"Get Up, and Do Not Be Afraid."

Matthew 17:1-8

February 26, 2017

I.

At the end of the story of Jesus’ Transfiguration on the mountain, after the dazzling Light, after the appearance of Moses and Elijah, after Peter’s ridiculous offer to make three shrines to commemorate the event, and after the Voice booms from the sky proclaiming Jesus to be God’s Son and they should shut up and “listen to him,” the disciples are so overcome with terror that they fall paralyzed to the ground.

They have participated in a vision of the fullness of time in which the division between past and future is dissolved in one shining moment of Presence.  The past is revealed not to really be past at all, for Moses and Elijah show up.  The doors of the disciples’ perception get blown open and they see that in reality even time is one.  Jesus says this in another place about how Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are really still alive in God “for all live to him.”  

They have been given a glimpse under-the-hood, into the engine room, or behind-the-curtain to see the inner truth of things, and it is Light.  The six days are mentioned to remind us of creation itself.  The cloud on the mountain reminds of us God’s giving the Law to Moses.  What the disciples see is the ground of all things, and it is amazing glory.  It is blessing and love.  It is continuity and connection.  It is unity and oneness.  And Jesus is its culmination and final revelation.

The word used to describe what happens to Jesus is metamorphao, the root of the same word we use in English to describe what happens to a caterpillar when it becomes a butterfly: metamorphosis.  It is a transformation into one’s final and complete form; it is the realization of one’s purpose and destiny.  It is the goal and future of life becoming present.

The world the disciples think they have been living in is revealed to be a kind of illusion.  God is saying, “You think you’re caterpillars, but look at Jesus!  He is my Son and he is also the Human One.  He is showing you who you really are.  I did not make you to crawl around in the dirt; I made you to fly!  You are made in my Image!  You are made of Light!  You are animated by my Spirit!”

This knowledge literally floors them.  They fall to the ground, overcome by fear.  Why fear?  We might think that having such a spectacular experience would evoke joy!  But they feel fear first of all because of the way the Voice admonishes them.  Peter wants to build little temples or tabernacles to control or memorialize the event, which shows that he really doesn’t get it.

Plus, change — which is what metamorphosis is — always stirs fear in us.  We want things to stay the way they are, even if they’re not that great.  At most we want things to go back to being the way they were, or the way we imagine and fantasize that they were, back in some dreamy, happy time.  We don’t want to be told we’re really butterflies; just leave us as caterpillars with lots of tasty leaves to munch on and no birds to eat us.  Flying is dangerous, after all.  And the process of changing?  No thanks.  We’re claustrophobic; no cocoons for us.

Can’t we just go back to the 1950’s?  That was when the church was great!  Can’t we have that again?  Jesus can be the butterfly for all of us.  We’ll make nice buildings to worship him in.  But don’t ask us to become butterflies ourselves.  That’s too demanding.  And scary.

II.

As they are cowering in the dirt — like reluctant, unrepentant caterpillars — Jesus comes over, kneels down, and touches them.  He puts his hands on them, kind of like he is waking them up.  He, the living Word of God, touches them directly.  And he says, “Guys, get up, and don’t be afraid.”

The thing about being told not to be afraid in a case like this is that they are definitely afraid.  Jesus’ words are not preemptive.  The disciples are terrified.  They heard a Voice from the sky.  They saw everything turn to Light.  They witnessed Moses and Elijah.  They just had a close encounter of some unheard of kind beyond even the bizarre testimony of Ezekiel.  

The book of Proverbs says that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom.”  Sometimes fear is an indication that we’re finally paying attention.  Like when you nod off while driving and you suddenly jolt awake… out of sheer terror.  In that case the fear of dying in a fiery crash is the beginning of wiser and more alert driving… at least for a few minutes.

But yes, beyond even the Big Scary Voice, there is stuff to be afraid of here.  They are setting out on their way to Jerusalem after this.  This journey is going to cost them their lives as caterpillars, figuratively speaking.  And yes, they’re going to have to spend some time bound up in a kind of cocoon.  And yes, that will involve a rather comprehensive deconstruction of the only selves they have ever known.  Jesus is going get himself crucified, as he has been warning them.  Things are going to get way worse before they get better.

