Getting Through
To listen to Eugen Rast andd the German Service, click the link below:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/46934662/2-19-12%20Ger.MP3
To listen to the Sermon: Getting Through by Pastor Ed, click the following link:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/46934662/2-19-12%20Ser.mp3
Or you can read the sermon for Transfiguration Sunday below.
February 19, 2012
2 Kings 2:1-12
Mark 9: 2-9
Transitions are hard. There’s no denying it, and they are particularly hard when you feel you have no control over the transition. We’ve experienced that, as have many of you – times when it is clear that a transition, change, needs to be made, but it wasn’t in your original plans. And so there are leavings and new beginnings and all the things that those entail.
And when you leave, there are often ceremonies or parties to tell you how great you are, or were, how much you were appreciated and will be missed. I recall one pastor who resigned under a bit of pressure and then, when he was told by everyone how much he would be missed, decided to rescind his resignation. Unfortunately, that triggered a whole series of discussions and votes which eventually led to his leaving under even less favorable conditions.
In times of transition, you need some memories, some highlights to get you through. You remember the good things about the past and hold onto them as you experience the strangeness and unfamiliarity of the new. Funerals are perhaps the best example where families gather and share stories of the deceased, the good times, in order to better face the transition to life without that person.
Our texts today are both stories of transition, or at least pending transition. And they are stories that we often don’t know quite how to handle because they seem so foreign or strange to our modern ears. The two stories do have a number of things in common, however, and so are connected in the lectionary for this transfiguration Sunday. And they are interesting stories, the subject for many artists, and full of intriguing details. Let’s look at each of them.
The story in 2 Kings 2 is really a succession story, the passing on of the mantle from Elijah to Elisha. In fact, it’s where the expression “passing on the mantle” comes from, as Elisha literally picks up the mantle that Elijah dropped when the whirlwind snatched him.
Elijah has been the leading prophet of Yahweh since the time of Ahab and Jezebel, and has performed many miraculous signs. It was he who predicted the droughts, raised the widow’s son, and defeated all the false prophets at Mt. Carmel. In fact, just before this account, Elijah had called down fire from heaven on two companies of soldiers who had come to summon him to appear before the king, making the third group of soldiers understandably nervous when they were sent on the same mission.
Somewhere along the way, Elijah had chosen Elisha as his disciple. It probably would have been easier for us if he had chosen someone with a name a bit more distinguishable from his own, but so be it. And now Elijah is about to be taken away. We often think of these prophets as solitary figures, and at times they did flee to the desert or up a mountain, but this story makes clear that there were companies of prophets located throughout Israel. And Elijah seems intent on losing Elisha along the way as they travel from one town to another, retracing the path the children of Israel took as they entered the land, from Gilgal to Bethel to Jericho and finally to the Jordan River, where Elijah re-enacts the parting of the water just as it had parted for the children of Israel as they entered the land.
And at each stop, the company of prophets in that locale says to Elisha, “Are you aware? Do you know that today God is going to take your teacher away from you?” And each time Elisha answers that, yes, he does know this, and advices them to keep silent. It seems a curious command from Elisha. Was it important that the community at large didn’t know? Did Elisha think that Elijah didn’t know? I’m not really sure, but the scenario is repeated at both Bethel and Jericho.
And then, finally across the Jordan River, this rather unreal scene unfolds as a chariot and horses of fire separate them, and Elijah is taken up in a whirlwind. And, we are told, a company of 50 prophets was standing back on the other side of the Jordan watching. In fact, they insisted on going and looking for Elijah, thinking perhaps the tornado had dropped him somewhere in the wilderness, but he was not to be found, just as Elisha predicted.
These 50 witnesses, however, were testimony to the fact that the mantle had been passed from Elijah to Elisha, thus giving him the recognition and status to carry on in Elijah’s role. It was a confirmation to Elisha of his calling, confirmed by witnesses, which allowed him to also perform miracles and speak to kings, declaring the Word of the Lord.
