The best picture award at the Academy Awards this year was for The King's Speech. I saw it and also thought it was a fantastic movie. Here was this very powerful man who had a flaw--at least for him and the rest of the royal family--that made him vulnerable to feelings of shame and to ridicule from others. He worked hard and with the help of others, overcame his stammer in time to offer encouragement to his people at a dark time in British history. When the king speaks, people listen.
This Sunday is Transfiguration Sunday. All the lectionary scriptures tell of the experience of encountering a mysterious, awe-inspiring God.
In Exodus 24:12-18, Moses goes up to Mt. Sinai to receive God's commandments and is enveloped in a divine cloud. To the people of Israel below, it didn't look like a cloud but rather a devouring fire that Moses walked into. Frightening!
Psalm 99 begins: "The Lord is king; let the peoples tremble!"
And in Matthew 17, Jesus is transfigured on the mountain and appears with Elijah and Moses. Peter, James and John have some ideas about how to sustain this glorious occasion so that everyone who wishes can behold it; he wants to build some dwellings. But suddenly there appeared a bright cloud (a lot of clouds in these sorts of stories; what do you make of that?), and a voice from the cloud says, "This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!" The disciples fall to the ground in fear.
It is clear that when this King speaks, he doesn't have any problem communicating. The natural reaction is fear and trembling.
How might this connect with the life of faith? When have you trembled in the face of a reality larger than you? Is an awe-inspired trembling healthy sometimes?
I don't think everyone has the same kinds of faith experiences. Not that certain experiences are better than other experiences. Only God knows what we need to transform ourselves. Maybe some are the big, trembling, fear evoking kind that is like a bolt of lightning, maybe to get our attention. Maybe some are more subtle, hardly noticeable, and gradual. I don't know. But I don't think it matters which way it comes. I think transformation comes in different ways to everyone.
ReplyDeleteI am reminded of an experience I had in college when the college worship group I helped to lead invited a pastor from the Vineyard Christian Fellowship to speak and pray with us. Mind you the church I attended was not of the trembling sort, in fact that would be assumed to be something rather evil. Well the Holy Spirit sure showed up that night! Lots of trembling goin around that room that night. I hadn't thought too much about that night until recently when on an alumni Facebook page someone posted about that night and before you know it many people have addded how it has affected them since then, all in a positive way. I think sometimes it takes a little trembling. For me it was not a trembling night, but still a very important night. Sometimes the trembling takes a little while to be realized.
ReplyDeleteWhile we might aspire to attain the glowing visage of Jesus, I wanted to suggest another way of looking at the Transfiguration. Thomas Merton has a Louisville, KY, historic marker where he noticed everyone that he met had a glowing quality. I suggest we extend the Walter Wink Matt 5:48 commentary I had in the 2/19/11 blog. The more that we are able to extend our circle for whom we call children of God, or see, like Merton, a glowing fragment of God in all who we meet, the more possible we can experience our own transfiguration.
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