Fear is understandable when we are looking at going through a metamorphosis.  Even after his resurrection has been rather dramatically prefigured in this Transfiguration experience, Jesus’ disciples still look not at this glorious destination, but at the nine miles of bad road they will have to traverse on the way.  We will not make it through all that unless we are touched by the Word of God.  We have to stay in contact with the Truth of God’s love with us.   

The disciples have already given up a lot to follow Jesus.  They have already experienced major losses.  Any idea they might have had that this Jesus-thing was going to make them more successful fishers when they finally get back to Galilee, is quickly evaporating.  There is no going back.  Their losses are just beginning.

I have learned that with caterpillars, when they go into the chrysalis for metamorphosis, they don’t simply sprout wings.  Were you to open a chrysalis in the middle of the process, you would kill it, of course, but what you would find is a kind of dissociated mush.  Because the caterpillar mostly deconstructs and then a butterfly is re-constructed almost from scratch.  The caterpillar disintegrates.  The butterfly emerges out of the reduced elements that are reassembled and reintegrated in a new way.

  

III.

The Transfiguration is like an advance, it is a token of what is to come, it is a guarantee of the final result of the process they are undergoing.  It is the promise that Jesus will be raised from the dead, and the disciples, after cowering for fifty days in a dark, stifling, cocoon-like upper-room in Jerusalem, will be metamorphosed into apostles by the descent of the Holy Spirit.

Because as much as fear is sometimes an appropriate reaction that shows we are awake to what is really going on, it is not helpful moving forward.  That’s why Jesus instructs them not to be afraid.  Fear is toxic.  It can paralyze us.  We have to move out of our fear if we are going to experience our metamorphosis.  Fear of the Lord is only the beginning of Wisdom; real Wisdom has to leave fear behind.  Perfect love casts out all fear, says John.  Jesus is perfect love.  He has to cast out the disciples’ fear for them to sojourn with him to Jerusalem.  

The disciples have to trust that the vision they had on the mountain is true.  It was not just some kind of hallucination, but really does reveal reality.  It is in fact something they can depend on.  It can give them the strength, and the power, and the confidence to go through some really difficult times with Jesus in the next few weeks.  

They will have to hold on to this faith that what they see on the mountain with Jesus is deep and real enough to carry them through.  They will have to believe that what they see and hear up there really is a glimpse into the heart and essence of what is.  They have to keep this conviction that they have been given a hint of their own destiny.  That hint has to be so strong and beautiful that they will be willing to let go of their dreams of just being really happy, fat, content caterpillars.  They have to be willing to let that fantasy and those memories die, and be changed into something infinitely more wonderful.

Are we willing to be changed into something more wonderful?  Jesus talks about the Kingdom of God in terms of something it is well worth giving up all we have in order to possess: a treasure buried in a field; a very expensive pearl.  Are we going to be this change?  Or are we just going to build some monuments so we can remember it?  Are we going to follow Jesus, and go where he goes, even becoming by grace what he is by nature? 

Jesus touches the disciples, and says, “Get up!  We have work to do!  Places to go, and people to meet!  It is going to be difficult, but do not be afraid.  You have seen the true Light.  You will receive the Spirit.  Believe that nothing will ever separate you from me, and my love.  It is going to get bad.  We are going up against every power of evil and violence in this world.  But this momentary affliction is like nothing compared with the eternal weight of glory you have seen, which is holding you together, and which will be yours forever.” 

IV.

“Get up, and do not be afraid,” could be the church’s motto going forward.  The text says that “when they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone.”  That is our Way, to focus on Jesus himself alone.  

I get the sense that the church — maybe even this church — finds itself facing a difficult journey.  We also need to hear the summons to get up and move ahead sustained by Jesus who is always calling us forward.  Without looking back.  Without holding on to our present form or container.  Without obsessing over memories or nostalgia.  But always looking for the new things God is doing with us.  

Jesus says that now, in him, we are the light of the world.  We are the light of the world when we bear Christ’s light and life into the world.  There is a sense in which we are always following Jesus to Jerusalem, where his mission is fulfilled in his giving of his life for the life of the world.  In this we move, as Paul says, from glory to glory; from the glory of the Transfiguration on the mountain, to the glory of the Resurrection in the garden.

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