TRANSFIGURATION & TABERNACLES

Sermon preached by Fr Tony Noble on Sunday February 6^th, 2005

Matthew 17:6 “This is my Beloved Son with whom I am well pleased; listen to Him.”

I want to begin by thanking everyone for the wonderful celebration you afforded me on Wednesday February 2^nd for my silver jubilee. It was truly magnificent. We knew we had been in church! It was an experience and celebration I will long remember, and I thank you for the honor and the love you showed me.

The next morning I commented that after the Mount of Transfiguration I had come down to the plain! Especially with the school board meeting that afternoon. And that’s how life is. The fact is wonderful spiritual experiences don’t happen all that often, and indeed some people never have them. And when we have them - the very next day we are called to live on the plain, to come down from the mountain of transfiguration. Like Peter, James and John had to do. The Transfiguration of Jesus was a wonderful experience for Peter, James and John. But life has to go on. They had to go on to a mission and a ministry set before them by Jesus himself.

The Transfiguration does seem difficult to believe to modern people. Many a modern preacher would tell us that it is like the miracles: it didn’t happen as it was written and we don’t need to believe it, because our faith shouldn’t depend on such things. I’m not so certain. One thing I do know: the transfiguration was very significant. And because of that we commemorate it in our calendar on August 6 with a special feast day. It is also recorded in 3 of the gospels and in St. Peter’s Epistle. There is more recorded about the Transfiguration than about the birth of Jesus.

Today in our Episcopal Lectionary the Transfiguration is the theme all through the readings, before we begin the great season of Lent on Wednesday. At the bible study on Friday I said that I could imagine some Episcopal Liturgical committee sitting around the table, getting out their concordances and looking for as many references as possible to Mountains and Cloud! The word “mountain” appears 6 times in the first reading from Exodus. Even the epistle finishes with the word “upward”!!

However, I must express my disappointment with the Revised Standard Version of the gospel. St. Peter says let us build three booths, or tents. I associate booths with the sort things that you find at Oktoberfest that sell beer! In fact in Australia a booth is a table selling beer. In the older translation the word was not booth but tabernacle. St. Peter said: Let us build three tabernacles, one for Moses, one for Elijah and one forthee. The word “tabernacle” has a far richer and deeper meaning than the word “tent”. Also he says: it is well that we are here. In the older version St. Peter says: “Lord it is good to be here.” St. Peter didn’t just want to pitch 3 tents like at a camp somewhere. He didn’t want to put Moses, Elijah and Jesus in tents to keep off the midday sun. He wanted tabernacles. Remember the tabernacle in the Sinai desert? For 40 years the people of God journeyed from slavery to the Promised Land, and in the middle of their party was the Tabernacle, containing in it the Ark of the Covenant.

This tabernacle was to be the image of the temple in Jerusalem. St Peter wanted tabernacles because what he saw was equivalent to the Ark of the Covenant - the great presence of God amongst his people. And that is why we have a tabernacle on the high altar. It is not just a safe or a box. It is the place where we can encounter the living God in the form of his Holy Sacrament. Like the transfigured Jesus

St. Peter’s wonderful experience is given a deeper and better meaning when we look at the opening of the gospel. It says: After 6 days. Six days before this event, Jesus said to the apostles: Who do men say that I am? Peter said: You are the Christ, son of the living God. St. Peter made this great declaration of faith (which took him some time to understand) and 6 days later, he experiences this event on the mountain - the transfiguration of Jesus. It was the affirmation of all he had said 6 days before. Imagine that, he has come to believe, and suddenly he is experiencing the reality that Jesus really is the Christ, the Son of God. It is wonderful for him, a real spiritual experience. Not only is he confirmed in his faith, but he sees the glory of what he believes.

Indeed it was too wonderful. The three, Peter James and John were charged not to tell anyone. You would think that this would be the sort of thing that any promoter would love to talk about. But they were charged to tell no one. Because how would anyone believe them when later on Jesus would be judged, humiliated, scorned, crucified and die? People would have laughed at them if they had said we saw this man on the mountain transfigured in glory. It was such a stark contrast. They would sound like fools - and Jesus knew it. So they were told to keep it quiet until after Jesus’ resurrection – when all would be revealed!

And that my dear friends, is why the gospel reading today is the Transfiguration. We are about to go on a journey with Jesus, through 40 days of Lent. 7 weeks of prayer, fasting and almsgiving. We look forward to it - and are glad when it is over! And it culminates in Holy Week, when we live out in our liturgies and our devotions, the very suffering and death of Jesus. Like Peter, James and John we know now the glory that is to come. But for this season, we have to endure the other side - for now it is the purple that awaits us and the ashes. That is the way the liturgical season works, we pass from one scene to another so that we may experience the whole Jesus, the whole Christ.

Yet, even though we look forward to this solemn season of Lent, there is still a moment of Transfiguration, granted to us. It is when the bread and wine are consecrated, and become in a wondrous mystery the very body and blood of Christ. For there before our eyes is Jesus! As the bread and wine are transformed, this is our moment of transfiguration. Here at our altar we will see the transfigured Lord before our very eyes.

Of course we know this because at the consecration there are bells and incense in honor of the Sacrament. It is a wonderful moment. So when the priest genuflects, and elevates the Holy Sacrament, we should look up at Jesus. We shouldn’t gaze at our books or shut our eyes - we should look at our transfigured Lord, there before us in the Holy Sacrament. Adoring Him at this incredible moment and hearing St. Peter say: “It is good, Lord, to be here.”