02.27.2021 Homily

With this episode in St. Mark's gospel known as The Transfiguration, we arrive exactly at the midpoint of the gospel. It is the second scene in the gospel in which Jesus is affirmed as the Son of God. The first is at the time of baptism in the Jordan when he comes out, out of the water and the Spirit descends upon him, and there's a voice from the cloud saying, "This is my Beloved Son." Then the third time of the gospel that happens is at the very end as Jesus dies. It is the Roman centurion and it falls from his lips, "Truly, this man was the Son of God." These are the three pillars around upon which the Gospel of Mark rests. The first affirmation at the very beginning in the Jordan, the second affirmation at the very end on Calvary, and the midpoint that we have today in the Feast of the Transfiguration.

Now, just before Jesus leads these three disciples up the hill is when he told them for the first time that he would suffer and he would die. They argued with him. They dug their heels in. They didn't understand it. They wouldn't accept it. It was immediately after that instance in the Gospel of Mark that Jesus leads them to the top of the mountain. There, the disciples are blinded by the light that radiates from Jesus, a light that permeates His entire being through His mind and through His heart, through His soul. Even affects His clothing. Clothing is the outward expression of who a person is. A person's identity sometimes becomes known to others by the clothing that person wears. The Greeks believe that the category of clothing, they called it habitus, was one of the 10 marks that would be used to describe anything that lived.

The storyteller tells us that there's a Divine Source to this radiance. What the disciples are doing is they are witnessing the presence of God, mediated through Jesus Christ. Discipleship had proved to be very difficult for Peter and James and John. They were very uncertain as to what all of this meant. So everything that occurs on the mountain top is really for their benefit. It's really to help them move along in their understanding.

Then two great figures from the history of Israel appeared speaking to Jesus. They're speaking to Him. Jesus does not bring them there to consult with him. Those two figures are also disciples, Moses and Elijah. All of this is well beyond the disciples' comfort level. What they exhibit is the classical human experience of when one is in the presence of the Divine. They are overwhelmed on one hand, and they are fascinated on the other. This event both pulls them close in and pushes them away. Peter and the other two are ... they're fearful and they're fascinated. Jesus has them on the high mountain and now a cloud comes over, descends upon them, and the presence of God overshadows them. At that point, they are as close as it is possible for a human being to be in the presence of God.

Now, all of this has happened as an encouragement to those disciples. So we've got to remember where they came from before they went up the mountain. Remember, there they argued and they wouldn't accept and they kicked, and they screamed, and they dug their heels in. They didn't hear what Jesus was saying. All of this is taking place in order to encourage them to listen, not to balk, not to argue, not to dig their heels in, just to listen, listen with their heart and then everything dissolves. Everything disappears. There's no more bright light. There's no more Moses and Elijah. Here's just plain old ordinary Jesus. The door had been opened and now it's closed.

You see, the Transfiguration is really about the closeness of God rather than God being remote. It reminds us that there is a thinness, there's a veil, there's a very thin membrane between the Divine and the human. And on this mountain, they were privileged to move beyond that membrane, beyond that thinness. That thinness that separates the divine from the human is really disclosed in the sacraments of the church. You see, sometimes we become so used to that mystery of the divine and the human coming together that we lose the sense of push and pull, that sense of a fear on one hand and fascination on the other.

This happens in people's lives. This happens in your life and mine in some ways. You read the stories of the great heroes of faith of our country: Thomas Merton, Dorothy Day, Elizabeth Ann Seton. All of these people were not believers at the beginning, and then because of a variety of things, mostly because of the seeking in their heart, the restlessness in their heart, they struck out at all kinds of ways to find the answer, and all three of them found it in the Eucharist.

Dorothy Day would leave the speakeasy at 3:00 in the morning and would toggle back to her apartment, and she'd pass the Church of St. Ignatius and she'd step in. She'd sit in the back pew, and she stayed there for hours, just watching people come and go, and then the early mass would begin. She just sat there. Just sat there. Thomas Merton on leaving Columbia University after living a very confused life, also was drawn to the Eucharist, was drawn to the local church, found himself just being there. Elizabeth Ann Seton. She was in Italy with her husband and he died and she stayed for a while and she was introduced to the church. Her neighbors took her to mass, and then she started going daily just to sit there, just to be there. For all three of them and so many more, what happened is there was a day that arrived in which that thin film between the Divine and the human parted. The door was open and they saw not with their eyes, they saw with their heart the truth of who Jesus is, and that changed their lives. That was transformative in their lives.

 

When people create an icon, they're not regarded as painters, not like the regular painter that we think who draws a picture. You don't paint an icon, you write an icon, and it is a spiritual experience. It is an experience of prayer and meditation, and what you're attempting to do in the writing and what you're allowing the Spirit of God to help you do is you want to see in the image of the human, Jesus, the reflection of His divinity coming through. So from the very beginning, when an icon writer begins his or her career, the first thing they're asked to do is to reproduce a scene of the Transfiguration, a scene that will communicate the beauty of the Divine in the midst of the ordinariness of the human.

So the journey of each and every one of us, the journey of every Christian, is really a journey from one mountain to another, the mountain of the Transfiguration and the mountain of Calvary. In the mountain of the Transfiguration, you and I are invited to see not with our eyes, with our heart, to see the Divinity, to see God present, to see the glory of Jesus. Then we're drawn to the Hill of Calvary, the Mountain of Calvary, and, there, we're to see the suffering, the brokenness, the dying of this tragic human being. Then the Spirit asks us to open our arms and to hold all of that together. All of that is one person. All of that is Jesus Christ. All of that is what is present every time we gather at the altar of the Eucharist.