2 Kings 2:1-12
2 Cor 4:3-6
Mark 9:2-9
Wouldn't you love to know what the future holds for you? Don't you want to know where life is taking you? How your story will end? I sure do. At the very least, I wouldn't mind knowing the exact date and time this baby is going to be born. I'd like to know what kind of life he'll have. If my grandparents in Japan will ever see him. I'd like to know what will happen to my career after taking a year of maternity leave. There's so many things about the future that I want to know.
I think we all, to some degree or another, want to know about the future. I think that's why horoscopes and psychics are so popular. As much as we might laugh at them, who here hasn't been tempted to check out their horoscope for the day to see if it will be good or bad? We want to know what's going to happen. We spend so much of our lives walking around in blindness, so to speak, without a clue as to what's going to happen next, that we all crave a little bit of reassurance that things will be all right.
After all, our lives are pretty unpredictable. We never know for certain whether the choices we make in life are the right ones, or where they will lead us. When I decided to attend university in Montreal to study opera, I never imagined that it would lead to meeting my husband, moving to Philadelphia, going to seminary, and bring me, eleven years later, to today - an ordained pastor of a parish in Toronto. Who could have guessed that such things would happen? It's turned out well for me, but not all of the choices we make end up so happily. And we have no way of knowing when they will and when they won't.
Which can be difficult when the situations we find ourselves in are not going well. We never know when something terrible might happen - when we might suddenly lose our job, when someone we love might be involved in a tragic accident, when we might be struck down by an illness, (when we might be shut out of the men's gold medal hockey game.) But seriously, truly terrible things do happen without warning, and in those situations, when we talk about the future, we use words like "darkness" and "hidden." "The future is hidden from us." "The way forward is covered in darkness." And we want to know what is going to happen.
That was the situation for the disciples who were following Jesus. Although we have spent the last eight weeks of Epiphany listening to stories of Jesus healing people and performing miracles, and although the disciples who saw these things were no doubt quite confident and excited about the future, immediately before our gospel reading for today, Jesus sits the disciples down and tells them that the future is not going to be as bright and happy as they think. He tells them that "the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected, and be killed." So much for being the great hero that saves all of Israel and brings heaven to earth. This is a story with a tragic surprise ending. And then Jesus tells the shocked disciples that anyone who wants to follow him on his path to greatness must be prepared to do the same - to lose their lives. They must deny themselves, and take up their crosses. These disciples aren't following the next Palestinian Idol, destined for autographs and record deals. They're following the biggest loser of all times, and they're going to suffer in the process. And there's no way they saw that coming. There's no way they were able to predict this future. So before Peter, James, and John even go up the mountain and witness the bizarre and confusing transfiguration event, they are already left reeling in shock. The bright, victorious future they had envisioned for their leader and for themselves has been taken away, and replaced with suffering and death. Who knows how they are to forward from this? Who knows how they are supposed to carry on with their lives?
"Our gospel is veiled," says Paul in his letter to the Corinthians that we just heard. And indeed it seem, not just the gospel, but our future. But Paul concludes by saying that, "it is the God who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." In other words, although we can't see very far, if at all, into the future, even though it seems that all is darkness, we know that God is there, causing the light of Christ to shine on us.
And that is what the disciples discovered when they went up the mountain with Jesus. They discovered that in the midst of all their confusion about what the future held for them and Jesus, confusion which, admittedly, didn't get any less when they were up there, but in the midst of all of that uncertainty they discovered that God was there. God was there - yes, hidden in a cloud - but there, proclaiming that Jesus was God's Beloved Son, transfiguring Jesus to be full of a light so bright none of them could even look at him. The disciples' confusion wasn't any less, but now they were reassured that this suffering and death was part of God's plan, and that despite the uncertainty of the future, God was a part of what was going to happen. They could go forward, still blind, but knowing that God was holding their hand and guiding them as they took each step. Jesus' transfiguration on the mountain was a sign that although times may be dark, they were not without hope, and they were not without the promise of light.
We don't have the same blinding transfiguration moments in our times of darkness. At least, we don't have them in such striking ways as the disciples did. But we have more than they did at that moment in time. We have the reassurance that not only is God a part of our future that's going to happen, but that God has light and life waiting for us at the end of it. We know that Jesus' path, although confusing to the disciples, led to new life and resurrection and greater glory than anyone could have imagined. We know that three days after Jesus died, he was raised again. We know that Good Friday always leads to Easter Sunday, that the darkness of life leads to God's light. And we know that the same holds true for us. Whatever dark times our lives bring us through, whatever suffering and confusion we experience, whatever the unpredictable outcomes of our choices, God's presence is with us, too, bringing us the light and life of Christ in ways we could never imagine. That doesn't mean that things will go smoothly or painlessly - they certainly didn't go that way for the disciples - but it does mean that we can count on things ending the way God, our Creator and Sustainer, wants them to - in life for all.
We have come to the end of the season of Epiphany, when we proclaim that Christ's light is growing in the world, and when we can easily see all of the miracles and greatness of the Son of God. On Wednesday, we will enter the season of Lent, when the light and miracle and greatness are more difficult to see, when the world seems to get a little darker. It may seem discouraging, but rest assured that even the darkest of days ends in Easter, that death does indeed end in life, and that we can continue to move forward, knowing that God is with us, bringing us ever closer to Christ at the end. God did say, "Let light shine out of the darkness," and we know that it was so and will continue to be that way today and evermore. Thanks be to God. Amen.
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