“As Much of God as a Hand Can Hold”

Matthew 17:1-8

Thursday afternoon, after I had finished the first draft of today’s sermon, I decided to let it simmer for a while. While it was simmering I checked my e-mail. A colleague from the Chicago area whom I have never met had sent me his most recent blog. Imbedded in that blog was a version of the praise song we often sing “Open the Eyes of My Heart.” I clicked it on mostly to see how it compared to the version we sing here at Grace.

I was only going to listen for a minute or so. But I ended up listening to every word of it, and as I listened I found myself praying for the Lord to open the eyes (and ears) of my heart. By the grace of God and power of the Holy Spirit the words of that song broke through the cynicism and world-weariness that has been plaguing me of late. I’m not quite sure yet just what it is to which the eyes and ears of my heart are being opened. Time will tell.

For the purposes of this sermon, however, I was moved to look upon both the transfigured Christ and the Jesus who came as God-with-us in a less academic way. And it was the pre-transfiguration Jesus that captured my attention: the healing, transforming, Jesus; the Jesus who broke bread with sinners; the Jesus that in the childhood song I am told that me he loves me. To borrow a phrase from John Wesley, my heart was strangely warmed as the eyes of my heart turned to look upon this Jesus, the Jesus who loved me enough to die on a cross. It was with this inner vision that I turned back to the original sermon.

The fifth verse of the sixth chapter of Isaiah is appropriate for today. After a close encounter with God Isaiah wails out these words: “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts!” One did not have such encounters with the Lord without undergoing a significant life-changing, sometimes shattering, experience. There was a strong belief among the children of Israel that being in such close proximity to God would be fatal. The Lord God Almighty was beyond all human comprehension. In his presence even the eyes of one’s heart remained fearfully closed. Even his name could not be said aloud.

On the mountain with Jesus, as he was transfigured before them, Peter, James, and John encountered a very different Jesus than the one they knew. As the second verse of today’s text describes that encounter, “… his face shown like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white.” And if that wasn’t overwhelming enough, suddenly Moses and Elijah appeared and began a conversation with the transfigured Jesus.

Peter recovered from his shock enough to recognize the significance of what he was seeing. The experience was so wonderful that he wanted it not to end. He wanted to stay up on that mountain top and enjoy the glory radiating from his transfigured Master. But there was more going on than just the magic of the moment. Only six days before Jesus had begun to speak openly to his disciples about his coming crucifixion. Peter had already been looking for an alternative to the suffering and heartache of Calvary. This mountain top thing seemed to be just such an alternative. Why not stay up on that mountain with Jesus, Elijah, and Moses and forget about that journey to the cross?

Before Peter even finished his proposal something else happened, namely God. From out of a cloud the voice of the Lord God Almighty boomed out, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!” Once again the Father God was confirming the status of his Son Jesus. He was the Messiah. What he said was God’s own truth. And the three disciples, how did they respond to this? As was pretty much the norm of such close encounters with God, they fell to the ground overwhelmed by fear. Who wouldn’t?

For the moment let’s leave Peter, James, and John trembling on the ground. We will come back to them. Before we do let’s deal with the significance of this event we call The Transfiguration. Significant it was. Listen to the commentary of Douglas John Hall: “[The text] affirms [the] early church’s foundational belief about Jesus: namely that he was not just another exceptional human being, prophet, or great teacher and example for all, but the decisive representation of the Divine, the source and judge of life.”

This man named Jesus was the very Son of God and Israel’s long-awaited Messiah. More than that, he was the incarnation of God, the Word made flesh, dwelling among us. Or if you prefer Paul’s words from Philippians 2: “… who though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.”

Jesus was that person of God upon whose face a human being could look and not die. He was God making himself available to us in a form we could comprehend. And it was this Jesus, not the transfigured one, who spoke words of comfort to those three overwhelmed and frightened disciples who had accompanied him up the mountain that day. “But Jesus came and touched them, saying, ‘Get up and do not be afraid’.” Elijah and Moses were gone. The cloud had disappeared. No one was there with them but Jesus, the Jesus they knew and loved – the Jesus who gently touched and spoke to them, the One who would have held them in his arms if necessary.

John Calvin spoke to this: “… all thinking of God, apart from Christ, is a bottomless abyss which utterly swallows up all our senses… In Christ God so to speak makes himself little, in order to lower himself to our capacity; and Christ alone calms our consciences that they may dare intimately approach God.”

The transfiguration of Jesus was significant. He gave those three disciples a glimpse of his real glory, a glimpse that assured them that the crucifixion would not be the end of the story, a glimpse of the triumphant post-resurrection Christ.

The non-transfigured Jesus who took Peter, James, and John back down that mountain, back into the real world so to speak, was, at that moment, maybe more significant. He was the one through whom, to quote Patrick J. Willson, “… God consents to allow all that God hopes for us to be communicated in an ordinary human touch.” God in Christ was and is willing to come to us, reach out to us, touch us, and calm our fears. No longer is God hidden from us in a cloud. No longer is he the God whose intimate presence throws us to the floor trembling in fear, saying like Isaiah, “Woe is me…”

Today as we gather at the Lord’s Table, by the power and presence of the Holy Spirit this intimate Jesus will be God with us. We won’t literally be eating his body or drinking his blood, but he will be hosting us at his Table, asking us to eat from this loaf and drink from this cup in remembrance of his crucifixion and resurrection and in anticipation of his coming again. No mysterious cloud will descend upon us, out of which will boom the majestic voice of the Lord God Almighty. Jesus will not appear before us as a blinding and dazzling figure we cannot comprehend. He will simply, quietly, and gently be present to us in the person of the Holy Spirit: touching us, reaching out to us, and calming our fears. And as he is with us, if we will open ourselves to his Spirit, he will open the eyes of our hearts. More than that he will touch our hearts in healing, peace-giving ways.

His presence will remind us, in the words of Patrick J. Willson, that “God is so great, so majestic, so glorious, that God deigns come to us in a crumb of bread and sip of wine, just as much of God as a hand can hold.” May it be that the eyes of our hearts will be opened to his presence. Amen.