Even as they are killing him, Jesus’ accusers are half-hoping to witness a miracle – some kind of marvel that will help them “see and believe.” In Mark’s Passion, Jesus has no more teachings or miracles, but the cross shows us a God worthy of our faith.

Vicar Jessica Christy
Sunday of the Passion, year B
Text: Mark 14:1-15:47

Even as they were torturing and killing him, they were hoping to see a miracle.

Throughout his ministry, people were drawn to Jesus because of his power. Massive crowds in search of healing and hope chased him across the Galilee. The press of people was so eager that they forced him to preach from boats and to retreat to remote places. They were desperately hungry for a demonstration of God’s might.

Even though the crowds have turned against him by the time he is arrested, things haven’t really changed. “Prophesy!” his tormentors shout as they beat him. “Prophesy!” – show us your power, if you are so powerful. And then as he is being executed, they jeer, “Save yourself, and come down from the cross! Let the Messiah, the King of Israel, come down from the cross now, so that we may see and believe.” Yes, they’re mocking him with these words. They’re taunting the helplessness of this man who said he would forever change the world. But in his final moments, they show their hand, and reveal that there is a core of truth in their taunts. As Christ is dying, he cries out “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” and the people who have gathered to gloat over his death mishear those words. “Elahi, Elahi” – “My God, my God.” They think he’s calling out for Elijah. And this excites them. Suddenly, they rush to try to prolong his life, saying, “Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to bring him down.” They despise him, and yet they can’t look away because they still think that Jesus might show them God in a marvel. They’re still looking and longing for something to see and believe in.

Jesus, of course, doesn’t give them the show that they’re half-hoping to see. Not only does he deny them signs and wonders, he barely even speaks. Pilate is amazed by his refusal to say a single word to defend or explain himself. In Mark’s Passion, Jesus has no more teachings, no more wonders, no more prophecies. If the people at the Crucifixion are hoping to witness something that will help them believe, they will only see an ordinary criminal dying a shameful death.

As we enter this Holy Week, what are we hoping to see? What are we hoping to believe in? Because if we are hoping to encounter Christ in great marvels and miracles over these next days, we are going to be disappointed. Jesus will be revealed to us in the ordinary – in struggle and in suffering. We will see Jesus anointed for death by an unnamed woman. We will see him breaking bread with his disciples, then going to pray in sorrow in the garden. We will see Jesus abandoned by his friends to die alone and in agony. And even on Easter, we will hear the good news, “He is risen!” but Mark will deny us a glimpse of the risen Christ. There is little glory to see in this story. If we call on God’s power, we will find a God who chooses to be powerless. If we call on God’s eloquence, we will find a God who chooses to be silent before his accusers. If we call on God’s salvation, we will find a God who refuses to save himself. The only Son of God that we can proclaim will be the one who subjects himself to suffering and death on the cross.

This might sound like a bleak picture, but it is far better news than any God of power and majesty, because in this week, we see a God who knows us. We meet God in weakness and despair because that is where God comes to meet us. We are reminded once again that there is nowhere we can go in this life where Christ cannot journey with us. There is no fear that is foreign to him, no hurt that he cannot bear for our sake, and for the sake of the whole world. Christ intimately knows our worst pains and sorrows, and takes them on himself so that he might raise us to new life. A God of perfect, shining glory couldn’t do that. Only a king who wore a crown of thorns and a savior who emptied himself on a Cross could know and love us like that. But that’s not all that we see; we see a God who knows what it means to suffer betrayal and humiliation and death at our hands, and who forgives and saves us anyway. We see a God who would rather be broken than break us. We see a God who has promised to never abandon us, even in the moments when we turn from God. We see a God who would do anything – suffer any indignity, endure any pain, harrow Hell itself – anything to bind up our wounded world.

This is the Son of God we can expect to meet. It isn’t going to look like much, at least not to the eyes of the world. There is no wondrous spectacle, no heavenly proofs to win us over. There is just incomprehensible love, and the promise that Christ can make even the worst instrument of death blossom into the tree of life. This is what we can see. This is what we can believe. And this is how we can live.

Amen.

Moses’ bronze snake was a good gift from God…until it became an idol. That’s what we do with so many of God’s gifts: we worship them as false gods. What are some of the idols ruling over us today? And how can we find our way out of idolatry?

Vicar Jessica Christy
The Fourth Sunday of Lent, year B
Texts: Numbers 21:4-9; John 3:14-21

It began as such a good thing.

When poisonous snakes attacked the people of Israel in the wilderness, they prayed to God for forgiveness and help. God answered their prayers by telling Moses to craft the image of a serpent, and to lift it up high, so that people could look at it and be healed. It sounds strange, but it worked. Everyone who saw it was made well. The aggressive snakes didn’t disappear, but they no longer held the same terror for God’s people. There was now a way forward, leading them out of death and despair.

