I

(Luke 9:28-36) It’s quite a story.  The transfiguration, or transformation, of Jesus.  The goodness of God is radiating forth… Moses (standing for the Law) is there…  Elijah (standing for the Prophets) is there …   Jesus, the Beloved of God, is there….

So… what’s missing?  What’s the problem in this text?

What’s not there?

Peter is not there.  He’s geographically present; he’s physically located on top of the mountain with Jesus and his friends. His intellect is there, enough to come up with some clever ideas.  3 spiritual leaders. 3 tents.  Have a little mountain retreat. His willingness to act is there.

But still, in some way, Peter is not there. He’s not there fully enough to experience what’s actually happening in that sacred moment.  He’s not there with his whole heart and body…  

But why?   Why is he not fully present?  And, if he’s not there, where is he?

We get a clue in the passage that precedes the transformation story (Luke9:18-23), where Jesus asks Peter, “Who do you say that I am?”  …  Peter is a real keener. And so, without so much as a moment’s hesitation he answers, “You are the Messiah of God” (the Christ).

Now, you would think that Jesus would have been impressed with that.  Since we know the end of the story, it’s obviously the “right answer.” But does Peter really know what he’s talking about?  Is his understanding of that word “Christ” or “Messiah” the same as Jesus’ understanding?  Maybe not…  Because after Peter makes this bold proclamation about Jesus being the Christ, Jesus goes on to say:

           I must undergo great suffering, be rejected by all the religious authorities, be killed, and then be raised from the dead.

           And not only that – all of you who want to be my followers…  have to turn away 

from seeking your own glory… and experience your own cross… not just

           once, but on a daily basis.

Whoa! Whatever Peter had understood the word “Christ” to mean, that wasn’t it.  

Jesus was the best thing that had ever happened to Peter. Remember that, in their first encounter, Peter is overwhelmed by Jesus’ God-likeness, and says, “Go away from me; I am sinful!” (Luke 5:6)  He feels… Bad. Worthless. Disposable.  But Jesus perceives and feels something that Peter cannot.  Jesus looks at Peter and he sees God’s image, God’s mirror.  And so Jesus relates to him in a radically different way than Peter is expecting.  No humiliation, no rejection.  Jesus genuinely loves him, treats him with kindness and respect, and offers him an opportunity to grow.  And Peter drops everything and follows him.  

And so, when Jesus starts talking about “going to Jerusalem” and “being put to death,” Peter can’t bear to hear it.  This was anything but “good news;” it was a cause for despair and rage.  Peter has been feeling a goodness in his life that he’s never felt before, and he knows it’s connected to Jesus, and now Jesus says he’s going to die. How would we feel?

We can imagine the voices blaring in Peter’s mind: “This should not be happening!  This is not what I signed up for! This is not what I want!  Why didn’t he tell me this before I opened my heart to him?” …  So Peter has “checked out,” not physically, but spiritually he’s just not there anymore.  

Then, the voice of the Living God penetrates this fog that Peter is lost in and says:  

“Wake up, Peter!  The Good Life is not all about you and what you expected

and what you want and what you think should be.  Listen to Jesus!”

But Peter can’t hear Jesus.  He can’t be fully present.  He wants Jesus to stay the same – tangible and by his side – forever. He wants something very different from what he’s hearing Jesus say… and that wanting has him tied up in knots.  It prevents him from understanding what’s actually… happening… right… in… front… of… him.    

II

Have you ever noticed that “people like us” – the vast majority of people, the vast majority of the time, are not fully here? …not fully present?… And also, just as it was for Peter, our lives are often clouded with despair? We’re often not able to actually perceive and feel God’s goodness in ourselves and others.  We may be here, in Church, in the sense that we’re physically located in the building.  Our minds may be here enough to catch the ideas that are being put forward, and to come up with some ideas of our own.  Our willingness to act may be here.  But still… we’re often not here fully enough to experience the sacredness of this particular moment, this “now,” and how overflowing it is with the radiant goodness of God.  Even here…  right now… transformation is waiting to happen…  Jesus is present…. The Living God is present….  Who knows… maybe even Moses and Elijah are present….  

But we may not be fully present.  

Why is that?  Why are we so often not fully here…?

Maybe, like Peter, some part of us gets lost in an inner struggle about painful things that have happened or are still happening… in our private world… or in the more public world around us… or both.  Things that impair our ability to perceive and feel the presence of goodness.  Maybe there are voices in our minds, like there were in Peter’s… shouting: “This is not the way it should be!  This is not what I want!”

Maybe, like Peter, we also “check out” of this present moment, this “now,” so that part of us is off somewhere in an imagined world, preoccupied with what should happen, and what we desire to happen, and what we will make happen, and what we will do if what we desire doesn’t happen. And so on...  

Like Peter, we can become so caught up in an inner resistance to our lives, that we are barely aware at all of what is really happening right now…in our bodies, in our emotional life, in our relationships with the people next to us in the pew, in the neighborhood, in the city, in the world.  

It’s not that we’re foolish.  It’s not that we’re bad. Maybe it’s just that we know all too well that “life is painful enough” without all of this cross talk. And so we block it out: “What possible good could there be in this heavy message Jesus brings?”

And so… we disconnect.

