Vision
Epiphany Last
February 11, 2024
Fr. Tim Nunez
May my spoken word be true to God’s written word and bring us all closer to the living word, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Today is Super Bowl Sunday. So, who you got? Who is going to win?
And how do we come to such a prediction? We look at the teams – at the experience and the genius of the players and their coaches, what they’ve done this year. And we look further back over their histories to develop a vision about what may happen.
But what if you knew? What if you were given a glimpse of Patrick Mahomes hoisting the trophy? Or Christian McCaffrey holding the MVP trophy? What if you saw a vision of Travis Kelce sobbing on Taylor Swift’s shoulder? Are those tears of joy or tears of sorrow? We don’t know. We will have to tune in tonight if we want to see what happens.
And whoever wins, that team will look back over everything that brought them to victory, no matter how narrow the margin. They’ll think about their parents and grandparents, every coach, every opportunity and every failure as part of the winding road to victory.
Today is also the Feast of the Transfiguration, when Peter, James and John got a glimpse at who Jesus truly is well before his resurrection from the dead.
We know that When Jesus was raised from the dead on that first Easter, his resurrected body in many ways looked the same. Yet, his resurrected body was also quite different from the body that went into the tomb. Jesus was no longer subject to decay, to aging and so forth.
That is the complete transformation. We are not there yet, but we know that is where Mark is leading us. In some respects, this could feel like the last minute before halftime of a game we’ve already seen. But the glimpse is very important to them and very important to us.
As people, including the disciples, encounter Jesus, they naturally look to their history and experience to try and understand who he is. We regularly note that most people were looking for a messiah to lead a revolt against the Romans and reestablish Israel as an independent nation free to live under the Law of Moses and the word of the prophets. That’s what Jewish history tells them.
There are numerous Old Testament passages that, when we look at them with our Christian eyes, clearly point to Jesus. Some go as far back as Moses and many are in the Psalms and many involve the prophets. Let’s look at the last three verses of the Old Testament:
Remember the teaching of my servant Moses, the statutes and ordinances that I commanded him at Horeb for all Israel.
Lo, I will send you the prophet Elijah before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of parents to their children and the hearts of children to their parents, so that I will not come and strike the land with a curse. (Malachi 4:4-6)
Peter, James and John were fishermen. We don’t know how well they would have known those verses or how they might have come to mind in this moment.
Horeb is another name for Mt. Sinai, the mountain wreathed in a cloud where Moses encountered God and received the Law. Now they are on another mountain, in a cloud with God.
Elijah’s ascent into heaven was our Old Testament reading this morning, and remember that spot where he parted the Jordan is also where the Lord parted the Jordan for Joshua and where John the Baptist baptized Jesus. Elijah was also to herald the coming of the messiah. Now they see Elijah.
It’s very important for us to remember that Jesus is who he is. We do not define him, or God for that matter. When we say things like “my Jesus,” that is simply shorthand for, “My understanding of Jesus to this point is…” We learn and pray and think about him.
Imagine the gift a glimpse of who he truly is would be. The Transfiguration offers that gift. It starts to clarify things for us.
All Mark really tells us visually about Jesus in this moment is that “…he was transfigured” and “…his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them.” He is transfigured because he has not yet transformed as he will on Easter.
The Greek word translated here as “white”’ also means “light” and/or “bright,” and the word for “bleach” also means whiten or brighten. Jesus does not have a single speck of sin on him. The union, the redemption of God’s heavenly perfection and the world, between the creator and the creation, has been consummated in Jesus. And through him, we are invented to become those “robed in white.” This is also a glimpse of the end times.
When Peter, out of terrified confusion, offers to make three dwellings or booths or tabernacles for Jesus, Moses and Elijah, God makes Jesus’ unique position clear. “This is my Son, the beloved; listen to him!” Jesus supersedes Moses, Elijah and all the prophets. From now on, everything - all the law, all the prophets, all of their experience in life, everything - is to be interpreted through the lens of knowing who Jesus is.
The same is true for us. As we look ever more closely and more clearly at who Jesus truly is, and knowing the ultimate victory that he holds for every one of us, then we can look back on our lives, and interpret all of it through the lens of Christ. We look at all of our victories and all of our defeats, all of our highs and all of our lows, all of our joys and all of our sorrows, all the good times and all of our hardships, in that dazzling white, bright light of our redemption. All of it is redeemed by his victory over sin and death, which he won for us.
Peter himself underscores the importance of this vision of our victory in Christ in his second letter to the Church.
For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we had been eyewitnesses of his majesty. For he received honor and glory from God the Father when that voice was conveyed to him by the Majestic Glory, saying, ‘This is my Son, my Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.’ We ourselves heard this voice come from heaven, while we were with him on the holy mountain. (2 Peter 1:16-18)
So, who you got? (Take the sure thing.) He wins. We win.
AMEN