Hallelujah, Anyway!

2 Kings 2:1-12; Mark 9:2-9
February 11, 2018, Transfiguration Sunday
First Presbyterian Church, Sterling IL
Christina Berry


This first reading is from one of the books of history of the Hebrew Scriptures,
in which we see the stories of the Hebrew people as they develop
from a wandering tribal people to a nation unified by a covenant with God.

If you often mix up Elijah and Elisha, this text may make that worse,
since both of them are in it, and both of them are prophets of Israel.
I keep them straight by remembering that they appear alphabetically-
Elijah is the prophet that precedes Elisha.

Elijah is the mentor, leader, the one who called Elisha.
When Elijah him to be a prophet, Elisha was plowing in a field.
Elijah threw his cloak over Elisha’s shoulders, indicating his call,
and Elisha responded with intense commitment:

killing his ox and sacrificing it on the fire that he made with his plow. 

Let’s listen for the moment of glory when Elijah departs from Elijah in 2 Kings 2:1-12

1 Now when the LORD was about to take Elijah up to heaven by a whirlwind,
Elijah and Elisha were on their way from Gilgal.
2 Elijah said to Elisha, “Stay here; for the LORD has sent me as far as Bethel.”
But Elisha said, “As the LORD lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.”
So they went down to Bethel.
3 The company of prophets who were in Bethel came out to Elisha, and said to him, "Do you know that today the LORD will take your master away from you?"
And he said, "Yes, I know; keep silent."
4 Elijah said to him, "Elisha, stay here; for the LORD has sent me to Jericho."
But he said, "As the LORD lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave you."
So they came to Jericho.

5 The company of prophets who were at Jericho drew near to Elisha,
and said to him, "Do you know that today the LORD will take your master away from you?"
And he answered, "Yes, I know; be silent."
6 Then Elijah said to him, "Stay here; for the LORD has sent me to the Jordan."
But he said, "As the LORD lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave you." 

So the two of them went on.
7 Fifty men of the company of prophets also went, and stood at some distance from them,
as they both were standing by the Jordan.
8 Then Elijah took his mantle and rolled it up,
and struck the water; the water was parted to the one side and to the other,
until the two of them crossed on dry ground.
9 When they had crossed, Elijah said to Elisha,
Tell me what I may do for you, before I am taken from you.”
Elisha said, “Please let me inherit a double share of your spirit.”
10 He responded, "You have asked a hard thing;
yet, if you see me as I am being taken from you, it will be granted you;
if not, it will not."
11 As they continued walking and talking,
a chariot of fire and horses of fire separated the two of them,
and Elijah ascended in a whirlwind into heaven.
12 Elisha kept watching and crying out,
“Father, father! The chariots of Israel and its horsemen!”
But when he could no longer see him,
he grasped his own clothes and tore them in two pieces.

Our gospel reading today is the story known as the transfiguration. This story occurs at the exact midpoint of Mark’s gospel, halfway between Galilee and Jerusalem. It takes place on a mountaintop, where we catch a glimpse of God’s glory. Like a flashbulb, it captures an image of past, present and future all in one ecstatic moment that ends too soon. Let’s listen for God’s word to us in Mark 9:2-9
2 Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John,
and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves.
And he was transfigured before them, 3 and his clothes became dazzling white,
such as no one on earth could bleach them.
4 And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus.
5 Then Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here;
let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”
6 He did not know what to say, for they were terrified.
7 Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice,
"This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!"
8 Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them any more, but only Jesus.
9 As they were coming down the mountain, he ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen,
until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead.

The word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.

"Transfiguration
is some of the most complex and dangerous magic
you will learn at Hogwarts.
Anyone messing around in my class will leave and not come back.
You have been warned."

If only we could have Professor Minerva McGonagall here with us,
to talk about this text, instead of me.
She taught Transfiguration, you know, at Hogwarts,
and more than once she saved Harry Potter from difficulty.

If only we could learn to conjure up a transfiguration!
If only we had magic wands to part the waters of the Jordan,
to call down a whirlwind and a chariot of fire!
If only we knew a magic spell
to turn our lives into something shimmering and beautiful
when we are halfway to Jerusalem.
But you can’t mess around with something
as complex and dangerous as transfiguration.
You can’t contain it, either, or save it for when you need it.

At least Elisha had some notion of what to expect,
even though he was in despair at the thought of saying farewell
to his beloved mentor, friend, and spiritual father.
In fact, it sounds like he was annoyingly forewarned –
the prophets of Bethel and Jericho wanted to make sure he knew:
"Do you know that today the LORD will take your master away from you?"
"Yes, I know,” he said. “Enough about it.”

Even then, there was this stupendous moment of glory,
before there was the grief of recognition that he was now alone.
Elisha went on to be a great prophet, with the spirit of Elijah.
He boldly confronted wicked and treacherous kings,
alleviated the suffering of the poor,
called upon the powers of God to clean poisonous waters
and to cleanse General Naaman of his skin disease in the River Jordan.
He had truly received Elijah’s spirit, the spirit of a prophet.

But Peter and his friends couldn’t seem to grasp what was in store.
They had heard what Jesus was saying;
he told them where he was going; he said what was going to happen.
They just can’t wrap their heads around the idea
that Jesus’ glory is going to be demonstrated to them on another mountain,
in the vulnerability and suffering of the cross.

