Sermon: Transfiguration

May the words of my lips and the meditations of our hearts be now and always      acceptable in your sight, O Lord our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

What kind of fire did Moses see in what we call ‘the burning bush'?  Certainly, this was no ordinary fire, the kind of fire that was perhaps a common sight in hot, dry climates, in close proximity to wilderness.  Here was fire that did not consume the physical bush; mysterious, holy fire.  The author of the narrative goes further. This was an ‘appearance' of the angel of the Lord, for it was from the bush itself that God said, ‘Moses', ‘Moses'.  The suggestion is that God had manifested his presence in a particular, localised form, transcending the normal.  This was a theophany, but not the epic, massive theophany of a Mount Sinai for all to see, but a more personal, intimate manifestation of God's presence.  Of course, fire is a common symbol of theophany, as the Sinai narratives show where lightening and smoke emanate from the holy mountain. But although this theophany is localised and circumscribed, it is as intense.  Moses is commanded to take off his shoes because he is in the presence of the Holy One; he is at once attracted, ‘I must look at this great sight and see why the bush is not burned up' , and at once repelled by fear; ‘Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look on God.'  It is exactly what is behind Rudolf Otto's great phrase, that the absolute Otherness of the One we call God is a mysterium tremendum et fascinans, a great mystery, so great as to make us recoil before the immensity, and yet which paradoxically beckons us to draw nearer.

Perhaps we might say that the bush was transfigured.  And I use that word deliberately because today, on this Sunday before Lent, the Bible readings at the Sung Eucharist and at Matins and Evensong reflect the theme of transfiguration. So at the Eucharist to follow, we will hear that on another mountain, Jesus was transfigured in the presence of his three closest disciples; a localised, intimate revelation of his divine nature; where the image is not so much fire as light; his clothes became dazzling white and they saw his glory. And they heard the voice of God, ‘This is my Son'. Of course, the transfiguration narrative is even more mysterious. If it is about light, it is also about darkness; a cloud enveloped the scene, yet another symbol of theophany, a revealing and a concealing.  It was out of the cloud that the divine voice came.

So we can easily see why the burning bush narrative was chosen for today's set of readings. The second lesson from John 12 is also appropriate.  For here too there is the divine voice, a voice that sounded like thunder, yet another expression of theophany. Here, too, is reference to light:

            The light is with you for a little longer...While you have the light, believe in         the light, that you may become children of light.

And most paradoxically, the setting in John is the hour of the Cross, that ultimate theophany of the glory of God's only Son, lifted high from the earth, as the great sign of transfigured suffering, transforming love, re-creating work, as at the end of the sixth day, God in Christ completes the work of redemption as perfectly as he completed the work of creation, and God said, it ‘was very good', and God said, ‘it is accomplished.'

A bush, on fire, yet the bush was not consumed;

dazzling light;

an overshadowing cloud;

a man lifted high on a cross of wood.

Last Sunday, we considered creation. And we meditated on the positive aspects of creation, as we remembered how Jesus exulted over the birds of the air, the lilies of the field, and used them to remind us to trust God and so not to be anxious for our lives. But there is another side to creation, and that is the waste and pain, the violence and dislocation that we see in the created order, the kind of hard data so beloved of those who wish to ridicule our Christian convictions about the mercy and love of God. Traditionally, Christian theology has ascribed these phenomena to the Fall on the basis of Genesis 3. However, as with the creation narratives, the story of the Fall is essentially theological. It is about inspired human reflection on life as it is, and so invites us to consider both the potentiality and brokenness of our human condition, and the potentiality and brokenness of the whole created order. In other words, as we ponder the mystery of life, we see a congruence between ourselves as human beings and the physical order we inhabit. This is why the New Testament interprets salvation as being about both the destiny of our vocation as human beings and the destiny of the created order. It is why Christian theology insists upon a sacramental principle, that a God who himself assumed human flesh, also initiated sacramental signs, water, bread, wine, oil, fire, ash, as pledges that human and creaturely transformation belong together.  

That is why mysterious things like

a bush, on fire yet not consumed;

dazzling light;

an overshadowing cloud.

a man lifted high on a cross of wood, itself the tree of life,

become so important.

The fact is that the New Testament does not so much ask us to think of a historical, mythical past that needs to be restored and reclaimed, but rather a future into which we and all the created order are being called into.  And just as the transfiguration of Jesus was a pre-Easter revelation of a post-Easter reality, so all we celebrate in the Church: new life, forgiveness, sacramental grace, is a present instalment of a redeemed future.

This is a great mystery.  But it helps us amidst all the perplexities and rawness of life, and the recent events in Haiti bear their own desperate testimony, to see that a principle of redemption is operating in our world, so that God is able to take up even the greatest of tragedies into his eternal purposes. And more than that, the present work of the Holy Spirit, and here we have another symbol of fire operating, is in order that through our own faith, discipleship, prayer and loving service, what we do now as Christians is also, mysteriously yet wonderfully, part of this process of redemption.

Of course, at the heart of this stands the person of Christ, his Cross and Passion and glorious Resurrection, the very things we celebrate as we embark on our Lenten journey.  We start this coming Wednesday with ash, a symbol perhaps of the destructive power of fire as well as our own mortality. But it finishes with light, with new-creating fire, as on Easter Day in the pre-dawn darkness a candle is lit, and we cry out Lumen Christi, the Light of Christ.  Out of the crucible of torture and death, a darkness that on Good Friday could be felt, earthquake and destruction, comes the beauty, light, and harmony of an early morning garden, where instead of  a cry of dereliction, ‘Where are you?, God says ‘Mary', and we are known again, and the Second Adam, raised in the Spirit, begins his re-creating work, which continues until humanity and creation is perfectly redeemed and finds its rest. Meanwhile, we look for the personal, intimate theophanies, the transfigured bush, the living sacramental signs, the present instalments, in people and material things, of the future to which God calls our race and the whole creation.