed.  And we, clay touched by God, will reach out for holiness, and exclaim in wonder:

How filled with awe is this place, and we did not know it!

Blessed is the Eternal One, the holy God!” 

                                        (Gates of Prayer p. 170.)

We have a wonder deficit.  We splash people in baptism rather than flood them in a pool.  We share tiny round wafers and a dab of wine at the Altar and want to call it the bread of life from heaven!  If silence in worship goes too long we get antsy and want to move on.

Michael Yaconelli, a writer, theologian, church leader and satirist. Co-Founder of Youth Specialties, writes in his book Dangerous Wonder:

“The critical issue today is dullness.  We have lost our astonishment…The greatest enemy of Christianity may be people who say they believe in Jesus but who are no longer astonished or amazed.  Jesus Christ came to save us from flat souls as well as corrupted souls…Tameness is not an option.  Take surprise out of faith and all that is left is dry and dead religion.  Take away mystery from the gospel and all that is left is frozen and petrified dogma.” (Dangerous Wonder, pages 24, 28)

The ability of Jesus to astonish people is what got him noticed, heard, and eventually killed.  Those who opposed Jesus never accused him of being dull. His enemies thought him to be too dynamic to be safe.  It is the church through the ages that has domesticated Jesus, the lion of Judah – making him into a nothing more than a household pet – a lap dog for the elderly.

The church all too often suffers from a wonder deficit disorder.

Today’s Gospel is a call to Mount Tabor in order to wonder again and stand in awe of the mystery of a God who has filled life and the whole creation with light and love and grace.

On this mountain Peter, James, and John have an experience that they cannot put into words.  So that is why the church has done a good job encouraging poets, artists, and musicians to speak with an economy of words or in pictures and sound - not to capture the awe and mystery but to give witness to it.

Our hymns, our songs, our music, our poetry in the liturgy have the potential of inspiring wonder when we are open and moved by the Spirit.

Simple words, music, sights, sounds - all of creation - is impregnated with the nature of the Divine.  We constantly live in wonder – a place of wide horizons that range beyond the span of individual lives into the greater picture and the larger story of God’s passion for all of creation.

But awe is not an end in itself.  Wonder is not to be a personal self-help experience, but rather an empowering experience.  Out of wonder have come movements, religions, self-sacrifice, new visions for justice, new inventions, hope and renewal of the human spirit.

Wonder empowers.  That is what is happening here to Christ.  His mystical vision shared by his most intimate disciples empowers Jesus to move toward the cross. 

That is why the Gospel writers place it just before the Passion begins.  The presence of the divine opens Jesus up to a way that is totally unpredictable and unexpected. 

The Cross was not even on the radar screen of those who hoped for Messiah.  It may not have been on Jesus’ radar screen either.  Yet, this event opens the door and Jesus walks through.

And what about us?

We don’t have to go to the mountain – wonder is all around – every atom is a piece of art.  We are living in God’s art gallery and God daily offers us the experience of awe.  Out of that experience of awe God empowers us to be about God’s will for compassion and justice as we love and serve the neighbor.

I wonder as I wander out under the sky

How Jesus the Saviour did come for to die

For poor ord'nary people like you and like I;

I wonder as I wander out under the sky.

Amen