“The gate of heaven is everywhere.”
Sermon for the Last Sunday after the Epiphany, Year A (February 19, 2023).
View the scripture readings and the Collect of the Day: Last Sunday after the Epiphany
Preached at St. James’ Episcopal Church in Hyde Park, NY. A video of our whole 10 am service for the Last Sunday after the Epiphany (February 19th) is available here.
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Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white. Matthew 17:1-2
Edited Transcript
May only truth be spoken here and only truth be heard. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Please be seated.
When our Bible study group met on Wednesday to look at this passage, one of our members said, don't we have a window in the church that captures the Transfiguration? Being new here, I wasn't sure, but Glenn ran over and took a picture and it turns out we do! It's the window closest to the choir loft on the south side of the church.
This morning I was looking at the window again. And I said, wait, that can't be the Transfiguration, because you can see the marks of the crucifixion in his hands and feet, so it must be the Ascension. But then there's Moses on the one side holding the tablets of the Law, and there's obviously Elijah on the other side; and there at Jesus' feet are the disciples, falling off the mountain because they can't believe what's happening.
Because I discovered this just this morning, I don't know if there's a tradition in iconography of representing the marks of the crucifixion in depictions of the Transfiguration. Because of course, the Transfiguration prefigures the Resurrection.
Right before this portion of the Gospel that we read, right before Jesus takes the disciples up to the mountain, he tells them what he's really here to do. He finally gives them the whole story: We're going to go together to Jerusalem. And there the Son of Man will be betrayed, handed over, crucified, and will rise again. And St. Peter says, "This shall never happen to you!" And Jesus says, "But it's going to happen!" And then he takes them up on a mountain.
So maybe it's not a surprise that when the disciples see him transfigured, they get a glimpse of what will happen to him, the marks of the nails in his hands and his feet.
The Transfiguration is a vision of who Christ really is, and it comes after Christ's business on earth is finally fully revealed to his disciples. And having the marks of the crucifixion in this vision reminds us that the glory of God is not reserved only for our joyful times, only for our triumphal times. Remember that when we celebrate the feast of Christ the King, we remember Christ crucified. And when the glory of God is fully revealed here in the Transfiguration, it's revealed not just in triumph or just in success, but also in the life and the ministry and the death of Jesus. The glory of God shines through it all somehow, and even in our own lives.
Now this week as I was thinking about this image of the Transfiguration and, and especially the way that the glory of God shines out in the face of Jesus, I kept remembering a vision that the monk Thomas Merton had back in the sixties. Merton was living in a monastery outside of Louisville, Kentucky, living a set apart and separated life. And one day he went into the city to do some errands. As he was going about his business, amidst all the other people going about their business, on a very ordinary day, he writes,
"At the corner of Fourth and Walnut Street in the middle of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all these people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness. It was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts."
And he goes on to reflect after this vision. He says,
"At the center of our being is a point, a point of pure truth, a spark which belongs entirely to God. This little point of nothingness and absolute poverty is the pure glory of God within us. It is like a pure diamond blazing with the invisible light of heaven. It is in everybody. And if we could see it, we could see these billions of points of light coming together in the face and blaze of a sun that would make all the darkness and cruelty of life vanished completely."
He goes on to say, "I have no program for this seeing. It's only given. But the gate of heaven is everywhere."
Merton had a vision of the glory of God in ordinary people going about their business, in everyone, everywhere. That little point of light, which belongs only to God and can only be seen through a gift from God. And that vision changed his life. It changed his ministry. It changed the lives of the disciples when they saw it revealed to them in the body and the face of the not-yet-but-would-be-crucified Jesus. It changed everything. It meant that they did not stay on the mountain, but they went back—not separate—but went back to be with God's people. To continue that ministry of healing and to see it through all the way to its end. It's end, which turned out not only to be self-offering and death, but also resurrection and new life.
And that glory of God, which is everywhere, was revealed to us most fully in Jesus who was God, and was us too. And we saw His glory. As of an only son, we have seen his glory full of grace and truth. It changes our lives after we see it. We can't go on as we did before.
So I pray this week that each of us at some point in our lives will have that gift: where God shows us God's glory blazing everywhere, not just in success or triumph or joy, but in every place, every heart, every face: God is there, and there God is glorified. Amen.