The Gospels of Mark, Matthew, and Luke all contain an account of what is commonly known as called “The Transfiguration” followed by an account of Jesus healing a boy who is plagued with seizures.    In the lectionary assignment of the Gospel reading, the story of the epileptic boy is optional.  It can be included or not in the lessons for the last Sunday of Epiphany (which is today).  In all my years of church attendance I can’t ever remember hearing it on the last Sunday in Epiphany – which is a liturgical high point before Lent begins, a Sunday full of Alleluias which are about to be suppressed until Easter.  (Just because I can’t remember it doesn’t mean that it wasn’t read of course – I just have no memory of hearing the two stories together.)  I know that I’ve never chosen to include the optional verses before.  But this year I just couldn’t separate the two!

This year, what I noticed when I looked at the readings, was the “not knowing” of Jesus’ disciples in the two stories.  I noticed that Peter did not know what he was saying when he suggested building three dwellings for Jesus, Moses and Elijah on the mountaintop.  In Mark’s version, Peter doesn’t know what to say because he’s afraid.  Matthew doesn’t comment on why Peter wants to build dwellings.  But in Luke, there is a sense that the author and the reader know something that Peter did not know yet.  And I noticed that the disciples on the ground did not know how to stop the boy’s seizures.   I’m sure it’s not a coincidence that I noticed the not knowing in the week of my 50th birthday, because the older I get, the less I know (between the forgetting and the stripping away of hubris that comes with aging – my aging anyway).  The disciples just did not know what to say or do.

I noticed that of the three gospel writers who include “Transfiguration” stories, only Luke tells what Jesus, Moses, and Elijah were talking about in that mystical conversation.  Luke says that they were talking about Jesus’ departure which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.  Our English translation of the ancient Greek does us a disservice here because the word “departure” doesn’t quite cover what Jesus was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.  The word that we hear translated “departure” is Exodus.  Exodus.  Luke tells us that the three great spiritual leaders were talking about the Exodus which Jesus was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.  Of course Exodus means departure, but for people whose primary sacred text is the Bible, Exodus means so much more than taking leave.  Exodus means liberation from oppression, freedom from cruelty, release from captivity.  Exodus means emancipation from the narrow place that is squeezing the life right out of people.  For Luke, the Exodus is an important interpretive lens or key to the story of Jesus Christ.

And then I noticed that what sounds like a short-tempered, crabby Jesus in the words, “You faithless and perverse generation, how much longer must I be with you and bear with you?” Our Bible Study group on Tuesday morning picked up on this, too.  And what I learned this week is that, with that question, Jesus is quoting the final Song of Moses – a song of warning and instruction and great hope.  It is a song about crooked and twisted people (another way to translate unbelieving and perverse), about dull and witless people, and the steadfast, mighty fortress-like love of God.  It’s a song of great hope at the end of the Torah, a song reminding listeners that those who are wrestling with the Holy One (the people of Israel) will grow in strength and number, in body and in spirit. 

I noticed another thing about these two stories.  The voice in the cloud (also known as God the Father) says “this is my Son, my Chosen, listen to him” and the voice of the father in the street says “this is my son, my only child, look at him.”  Jesus is never described in Luke as Only child or only Son, but this afflicted child is described that way.  And I noticed that the description of the child, convulsing, mauled, and shrieking is exactly how one might describe a person being crucified.  Exactly.  That makes me think that Luke is reminding us that while we Christians do whatever we do, sing whatever we sing, celebrate whatever we celebrate, our huge  challenge is to do all of those while simultaneously holding the knowledge of the horror of the cross along with great hope of the steadfast love of the Divine.  Our huge challenge is to hold both pain and joy, not denying one or the other.  Our own lives progress like these two stories from Luke, with high points and low points, the mystical and the mundane, the pious and the profane in close proximity, one right after another.  Luke wants us to know that it all points to the Exodus which Jesus accomplished at Jerusalem.  It all points to freedom, liberation, emancipation from things that bind us.

You know, it was surprising (even scandalous) that Jesus’ true nature, indeed his power, was demonstrated on the cross, in a culture that tended to believe that suffering was evidence of the absence of God.  In the optional story we heard this morning, the boy’s father thinks that his suffering child is possessed by a demon, in the same way that many argued that Jesus’ suffering on the cross was proof that Jesus was not God’s beloved Son, not God’s Chosen.  It is surprising and scandalous even today, as many people see suffering as evidence that God doesn’t love us, or that God is punishing us, or that God doesn’t exist.  We may wonder, if God is so all-powerful, so, you know, God-like, why then would God permit suffering and cruelty and disease?  Luke’s Gospel story is that God is with us – Emmanuel – right in the midst of all our suffering, working to transform – to transfigure -- our suffering. 

And this story of the transfiguration, in the middle of material about how to prepare for suffering and how to live with and through suffering, this story that we hear on the brink of Lent, is a story about the glimpses – the flashes of Easter-like transcendence that we sometimes get to sustain us in the midst of suffering or helplessness, especially the suffering that we experience on behalf of others. It’s a story told to help increase faith in the greatness of God in Jesus Christ in the midst of sorrow and pain and loss and grief. 

Did you notice that before Jesus could accomplished his Exodus, before he got to the cross, the tomb, the resurrection and ascension – to quote our Eucharistic prayer today – Jesus came down from the mountain, went back to his normal non-dazzling appearance and continued with his work of healing and feeding and freeing people he encountered along his way?  And according to Luke, the disciples told no one of what they had seen.  They didn’t tell until much later, until after Jesus’ true nature had been revealed and lifted up for all to see in the communities that gathered and grew in the aftermath of his brutal execution.  And I wonder if the reason they waited so long to tell was because they had nothing to tell until they realized by their experiences that Love was more powerful than even the most humiliating death, and that what we consider finite – our life – is not finite at all, and we need not be oppressed even by death or imprisoned by the fear of death.  It reminds me of the beautiful closing of our burial service in the Episcopal Church which says, “all of us go down to the dust; yet even at the grave we make our song: Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.”