Being There

2 Kings 2:1-12           Now when the Lord was about to take Elijah up to heaven by a whirlwind, Elijah and Elisha were on their way from Gilgal. Elijah said to Elisha, “Stay here; for the Lord has sent me as far as Bethel.” But Elisha said, “As the Lord lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.” So they went down to Bethel. The company of prophets who were in Bethel came out to Elisha, and said to him, “Do you know that today the Lord will take your master away from you?” And he said, “Yes, I know; keep silent.” Elijah said to him, “Elisha, stay here; for the Lord has sent me to Jericho.” But he said, “As the Lord lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.” So they came to Jericho. The company of prophets who were at Jericho drew near to Elisha, and said to him, “Do you know that today the Lord will take your master away from you?” And he answered, “Yes, I know; be silent.” Then Elijah said to him, “Stay here; for the Lord has sent me to the Jordan.” But he said, “As the Lord lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.” So the two of them went on. Fifty men of the company of prophets also went, and stood at some distance from them, as they both were standing by the Jordan. Then Elijah took his mantle and rolled it up, and struck the water; the water was parted to the one side and to the other, until the two of them crossed on dry ground.

When they had crossed, Elijah said to Elisha, “Tell me what I may do for you, before I am taken from you.” Elisha said, “Please let me inherit a double share of your spirit.” He responded, “You have asked a hard thing; yet, if you see me as I am being taken from you, it will be granted you; if not, it will not.” As they continued walking and talking, a chariot of fire and horses of fire separated the two of them, and Elijah ascended in a whirlwind into heaven. Elisha kept watching and crying out, “Father, father! The chariots of Israel and its horsemen!” But when he could no longer see him, he grasped his own clothes and tore them in two pieces.

Mark 9:2-9     Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them. And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus. Then Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” He did not know what to say, for they were terrified. Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!” Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them any more, but only Jesus.

As they were coming down the mountain, he ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead.

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If the transfiguration had happened today, I think it might have gone something like this.

Peter, James, and John follow Jesus up the mountain, way out of town, and they see something that totally defies description.  Jesus is somehow lit up, glowing.  The only words they can find to describe it are to say that his clothes are white-white; whiter than Clorox white; like those headlights some cars have that are so bright they hurt your eyes.  That’s how white his clothes are – they hurt the eyes.  But it’s really more than that; Jesus is transformed.

And not only that; there even was more.  The two towering pillars of Israel, appeared beside him: Elijah, the great prophet of Israel during the days of King Ahab; Moses, who led Israel out of slavery and delivered the law; and Jesus, their friend.  They all stood on the mountain talking to one another.  How they recognized Moses and Elijah, I’m not sure.  They might have known their faces from the pictures in the history books they’d studied in school.  Or they might have been wearing those “Hello, my name is …” tags – but probably not.  It was probably some more intuitive way of knowing.

So then Peter pulls out his phone and snaps a picture.  He turns around and takes a selfie, too, with Jesus, Elijah, and Moses in the background.  He then shoots it off in a text to twenty or so good friends.  Instantly the replies start coming in.

OMG!  Dude is that Elijah?

I know! Right?

And Moses?  So cool!

Just for good measure, he uploads the picture to Facebook and adds a caption.  He tags Jesus in it, but he can’t tag Elijah and Moses because they don’t have Facebook pages.  They actually lived before Facebook was invented, if you can imagine such a thing.

Peter wants to do more to memorialize this event up on the mountain, so he quick sets up a GoFundMe webpage for donations to help build the little houses he has in mind.

Meanwhile, a voice from heaven speaks and says, “This is my Son, the Beloved. Listen to him!”  But Peter has been too busy with his projects to hear it.  Then – snap – Elijah is gone, Moses is gone, and Jesus appears normal again. 

Well. It’s a good thing Peter got that picture.

That’s the way I think it would happen, because that’s what we do when we find ourselves in a big moment.  We try to capture it and make it even bigger.  But it doesn’t work when we try to seize it and shape it into something we can hold.  We are actually letting it slip away from us.

When Peter started babbling about dwellings and such, I wish someone would have taken hold of him and looked him straight in the eyes and said, “Peter, do you know what you are looking at here?  Do you know what you are experiencing right now?”

He couldn’t really know, none of them could.  The transfiguration was something that defied human comprehension and description.  To say that Jesus’ clothes were dazzling white, hardly suffices.  To say that Elijah and Moses appeared seems odd and incomprehensible, and can only be understood to mean that in this place and this moment they have entered a different realm, where the veil is parted and the glory of God is glimpsed.  Peter couldn’t understand it, but he could be there for it.

The key is in just being there.  That’s how you accept this kind of gift.

Peter, James, and John were given a gift.  Jesus chose them to go up to the mountaintop with him, away from everyone and everything, where something glorious would be revealed to them.  The gift they were given was a glimpse, an insight to something divine.  The only way to receive the gift was to simply be present for it in the moment it was given. 

It was great that Peter wanted to share this gift with others, by erecting some kind of shrine or museum.  But the gift couldn’t be domesticated.  The gift couldn’t be held, or shared by putting it in a box – or three boxes.  The only way Peter could share this gift was to embody it himself.

This was not all that different from the dynamic between Elijah and his partner-in-prophecy, Elisha that we hear about in the book of Kings.  On God’s command, during the days of King Ahab and Queen Jezebel, Elijah had sought out Elisha and anointed him as prophet.  He did it without a word – he simply draped his mantle over Elisha’s shoulders.  From that day on, Elisha accompanied Elijah everywhere. 

He accompanied Elijah to the Jordan River on the day he knew Elijah would be taken from him.  Three times Elijah paused and offered Elisha the opportunity to stay behind, and three times Elisha replied, “I will not leave you.”  When they finally reached the end of the journey, and Elijah was taken up in a chariot of fire, Elisha remained there still, his eyes not leaving his friend until he was gone from sight. 

Elisha never turned away.  He stayed there in the moment, and as a result he received a double share of Elijah’s spirit – the legacy of the firstborn son.  And Elisha, who was an unproven commodity as yet, would go on to become a great prophet in his own right.  The gift had been passed on.

He just needed to be there.

Peter would also receive the gift of the spirit and become a great apostle of Jesus Christ. He would need to learn the art of being there, however, like all of us do.  It would be a hard lesson for Peter to learn, just as it is for most of us.  He would learn it in his errors; in all the ways he missed the mark.  The night Jesus was taken from him, arrested and tried, and Peter denied knowing him three times; this was the moment he hit rock bottom. 

Peter was a work in progress throughout the gospel story, but Jesus never gave up on him.  He saw something in Peter; glimmers of leadership potential, even if he was using that potential in misguided ways (like trying to organize a building party up on the mountain.) 

I know Peter was afraid.  I am sure Elisha was afraid too.  It is a frightening thing to witness the power and glory of God.  But our God only means good for us, and invites us to be there too.

The glimpse of glory that Peter and the others were given that day was a piece they could add to their understanding of who Jesus was and what God was doing in the world.  And perhaps when the dark days came – when he was condemned and nailed to the cross, when he was no longer with them – they could hold on to the shining gift they had been given that day on the mountain and it would give them power and strength.

We have the dark days of Lent ahead of us, but we also have the glory of this day to fortify us.  Even if we didn’t know what lay after Good Friday, we would know that God’s glory shone through Jesus on the mountain. 

May you know the power and glory of God in our Lord Jesus Christ during the coming days of Lent. 

May you hold out your hand to receive the good gifts of the Spirit.

May you seek to always be here now – wherever here and now maybe – because it’s precisely where Christ is.