We know that this bronze snake was dear to the people because the book of Kings tells us that, hundreds of years later, it was still in Jerusalem. Faithful people preserved this vehicle of God’s grace not only through the wilderness, but through the conquest, through the time of the Judges, through years of wars and civil wars until it finally found its home in the holy city. This object, this bronze snake, told the story of those hard years wandering in the desert. It symbolized salvation in the midst of danger and pain. It was a reminder that God’s mercy is always greater than God’s anger. And it was made by Moses’ own hands. Of course it was honored. Of course it was well-loved.

But something went wrong. By the time of King Hezekiah, around the year 700 BCE, the symbol had become twisted into something ugly. People forgot what the bronze snake really meant and started worshipping it as an idol. Devotees burned incense to it, as if this old piece of metal could accept their sacrifices or answer their prayers. They took this good gift from God, and turned it into a false god. So Hezekiah took this sacred object, this symbol of salvation forged by history’s greatest prophet, and he smashed it. It started as a bridge between God and the people, but now it was a barrier, so he broke it into pieces.

It’s a bit heartbreaking that that’s how the story of the bronze snake ends, with idolatry and loss. But isn’t that what we always do? God has given us so many good things in this life for our enjoyment, for our flourishing. Our world is overflowing with abundance and beauty and delight. We are surrounded by good gifts that please our bodies, lift our spirits, and engage our minds. And we so easily turn these things that God has given us into our idols.

Take food, for instance. It is a truly marvelous thing that we can take such joy in nourishing our bodies. Meals don’t just keep us alive – they excite our tongues, stretch our imaginations, and strengthen our relationships. This is pure gift. And yet, we so often treat food as if it is the center of our lives instead of something that serves our lives. How much does our culture teach us to fixate on what we put in our bodies? How powerfully are feelings of virtue and shame tied up in what we put in our shopping carts, as if our worth could be measured by our menus? What if we, as a society, put half as much energy into serving God as we put into thinking about our diets? Because this idolatry comes at a great cost. When we let food become our god, it is not a kind master. It inspires obsession, anxiety, self-doubt. When we turn this gift into a god, it takes and it takes – sometimes until there is nothing left.

Or consider knowledge. God gave us these brains, the wonder of which we are just now beginning to understand, and filled us with endless curiosity. Our lives sparkle with the joy of discovery as we learn to understand the world around us. But then we can turn simply knowing things into an ultimate good. We use it to posture over each other, to glorify ourselves instead of learning to better love our neighbors. Or we treat athletic or artistic talents as though they were the sole purpose of our lives. Or we obsess over our possessions, enjoying good things but then demanding more and more until they own us instead of the other way around. Whatever they are, we all have our idols. Things that God has given us to enjoy on this earth become our ultimate concerns. The bronze snakes that were meant to lead us to healing and wholeness sometimes just leave us more broken.

This is particularly true for the church. How often, in the history of our faith, have we loved our ideas about God more than we have loved God? It seems absurd to think that anything as wonderful and sacred as our theology, or our worship, or our Bible could become an idol – but that’s probably what people thought about Moses’ bronze snake. It is so very easy for us to mistake our tradition for God, and to act as though our specific understanding of faith is the thing that needs to be loved and served. Or we get so attached to our institutions that we can’t recognize when they’re no longer serving our relationship with God. Instead of striving to do the work of the Gospel, we work to defend the things that we have created. Or we become so set in our interpretation of scripture that the words on the page make it hard for us to hear what the living Word is saying to us today.   Over and again, we can say we’re worshipping God when we’re really paying all glory, laud, and honor to ourselves and our own work. Again, the earthly things of faith that we love are good, and God-given, and filled with grace – but they are not God. Sometimes we need to put them back in their proper place. Sometimes we might even need to break them apart so we can encounter God anew.

But there is good news here. For all that we turn God’s gifts into idols, God gave us one more gift that we know can lead us safely through the wilderness. It’s a gift that we might misinterpret or misuse, but that can never be corrupted or destroyed. For God so loved the world that God gave the only-begotten Son to show us the way to eternal life. Christ is the greatest gift this world has ever known, and he shows us the way out of all our idolatry. When our longing for certainty and stability turns good things into false gods, Christ shows us that we only find ourselves when we give ourselves away. When our desire for knowledge turns good things into false gods, Christ tells us that God’s wisdom is found in folly. When our love of power turns good things into false gods, Christ shows us the way of the Cross, and empties himself of all the power of the cosmos for our sake. And when our sense of inadequacy turns good things into false gods, Christ shows us that we are loved – absolutely and unconditionally, no matter who we are.

For as long as we are on this earth, we are going to misuse the things that God gives us. We’re going to make sacrifices to false gods. But we know where we can look to see our true God, and we know that when we look to Christ, we will find life. No matter what dangers surround us, no matter how far we have gone astray, we will find life.

