Prayer: Come Holy Spirit, come.  Take my lips and speak with them.  Take our minds and think with them.  Take our hearts and set them on fire with love for you.  In Christ’s name, we ask it.  Amen

“Good seeing” is what astronomers love more than anything else.  “Good seeing,” is a term of art used by astronomers to describe the Earth’s atmosphere when it’s calm and free of dust.  When there is “good seeing,” the sky takes on a dark blue color.  And when these conditions exist, astronomers will climb to the very tops of mountains, well above the cloud deck, in search of a perfect sky that will enable them to capture sharp and stable images of heavenly bodies.  What fascinates a number of these astronomers today is the star that sits at the very center of our solar system: the sun.  They study the sun because it is the origin of virtually all the energy that supports life on Earth our fragile island home.  The sun is the source of our weather, the controller of our climate, without it all life ceases to exist.

“The sun is the Rosetta stone of astrophysics,” says one scientist to National Geographic magazine.  “But it’s a stone that we haven’t been able to decipher entirely.” Although the sun has been burning for 4.6 billion years, it is only in the last two decades that scientists have begun to understand it.  One thing for sure there’s nothing boring about this ball of light.  One of the mysteries of the sun is an event called “a coronal mass ejection,” in which billions of tons of charged particles escape from the sun’s corona and dump trillions of watts of power into Earth’s upper atmosphere.  This ejection of charged particles can overload power lines, causing massive blackouts, and destroy delicate instruments on satellites in Earth’s orbit.  The sun exudes unimaginable power and is our closest connection to the process and the power that gives shape and life to our universe.

Not unlike our modern day astronomers, in today’s gospel lesson, Peter, James and John are in search of “good seeing.”  They follow Jesus up to the top of a high mountain.  A quick bible study note: whenever Jesus climbs a mountain in Matthew’s gospel pay close attention something important is about to happen and today’s lesson doesn’t disappoint.  When Jesus and his three disciples reach an altitude where the sky is a luminous blue, Jesus is transfigured before them, and he becomes dazzling white.  Through the power of God, Jesus undergoes a metamorphosis, a change in form, a transfiguration.  He begins to glow with the glory reserved for heavenly beings.  His face shines “like the sun,” says Matthew—exuding unimaginable power that must have seemed out of this world.  No sunspot or solar flare or coronal mass ejection could have surprised the disciples any more than this.  Peter utters the words that I am sure James and John were thinking as well, “Lord it is good for us to be here.”  Indeed, Jesus transfigured into his divine glory must have been “good seeing.”

Moreover, the celestial brilliance of Jesus’ face is only the beginning. Suddenly, Moses and Elijah appear with Jesus in a heavenly constellation.  Being faithful adherents to the Jewish religion, the disciples must have been totally star-struck.  After all, Moses and Elijah represent the two primary pillars of the Jewish religion—the Law and the Prophets.  Through Moses, God gave His holy Law to the people of Israel including the Ten Commandments.  And Elijah was a great and powerful prophet who proclaimed to the people of Israel God’s word of judgment and grace.  Jesus, Moses, and Elijah form a kind of divine Dream Team—one that radiates the unimaginable power and promise of God. 

For Peter, James, and John, everything must now be different.  If they had any questions as to the identity of Jesus, they should all now be sufficiently answered.  Jesus is far more than some first-century Galilean phenomenon.  Jesus is not just a great moral philosopher whose thinking was ahead his time.  Jesus is not simply a charismatic political revolutionary seeking Israel’s emancipation from Rome.  Instead, Jesus is a continuation and culmination of all the mighty acts of God throughout history.  Moses and Elijah—the Law and the prophets—find their meaning and fulfillment in Jesus.  God’s plan for the salvation of the world, begun after the fall of Adam and Eve, has finally reached its brilliant climax in Jesus.  The power that created the cosmos and all that is in them—sun, moon, stars, earth, winds, and water—has reentered time and space in the person of Jesus Christ.  And God’ purpose for this: to bring us all within the reach of His loving embrace—despite or sin—despite our brokenness—despite even our mortality.

As the disciples stand in awe of the scene unfolding before them Peter always the pragmatist of the disciples makes a sensible suggestion, “Lord…if you wish I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, one for Elijah.”  You see a dwelling is not just rock hut.  A dwelling is another term for a tabernacle.  A tabernacle is a holy place in Jewish tradition in which God is pleased to dwell.  Peter is not talking about building three shacks on a mountaintop.  He wants to construct three sacred tabernacles to house the divine glory that is glowing before him.  It’s an offer of respect.  However, before Peter can pop open his tool box, a bright cloud overshadows them, and a voice from heaven speaks, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!”  In a day full of celestial surprises, this final experience brings the disciples to their knees.  Not only have they seen the glory of God in the face of their friend and teacher Jesus, but now they actually hear the voice of the Almighty speaking directly to them.  Peter, James, and John fall flat on their faces. 

Truly the day of Christ’s Transfiguration is a day of “good seeing.”  The disciples are like astronomers on the rim of some ancient volcano, half a mile above the cloud deck with the atmosphere perfectly calm and their high-tech instruments pointed straight at the sun—a brilliant disk of fire in the sky.  And like modern scientists, the disciples are getting an unobstructed view of the source of all of our energy, a clear look at the process and power behind the entirety of our universe.  In his letter to the Colossians, St. Paul writes, Christ is “the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and earth were created…all things have been created through him and for him.”  Like the sun that blazes in the sky, Jesus is the heavenly being who is the source of all life and light on the earth.

But this mountaintop story is about much more than Jesus’ unimaginable power and great glory.  It would be an incomplete image of Jesus if we only pictured him as an untouchable ball of divine power.  Much like the sun, unapproachable, floating through the sky far removed from all the trials and tribulations that we face each day.  You see the very same face that shines like the sun on the mountaintop descends that mountain to be betrayed by a kiss, spit upon and beat by his religious leaders, and die on the hard wood of the cross.  Jesus may be filled with the divine glory of the Almighty God, but he is also no stranger to heartbreak and agony, struggle and suffering, beatings and mockings, and even an agonizing death. 

Consider with me the end of today’s gospel lesson, as the disciples lie on the ground frozen in fear and awe because of all they had just seen and heard—they feel a touch.  All of a sudden the greatest power of the universe is concentrated in a single touch.  The image of the God of our universe is seen in the face of a caring human being, Jesus.  He says to his disciples who he loves, “Get up and do not be afraid.”  And together, Peter, James, John, and Jesus descend the mountain to reenter the reality of our world—the good and the bad—the sorrow and the joy—the pain and the triumph.

Get up and do not be afraid.  That’s what the mightiest power in the universe says to each of us when we feel frustrated by failure, ransacked by bad relationships, battered by betrayal, soiled by sin, and depressed by mental, physical or spiritual deterioration. “Get up,” says Jesus. “I am offering you light and new life.”  “Do not be afraid,” counsels Jesus. “You are not alone.  I am going to walk with you and assure you of the power and presence of God in your life.”  “Get up and do not be afraid,” utters Jesus, “Because I am the bright morning star who will guide you in this world and who will be there to greet you with open arms in the world that is yet to come.”  Amen.                       

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