Our second text for the morning, which gives us the name for this Sunday, is another transition story on several levels. And while Jesus doesn’t disappear in this story, it is something of a succession story as well. In the scheme of Mark’s Gospel, it marks a transition from an account of Jesus’ ministry to the beginning of the journey towards Jerusalem and death. The account of the transfiguration comes immediately after Jesus’ first announcement of his coming death. At the end of chapter 8, we have Jesus asking the disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” and they say, “well, some say John the Baptist; some say Elijah (note that), and some say a prophet.” And then Peter’s bold declaration that Jesus is the Messiah – and Jesus promptly tells them not to tell anyone!
Jesus then begins to tell the disciples about his coming death. Six days later, according to Mark, Jesus takes Peter, James, and John – the Thunder Boys of our skit, and goes up a mountain where he is transfigured – his clothes become “dazzling white” and he appears to be talking with Moses and Elijah. Someone has suggested this has all the elements of a “superhero” story – a trek up the mountain, other-worldly figures appearing, the transformation of the hero and a voice from the heavens! You would expect them to come down ready to do battle with the forces of evil.
And in some ways they were. But what is this all about. Well, Moses and Elijah, besides being recognizable as major prophet figures of the Old Testament, share several other traits both in their life stories and in the theology of Jesus day. Both Moses and Elijah were seen as person with mysterious deaths – or maybe we should say mysterious endings, because neither of them are talked about as dying. We’ve already seen Elijah’s ending – carried off in a whirlwind, and while Deuteronomy 34 says that Moses died, it was at the Lord’s hand and no one knew where his grave was.
Thus, in Jewish theology, both Moses and Elijah were seen as available to God to send back to announce the coming of God’s reign. Elijah still functions in that role in Jewish thought today. At Passover an extra chair is always available for Elijah who may come at any time to announce the coming of Messiah. So there is, in a sense, a passing of the mantle from Moses and Elijah to Jesus as the one to announce the coming of the Kingdom. The voice confirms this as it says, “This is my son, listen to him.” And Peter’s idea of erecting three tents, or booths, was not out of line, as there was a common expectation that the Day of the Lord would come during the Feast of Booths.
And again Jesus tells the disciples to keep silent about what they had seen and heard. Strange! How do you keep something like that to yourself? So it marks a transition in the Gospel of Mark, it marks a transition in the one announcing the coming Kingdom, and it is a prelude to the transition from Jesus being among the disciples to their needing to pick up the mantle left behind by Jesus and carry on with his mission.
So what does this have to do with us? Fascinating stories, sure, but so what? Well, this Sunday marks a transition for us in the church year. At Christmas we celebrate the birth of this baby, Jesus, and for the past several months we have been talking a lot about light and the Kingdom and mission of God. Just as the disciples were experiencing Jesus doing miracles and preaching, drawing crowds, so we have tended to look at all the good things Jesus can do and does for us.
But next Sunday begins the season of Lent and the journey toward the cross; a season of the church year that tends to focus more on darkness and call us to confession. As the transfiguration does in Mark’s Gospel, this Sunday marks the beginning of that journey toward Jerusalem. Now, of course we unlike the disciples, know that the story doesn’t end at the cross, but we still need to travel that road.
And, like the disciples, we need something to get us through those times of transition. And we need to decide which Jesus we want to follow. One commentator I listened to noted that Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem begins and ends on mountains. It begins with Jesus transfigured on a mountain – that superhero image I talked of earlier, and ends with Jesus on a cross on another mountain outside Jerusalem.
The first, he said, is what we want- the Jesus of glory and superhuman brightness; dazzling white and in touch with super-heroes of old. The second is what we get, and he noted, the one that saves us. The disciples, and indeed many Christians, want to stay on the mountain of transfiguration and bask in the glory of a powerful Jesus. But Jesus had already told the disciples what was ahead, even if they didn’t want to hear it.
May we enter this time of transition and the season of Lent, open to hearing the words of Jesus who calls us to “take up our cross and follow.”