And, then, like Peter, we find ourselves somewhat …removed… somewhat detached from our lives…. from our bodily experience… from the thoughts we would rather not think…. and the feelings we would rather not feel…. and the people with whom we would rather not deal.  And then, it becomes harder and harder to feel what’s so good … about the good news of Christ…

We live in a world that needs good news.  It’s a world that is trying to resolve its despair by selling and buying products that promise the glow of “healthy-looking skin” and the joy of “a glistening smile.”  Did you know that “smile analysis” is now an official dental procedure?  And for those who can’t afford a “smile analysis,” there’s always crack or heroin available to give them that special glow.  How far removed is all of that from the radiance of God’s goodness in Christ?

Of course, we all live in bodies, we all  live in worlds, where Christ needs to be made present….  Where Christ needs to be actually perceived and felt….  But… what can we do if we’re stuck, like Peter was stuck?

III

Well, what happens in the story?  How does this predicament get resolved?  

In one of the most powerfully ironic reversals of all time…  the problem—what Peter so desperately did not want to hear—turns out to be precisely the answer that he needs. The one thing that he needs in order to give him “eyes to see” and “ears to hear” and a “heart to feel” …  The one thing he needs in order to wake up to God and himself and others… turns out to be… death & resurrection.

The transformation that he needs to free him from his despair and rage was hidden in those code words all along. Those words that Jesus kept repeating over and over and over again: death & resurrection, death & resurrection, death & resurrection.  

The thing that Peter felt was so terribly bad… was going to be the very thing that allowed him to finally perceive and feel the fundamental goodness in himself and in the world that Jesus had been able to perceive and feel so clearly all along.

And so, when the cock crows, and Peter finally finds out how terrifically fragile his love for Jesus really is… he hits bottom… he breaks down and weeps… for the first time…  …uncontrollably…  and something in him, something very rigid and unhelpful…  dies. That former way of being, which refused to embrace life, which couldn’t bear to face the unwanted, the embarrassing or the painful…  in himself, in others……..   That former way of being, which just couldn’t give itself away … in love…  dies.

And then… having “hit bottom” in this way… Peter discovers that what he has landed on is the radiant Ground of All Being… and… that…  life really is… good.  This was the awareness that had been missing in his life all along. Finally, the transforming insight arises.  He realizes…..   Jesus embraced life.  Jesus didn’t hold back.  Jesus fully experienced the embarrassing and the painful moments. Jesus gave himself fully and freely to others—including to Peter—in love.  

In that moment Peter realizes that all along Jesus had been dying & resurrecting, dying & resurrecting…   That was “it.”  That was the secret to his way of life, his way of loving, his radiance, his goodness. That was the big mystery.  Now Peter had experienced it firsthand.  Jesus’ love for him had drawn him out of his shell and into his own transforming experience of death & resurrection, the first of many to come.  So that he finally feels deep in his soul, the goodness that is here.  It’s not easy to shake the feeling that comes from being raised from the dead.  Just imagine…  It gives you a certain confidence in life that is both not of this world and yet fully embodied, fully here…

IV

So, if that’s how it was for Peter, the story begs the questions – How is it the same and how is it different for you, for me, for us, for the world in the 3rd millennia?  

I would suggest that the most important things, the “timeless truths” of the Gospel haven’t changed at all…  It is still the Good Life, today, in 2009.                     

It is Good News for us, just as fully as it was for Peter.  

I know that I’ve suggested that, like Peter, we’re not fully here a lot of the time.  We often can’t perceive and feel God’s goodness within and around us. And that absence afflicts us with despair and rage.  That’s the bad news.

But the good news is that, just as it was for Peter, the grace of God is literally surrounding us, literally present within us in each and every moment… in each and every context, even now… silently.. waiting.. in love, to transport us through whatever particular death and resurrection we need to experience in this moment of our lives.  

What enters into the mystery of the cross is not the same as what emerges from it. What enters into the cross – afflicted  enraged, in despair, emerges from it – with that lightness and radiance that flow from a deep, first-hand experience of the goodness of God and God’s creation.   In these moments, we become clear, like Peter, that we have a divine destiny, a mission, a vocation, however humble, however simple. We have a way of living… in Christ… which brings real joy to us and to those around us, a joy that places the painful aspects of being human into a much larger horizon, where we can see that life is so good that it is beyond belief.

And so in each moment of life, even this moment… right now, the gospel remains, in a very basic way, the same. It always addresses us in a profoundly personal way, asking us the questions that matter most:  Where, in the details of your life do you need transformation? Where do you need a deeper awareness of the goodness God & God’s creation? Where do you need the Holy Spirit to guide you through the healing process of death and resurrection?  (What after all does our baptism mean if not conscious participation in the many possible deaths & resurrections that the Holy Spirit is even now waiting to comfort us through?)

Of course, we don’t know all the answers to these gospel questions. But God knows…  All we need to do is to begin to sincerely ask the questions…

and the answers… very, very faithfully… begin to emerge.  

Let us pray:  May the Love of God, our Creator, draw us into the mystery of transformation. May the Love of Christ guide us through the holy healing process of death and resurrection in the many situations, which make up our lives.  May the Love of the Holy Spirit empower us to be… fully present in our bodies, in our souls, in our relationships, in our church, and in our world.   Amen.