There are two hills where Jesus stands, and two lights: it’s the second one outside the city that matters to you and the universe, not today’s hill.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Transfiguration of Our Lord, year B
Text: Mark 9:2-9 (plus 10)

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

Jesus must have had a subpar marketing department.

Everything about how this event was handled seems like a mistake.

If you’re going to reveal your true divine glory, competent marketing people would tell you to invite the money, the folks who fund your mission, to convince them. Jesus should have invited Joanna and Susanna and Mary Magdalene up this hill. They and a bunch of other unnamed women disciples were the financial backers of this whole operation.

Or, good marketers might suggest, invite the ones working against you. Dramatically put the fear of God into them so they come over to your side. Also you’ve got Israel’s two great heroes, Moses and Elijah right there, affirming you’re legitimate. Jesus should have invited the scribes and Pharisees.

But he only invites Peter, James, and John. For no known reason, except they seem to be among the leaders. And worst of all, he forbids them from saying anything to anyone about what they’d seen. He shuts down all media concerning this event, until he has risen from the dead.

It’s a massive contrast with the other hill Jesus will soon climb.

On this second hill, outside Jerusalem, he will again meet with two people. But this time they’re two criminals, not great leaders of Judaism, and they’ll all be hanging on crosses.

This time Jesus doesn’t get to invite who comes, or insist on silence. Everyone in Jerusalem can see if they want. It’s a public spectacle.

And this time, instead of glowing with divine light, Jesus is naked, bloody, beaten, humiliated.

This is the revelation that everyone sees, the Jesus the world experiences. Someone doesn’t seem to have paid very careful attention to the visuals of these two events.

We certainly would like to see something like the first hill.

Moses and Elijah, and Jesus glowing like the sun in all his divine glory. Wouldn’t our faith be stronger if we’d see something like that?

Well, my mother had a vision of Jesus. She and my father were discussing marriage on a bench by Lake Phalen in St. Paul. There were real challenges they faced. And she looked up and saw Jesus, and immediately was at peace, and the decision was made. I asked her where he was, was it just his face, how did she know it was Jesus, what did he look like? She never could answer that – visions are hard to retell.

But I realized long ago it didn’t bother me that I’ve never had a vision like that. Like the choice of Peter and the others, I have no idea why Jesus appeared to my mother. And while it changed her life, in truth, her vision was never the core of her faith.

What my mother witnessed to me again and again was the unconditional love of God. She trusted it fervently and lived it. My father taught me to love theology, to think critically, to care for words, especially words of faith. My mother taught me God’s love.

But my mother’s theology of grace wasn’t related to her vision. It was grounded in the love of God in Christ that she knew from her deep and long study of Scripture, and their regular worship and devotional life. Her trust in God’s love came from that other hill.

See, there really wasn’t a marketing failure.

The important hill to see is the public one. The vision to see is the humiliating, bloody one. That is, if you really want to know what God is doing in Christ. Any theophany worth its salt will have the god-figure glowing and shining. In mythology and world religions, events like the Transfiguration are a dime-a-dozen.

But no one would expect God to come in person and die on that hill outside the city. But it’s the only thing that truly reveals God.

In Mark only three times does someone call Jesus the Son of God. First, a voice from the heavens at his baptism, just for Jesus’ ears, “you are my beloved Son, I am well pleased with you.” Second was here, this time saying for witnesses to hear “This is my beloved Son, listen to him!”

But the third time it wasn’t from the heavens. It was from the earth, from one of us. That’s how you know this is the hill to watch. The third time it’s a Roman centurion who recognizes God when he sees how Jesus died. Somehow this foreigner who knew nothing of the God of Israel, said, “Truly this man was the Son of God.” And this is your sign: this is where you’ll also recognize God.

The light shining from the cross is the true light to look for.

It’s not a shiny god-moment like today’s Gospel. There’s a reason Jesus didn’t want people to talk about the Transfiguration until they’d seen him die and rise. Because the light that shines from the darkness of the cross reveals God’s true identity.

It pierces the love of God into every shadow and every evil in the world. It exposes evil to the truth of God’s love, a love that will die just to bring you and me and all people and all things and the whole creation back into the life of the Trinity. There’s not much to learn from a God who can glow on a mountain. But the life of the universe depends on the true God offering God’s own life at the cross.

God’s love seen here is vulnerable, self-giving, and it transforms. It brings about Jesus’ resurrection and yours. This cross-shining light of love heals your heart of your pain and sorrow, forgives your sin and evil, holds you now and always in peace.

And this cross-shining light of love empowers you to offer yourself in love to this world. Jesus never told anyone to keep silent about this light. Instead, he said to all who would follow: bear this in your heart, in your body, into the world. It will be your life, and you will bring healing to my broken world for me.

So, you didn’t miss anything by missing this light show.

It just isn’t that important for you or me or the world. It actually seems that the importance of the Transfiguration was for Jesus. He needed Moses and Elijah’s encouragement and support as he turned his face to that second hill.

And as we begin our Lenten journey this week, practicing our baptismal calling, we also remember where we are headed, to the hill that really matters. But you’ve already seen it, been changed by it, shaped by it. So, even now you and I can bear that cross-shining light into the shadows that surround our world. And watch the love of God transform us and all things.

