More
than once in our travels this year Jeff and I encountered heavy fog. Driving in the mountains or exploring near
rivers, fog has enveloped us.
There’s something eerie about being in
the clouds. The air is heavier,
wetter. It’s difficult to see. Sometimes visibility is so limited it seems
safer to stop moving and to wait for the air to clear.
It’s not just about sight. Sometimes the sound becomes muffled. Anything you touch might be a little damp,
the air might feel heavy. Depending on
where you are, the air might even taste or smell not just wet, but a little
funky, a little different than if the air were clear. The heaviness of the air might manifest in
your body by pushing you down.
Physically, being in a cloud can
affect all five senses. There is an
emotional response too. Fear,
perhaps. Disorientation. Curiosity.
Concern. It might make you
depressed or tired.
Maybe our responses make sense, maybe
they seem a little excessive. Either
way, being in a literal cloud, or fog can be uncomfortable and mysterious.
We use the idiom of “being in a fog”
whenever we are not quite conscious of all that is happening around us. We might say something is foggy when it is unclear.
The inability to see into the distance
or hear clearly or to be able to touch something that helps to ground us or
identify some sort of security that defines our space is, well, scary.
And yet, it is in the cloud where God
speaks to Peter, James and John on that day on the mountain. Shrouded by the damp, grey air, God tells
these men "This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!"
Rarely is anyone face to face with
God. People believe that if you look
directly at God, you will die. In so many of the encounters we read about in
the Bible, God is shrouded in mystery, like in a cloud; or God’s message is
delivered by an angel; or people, like Elijah, would cover their faces. No
matter how the people would encounter God they would emerge, changed or
challenged.
When God speaks to Peter, James and
John from the cloud, it’s quite a scene change!
Just minutes before, Jesus was glowing in the presence of Moses and
Elijah. Shining, like Moses did after he
was in the presence of God. And the face
of Moses shined so brightly, he had to cover his face when in the company of others.
Jesus shined. He was changed in the presence of the
apostles. We use the word “transfiguration”
which, according to Merriam-Webster,
is defined as an exalting, glorifying,
or spiritual change.
Transfiguration
isn’t limited to Jesus. Today is a reminder
that we, as beloved children of our Creator, can be changed by God.
It
seems like a requirement of our faith journey.
Being people of faith means we should expect to be changed. If there was a subtitle to the Bible, it just
might be “how God changes people.” We
read story after story of how people’s lives have been changed, transformed, by
God.
Isn’t it interesting,
when you think about it, how faith can be described as believing in something
you cannot see?
Because none of us
has seen God, only glimpses of God provided through all the miracles in
creation. We haven’t seen Jesus, either.
At least not the physical manifestation of
God’s son. But we have experienced
Christ’s love in one another. And the
Holy Spirit has no form, yet we feel her presence and movement in and around
us.
We
need to be open to the Holy. When we are
open, when we are vulnerable, we can be surprised by God. We can be changed by Jesus. When we encounter the Holy in some unexpected
manifestation, in some little epiphany, we can be surprised by God.
What
I think is interesting is that when these things happen, sometimes, our physical
bodies respond.
They make our faces
shine or glow; they make our hearts and stomachs leap; they send shivers through
our bodies; they create a language of love that springs from our tongues; they cause
us to treat others with dignity and respect; they move our feet towards the
cross; and they make our knees bend to pray.
These God-moments can
only be described as “spiritual change,” conversion, transformation, or even “transfiguration.”
Because we can never
return to what was before. We cannot un-see
what we’ve seen or unlearn what we have learned. We can only be changed by it and decide how
to respond to it.
Maybe that’s why
being in the clouds or in the fog can be so disorienting and uncomfortable or
even frightening. The clouds, the fog,
represent change or something we must respond to, and we might not know if we
are up to the task.
We might not
know. But God knows. God is in the clouds. We know this because a cloud came and
overshadowed [Peter, James and John]; and they were terrified as they entered
the cloud. Then from the cloud came a voice that said, "This is my Son, my
Chosen; listen to him!"
Listen to him. That
was God’s command on that day on the mountain.
And they needed to listen to Jesus because this moment on the mountain
was the beginning of the end of Jesus’ life on Earth. After this moment, Jesus would begin his own
journey, his own exodus, to Jerusalem, and he was going to need these apostles
to listen carefully to his instruction, his prayers and his miracles so they
would be able to continue his ministry after he was gone.
Listen to him. That
is our instruction as well. To listen
for God’s call to change us, to transform us, to help us exemplify our
commitment to following the way of Jesus.
The way of love.
Amen.