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Transfiguration for the rest of usSunday, March 12, 2017
From Matthew 17 God comforted the lost Hebrews left from Egypt with a pillar of cloud. And in 2016, Israeli soldiers captured on video a massive storm cloud hovering over the boundary between Syria and Israel, "protecting them from ISIS." Winnie-the-Pooh tried to distract the local honeybees by camouflaging himself as a cloud, and he sang, "How sweet to be a cloud, floating in the Blue! It makes me very proud to be a little cloud." The bees were not distracted, and Christopher Robin had to shoot him down. It doesn't take much digging in Google to get caught up in the clouds on this quiet, sunny afternoon. I wonder what Peter's "bright cloud" looked like to Jesus and his friends. Peter's fear became awe in its presence. No way those guys wanted to come off that mountain. Jesus' robe was shining like the sun. They had spiritual company from heaven. And God was speaking as clearly as they'd ever heard: "Jesus is my beloved son. Listen to him!" Every one of us suffers. God invaded Abram's quiet home life and sent him "forth from the land of your kinsfolk and from your father's house." Paul reminded Timothy to "bear your share of hardship for the gospel." There are sweet Sunday afternoons on the mountain, when Jesus' robe shines like the sun. But the truly transformative times for most of us are deep down and dark, when transfiguration is painful and requires our patience. They prepare us well for the final, full transfiguration which we usually call ... death. Sometimes Paul painted pictures with words, and one of his best is in the first letter to the Thessalonians: "The dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever." My friend Earl knew how much I loved to fly hot air balloons, and he burned this verse with a picture of my balloon on what became for me a priceless, precious piece of wood. Our transfigurations continue, until one day, in the twinkle of an eye, we fly away. We sing our songs to you, O Lord, and listen for your song back. Some glad morning when this life is over ...O, glory ... will we find our home on God's celestial shore ... may your kindness, O Lord, fall upon us as we wait like sentinels for the morning. The dawn comes, Lord, in the fullness of your time, and we fly away. |
Garrison Keillor boasted that clouds are the Midwest's mountains. Above Africa, when Phiona Mutesi flies for the first time before she becomes the "Queen of Katwe," she asks her chess teacher/youth group leader, "Are we in heaven?" I've wondered that too, up there where the air is clear, but full of clouds close enough to rest my head on.