Lifting the Veil

It’s Transfiguration Sunday – one of those marker Sundays in the church year that tells us a time of transition is upon us. We are at the end of the Epiphany season – which was rather short this year thanks to the moon – and about to begin the season of Lent. Next Wednesday we will mark our foreheads with ashes and start the 40 day journey to Easter. (In case you are counting, we take a break on the Sundays.)  We will try as diligently as we can to contemplate the meaning of the events that mark our faith – the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus – so that as we experience those holy days, we will be ready and open to receive them and the life-giving transformation they offer.

                No wonder the journey begins with a remarkable story. In it, the inner circle of disciples catch a glimpse of a truth they are just beginning to contemplate much less comprehend – that Jesus is more that he appears. He is more than teacher and rabbi and even more than healer and miracle worker. He is God incarnate – the anointed One – the Messiah.  Except this time, that’s more than just an intuition in their souls; it is a reality in front of their eyes.

                For Peter, James, and John, the veil is lifted. They catch a sneak peak of what is to come. This story is the turning point. It reaches back to the moment when Jesus was baptized and heard the voice of God say, “You are my Son, the beloved. With you I am well pleased.” This time those disciples hear God say, "This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!"  And it reaches forward to another time when Jesus will take disciples up a mountain to be with him as he prays. They will fall asleep that time, too. You would think they would learn that when Jesus prays, something amazing is going to happen.

But the story reaches back even further. Jesus is beginning a new exodus journey. That’s what “his departure” (Luke 9:31) means: exodus – a going out. Jesus is going out from this world but just as Moses did before him, he will bring yet again a deliverance from slavery. This time, we are the slaves and our slave-master is sin – all that separates us from God and from one another; all that keeps this world from becoming what God created it to be.  

                Lent gets us ready for that exodus. It is a time for cutting away all that would keep us from claiming the new life that is promised to us. If we will let him, in these 40 days Jesus will prune us like a fig tree. He will cut away all the dead wood of our lives so that new sprouts can spring forth.

                When the faithful seekers of Seneca Presbyterian Church gathered this week to explore Sunday’s text together, we talked of times we experienced God. Those are times when God touched us. As we begin the Lenten journey, can we consider times when we need to be touched by God? What part of your life that you know needs healing are you willing to offer to God in these 40 days?