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

You matter to God, too. You get to ask for healing and hope, too. You are God’s beloved, always. Trust that.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Fifth Sunday after Epiphany, Lect. 5 B
Texts: Isaiah 40:21-31; Mark 1:29-39

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

God’s people felt abandoned by the God who had chosen them.

In exile, they wondered why God disregarded them, ignored their bitter path.

And today Isaiah speaks hope: “Have you not known? Have you not heard? The God you call I-AM-WHO-I-AM is not only Creator of the ends of the earth, this God never tires, never grows weary, and is coming to bring power to those who are faint, to strengthen you, God’s people. You are going to be healed, restored.

This is beautiful. But it’s remarkable to me that Israel felt they could cry out their pain and sorrow to God. Because I’m sometimes not sure I have the right to ask God for such healing and hope for me.

In our Prayer of the Day we asked, “Make us agents of your healing and wholeness.”

And we lean into that prayer. So many suffer in the world from hunger and need, and there are so many massive problems in our world, from racism to sexism to oppression, to rising fascism here. And in this place we know the Triune God has called us to do something. To be Christ’s healing. So of course we pray, “make us agents of your healing and wholeness.”

But do you know you get to ask God for healing, too? And I don’t mean “you” for this whole congregation here. I mean you, singular, you personally. Do you know God cares about your pain, your suffering, your struggles? Do you know you’re permitted to pray, “send me an agent of your healing and wholeness, please”?

Have you not known this? Have you not heard?

It’s hard to know what we know and believe we also have a right to ask for help.

The privilege so many of us enjoy, some more than others even in this community, is real. We know that so many of our neighbors daily suffer from things we can’t imagine experiencing. We’ve learned to open our eyes and see that privilege, and in this place – I see it all the time – in this place we are a group of people committed to making a difference.

But there’s a trap there. With a faith like the one we share, you might find it hard to believe you also get to name your pain and ask God to help you. Maybe it’s part of the cultural truth of this area that so many of us learned: “Don’t complain, lots of people have it worse than you.” It’s definitely deeply rooted in my DNA. Why would I tell people if I was in pain or suffering? Isn’t that just whining, compared to the horrors that so many go through?

But have you not known? Have you not heard? God loves you – you specifically – with a love that cannot be stopped by anything.

Jesus, in deep wisdom, commanded you to love your neighbor as you love yourself.

For Jesus, it’s simple: the loving of neighbor you want to do starts with you loving yourself. A friend of mine puts it this way: if you want to live a life of non-violence, the first step is to not be violent to yourself.

So if you’re suffering, you deserve to ask for healing, too. If you’ve got decades of abuse to work through, or new diagnoses of disease facing you, if you’ve felt ostracized or left out, if you don’t think you belong, or matter, or will be missed, God wants to bring life to you. And if you are so filled with guilt over your privilege, or your implicit biases, or your participation, unwilling or not, in the systemic evil that surrounds us everywhere, you get to be forgiven, too.

Jesus said God so loved the cosmos God came to us in the Son, not to condemn but to heal, to save. (John 3:16-17) But Jesus also says God so loved you that God came for you. For your healing. For your new heart. For your abundant life. Don’t omit yourself from the “cosmos.” You also count to God.

Have you really not known this? Didn’t you hear today?

Isaiah says, and you sang the same in the Psalm, that God counts the stars and calls them all by name, doesn’t miss a single one. But God also heals the broken hearted and binds up their wounds. The Triune God who holds the entire universe of stars in embracing love, calling them by name in joy, still notices your tears, your sorrow, your pain, your fear, and comes to you, too.

I-AM-WHO-I-AM gives power to the faint ones, Isaiah says, and strength to the powerless ones. That means you, too. Those who wait for I-AM-WHO-I-AM will fly like eagles and never get weary. That means you, too.

It’s right there in these stories of Jesus.

Jesus is doing all these healings and exorcisms, and is probably exhausted. So he heads to Peter and Andrew’s home. And Peter asks him to heal his mother-in-law. Maybe Peter worried he was imposing. Maybe he didn’t. But he asked. And she was made well.

All these people heard about someone healing and driving out demons and flocked to Jesus. They didn’t think, “it’s not for me, others have it worse.” They thought, “how can I not go?”

But you already know this. You’ve heard this.

You’re here or joining online because deep down you need to hear that God loves you. Whether you feel attacked by demonic powers or stricken by medical illness, whether you don’t know where the pain is from or you do, whether you have a sadness needing comfort or a fear needing hope, you came here to see if maybe, maybe, you can find healing and wholeness from God, too. And that’s a good thing.

And yes, in worship you will hear that you are called to be Christ’s love in the world, to reach out to others with God’s wholeness. That’s good and right, too, and you take it very seriously.

But just for today, maybe try to trust this: The Triune God has come to this world in Christ for you. For your healing. For your life. For your hope. There is no one more important in God’s eyes than you, and no one God wants to hear from right now more than you.

Have you not known? Have you not heard? You are God’s beloved, and always will be. Go ahead and ask for what you need. God’s waiting for that very thing, and never gets tired or weary.

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen