Luke 9:28-36
By: Hillary Raining
Faith is a complicated gift. It is the kind of intangible that gets battered around in Christian circles in many different ways. Some people think that faith is a matter of will – that you must strive with all your might to cultivate and build up your faith. Other feel that it is strictly a God-given grace that we can only give thanks for but can do nothing to add to. Still others will tell you that faith is the same thing as belief – that to have faith in something means that you believe it without even seeing it. However, in Lent we are given an opportunity to examine everything about our life with Christ, and that includes even faith itself. The story of the Transfiguration, which is our reading for today, offers us an avenue for doing just that.
As Jesus is praying on that mountaintop, he is changed in his appearance, and Moses and Elijah come to greet him. We know that Moses represents the Law that was handed to him on another holy mountain, and Elijah is standing in for the prophets. Thus, their cameo points to Jesus as the summation of all the Law and the prophets, the fulfillment of salvation history. And it is indeed a beautiful thing to behold. Jesus is offering to us one version of faithfulness here, the kind of faithfulness that is grounded in the knowledge of all that God has done in this world to lead up to this moment. His faith brings him to this mountain of truth – truth about who he is and who God is. It is that truth that Jesus turns to as he seeks guidance and wisdom from Moses and Elijah about the march to Jerusalem that he is about to take on. It gives him courage and vision to have faith that his Passion is where God is leading him. This is a large and resplendent faith.
But there is another type of faithfulness here that can be missed by the literally dazzling version of faith that Jesus is displaying. In verse 32 we read, “Now Peter and his companions were weighed down with sleep; but since they had stayed awake, they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him.” They stayed awake. That simple act, to my mind, is a huge act of faith. It is an act of faith that matches the number-one description of faith as found in Webster’s Dictionary, which defines it as: “allegiance to duty or a person.” Peter and his companions were not necessarily even praying, but because they honored their allegiance to Jesus, they were able to witness his glory (not to mention the amazing sight of Moses and Elijah!). Their faith was not founded on their will, or out of their control, or based on something unseen. Their faith was based on the simple act of being awake enough to witness the glory of the Lord that God reveled to them. This Lent, let us keep awake to the transfigured markers of faith and glory that are all around us, if we but have the faith to awaken unto them.
O God, who before the passion of your only-begotten Son revealed his glory upon the holy mountain: Grant to us that we, beholding by faith the light of his countenance, may be strengthened to bear our cross, and be changed into his likeness from glory to glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen (Book of Common Prayer, p. 217).