We’re midway through Mark’s gospel,
halfway between the baptism in the river Jordan
and the final breaths Jesus takes at Calvary.

The disciples have these expectations and hopes about Jesus,
and those hopes have made them unable to hear what he is telling them.
They haven’t yet understood that as they descend from this mountain,
they are now on the way through a long dark valley.
They think that what they have seen is a vision of a glorious future,
and it is, but not the kind of power and glory that they expect.

I don’t blame Peter one little bit for wanting to build some little houses
to shelter that transcendent moment up on that mountain.

The church’s observance of the Transfiguration
was originally a feast day in August.
The Reformers moved it to the Sunday between Epiphany and Lent
so that it would be observed in worship every year.
So here we are, in the in-between,
catching a glimpse of glory up on the mountain.

But we’re not staying here.
We can’t stay here.

We’re going down into the valley of the shadow of death.
Three days from now, on Ash Wednesday, I’ll be looking into your eyes
and rubbing ashes onto your forehead, and saying,
“Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.”

Every time we come to a funeral, we’re reminded of that:
“All of us go down to the dust…”
And we act like we think that is a distant reality,
like the valley of the shadow of death is something impossibly far off.
We’re a bit like Elisha: “Yeah, I know. Be quiet.”

Most of us have some vague idea of a kind of equation with God,
thinking that if we can just get everything set right
that the future will all be all good from now on.
We’ve worked out a deal with God.
We’ll be good and nice and kind and nothing bad will happen
to us or to any of the people we love.
We’ll keep a clean house and leave good tips
and everyone will know we are good people.

We won’t be betrayed;
our kids won’t get picked on;
our jobs will last until we retire;
the roof of our house won’t fall in.

We’ll do the right thing,
and God will work everything out for us,
and every now and then there will be some razzle dazzle,
like some chariots of fire,
or some shiny moments on mountaintops.

But you know what?
That never was the bargain.

Last week I heard an interview with Kate Bowler
as she described being diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer at the age of 35:
“I think I was a lot more sure than I realized,” she said.
“Sure of what?” the interviewer asked.
“Well, maybe that I was the architect of my own life,
that I could overcome anything with a little pluck and determination….
“And prayer,” the interviewer added.
She laughed and said “I really thought like - I mean, God, you're great.
And my job is to be good. ...Yeah, we're making a deal, 

and I will be awesome, but you will be awesomer...

like, my life is like a bucket,
and I'm supposed to put all the things in the bucket,
and the whole purpose is to figure out
how to have as many good things co-existing at the same time.
And then when everything falls apart,
you totally have to switch imagination.
Like, maybe instead life is just vine to vine, and you're, like,
grabbing onto something,
and you were just hoping for dear life that it doesn't break.” 

Kate Bowler - Everything Happens for a Reason and Other Lies I've Loved

Life is just vine to vine, mountaintop to mountaintop, valley to valley.
Not just our individual lives, but all around us.
There’s crime and misunderstanding, conflict, racism, meanness.
No matter how kind we are to some people,
they are still not going to be nicer to us.
No matter how hard we work, there will still be bad days on the job.

Transfiguration is complex and dangerous.
The promise is not that this shimmering, mystical moment will last forever.
The promise is that the Jesus who came back down the mountain,
who suffered and wept and prayed and was tormented and misunderstood – Jesus is with us!

As we go from vine to vine,
letting go of one thing and reaching out to the next,
Jesus is there with us!

We don’t have a special bargain with God
that exempts us from suffering or sorrow or trouble.
We don’t get a special cloak or a magic wand to ward off problems.
We don’t get carried up to heaven in a chariot of fire.

We do get a vision of what can be, what will be, after the next mountain.
We begin to understand, as someone once said,
“that suffering and disappointments and melancholy
are there not to vex us or cheapen us or deprive us of our dignity
but to mature and transfigure us.”[1]

So we can walk down into the valley of the shadow of death
and say, “Hallelujah anyway!”

That’s in the funeral liturgy!
“All of us go down to the dust,
yet even at the grave we make our song: Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.”
We don’t get a steady diet of happy-happy unicorns and rainbows.
We get the promise of peace that passes understanding.
We get to be transformed by the light of grace
that shines through the darkest night of despair and terror.

We do get a sense of what the power of love can do.
We do get a path to walk that leads to healing and hope.
We do get a kind of clarity, in that light on the mountain top,
and that light shines through the darkness of our most difficult days.

We receive the light of Christ,
like that candle we give at a baptism,
and we hear the voice of God,
speaking to us across the waters of the river Jordan,
calling to us in the blinding blaze of transfiguration,
"This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!"

So no matter what comes next,
down in the valley of doubt or despair,
or on our way up to the Garden of Gethsemane,
we have been up on the mountain.

We have seen the true light,
and we can say with assurance and with joy:

Hallelujah anyway!
Hallelujah anyway!




[1] Hermann Hesse, Peter Camenzind, accessed at Goodreads.com https://www.goodreads.com/search?q=transfiguration&search%5Bsource%5D=goodreads&search_type=quotes&tab=quotes