Amen.

We all have experiences when God’s presence with us is especially clear. The world briefly shines with heavenly light – but then the moment passes, and we need to make sense of what we have witnessed, and what it has to do with our daily lives.

Vicar Jessica Christy
Transfiguration of Our Lord
Text: Mark 9:2-9

You have to be ready for the week after church camp. That’s what the older kids warned my youth group as we were preparing to go to summer camp for the first time. They promised that it was the kind of experience that was going to change our lives – and that we wouldn’t want to leave when it was over. They were absolutely right. For that week in the Wisconsin woods, I felt closer to God than I ever had in my life. We spent our days reading scripture, discussing our faith, and playing amidst the beauty of nature. And at night, we’d gather around the campfire to sing quiet songs and bare our souls to one another beneath the endless, starry sky. For seven days, it was like we were living on holy ground, where faith and friendship were all that mattered.

And then, it was over. We went home and returned to our regular rhythms and responsibilities. The older kids’ warnings were right: the transition wasn’t easy. After that week of intense, faithful joy, the rest of the world seemed lifeless and unhallowed. I spent the next months longing to return to that sacred place where Christ was so clearly and unapologetically the center of my life. Camp had been so special, and everything else was so ordinary, that it was hard to see what the one had to do to the other. In confirmation, we would reminisce about our summer and ask each other: why couldn’t all of life be like church camp? Why couldn’t we stay in that sacred space?

And so I feel for Peter, James, and John as they’re walking back down that mountain. I can’t imagine how strange it must have been for them to witness the miracle of the Transfiguration, and then return to their work as though nothing happened. On top of the mountain, they see Jesus filled with the light of creation as he is named God’s son. They see the old heroes of their faith walking the Earth. They hear the very voice of God. When Peter sees Christ shining in the presence of Moses and Elijah, he understandably thinks that this is it – the Day of the Lord has finally come. Here and now, all of God’s promises are at last being fulfilled. He wants to crystallize this moment, to build dwelling places for the ancient prophets so they can stay and usher in God’s reign on Earth. He thinks that this is what the coming of God’s kingdom looks like, shining high above the mess of everyday life.

But Jesus has already told him that’s not quite right. In Mark’s Gospel, the Transfiguration is immediately preceded by Jesus’ first prediction of his own death. Jesus proclaims that he will experience suffering, rejection, and death, and then rise again on the third day. Peter is appalled. He pulls Jesus aside and tries to silence him, but Jesus doubles down on his claim and calls on the crowds to follow his difficult way. There will be no path to glory that does not pass through the Cross. So of course the disciples can’t stay on the mountain with Jesus and the prophets. They can’t just escape to enlightenment and leave the rest of the world behind. They might wish it were that easy, but that’s not how God works. The mountaintop isn’t where Christ lives.

So back down the mountain they go. Back to the hard days on the road. Back to the press of the crowds. Back to a teacher who has stopped glowing and gone back to saying that he’s about to die. They have to return to lives in which everything about their world has changed – and yet everything seems the same. They’re not even allowed to tell people what they’ve seen. Maybe they couldn’t put it into words if they tried. It must have been lonely. It must have been hard.

The three disciples had a special revelation, and that means they had a special challenge as they came down that mountain. But their experience wasn’t all that unique. Human beings are so marvelously receptive to beauty and wonder that we all have shimmering moments when God’s presence in our lives is made especially clear. All of us are given glimpses of the Transfiguration. Sometimes it happens in the midst of worship – during a beloved hymn, or at the baptism of a child. For some people, it comes in prayerful meditation. Sometimes it is revealed in an experience of nature, the overwhelming beauty of a sunset or the stars or the sea. Or it is found in art, or a relationship, or something else altogether. Even if we haven’t seen Christ shining on the mountaintop, God invites each of us, in our own ways, to stand on holy ground and witness a flash of God’s glory. That is a marvelous gift, and as Peter says, it is good. But then comes the hard part, when the curtain falls back into place and the heavenly light fades. The moment passes. The world returns to normal, and we have to figure out what to do with what we’ve seen and felt. We might struggle to articulate what happened to us. We might wonder if it was even real. We might long to return to that place where God shone so bright and clear, and wonder why God so often remains hidden from our sight.

But friends, the good news is that the Transfiguration is all around us. It may not be obvious at every moment of our lives, but it is always here. Christ came back down the mountain, back down to us, and the whole world shines with his image. The Transfiguration is not some perfect vision up in the sky. It is not something we have to wait for or search for on some distant summit. It is here and now, illuminating everything. In Christ, all ground is hallowed ground. Jesus taught the disciples to return to the crowds, because the crowds are where he’s really found. We are called seek out and serve the light of Christ in one another.

The Trappist monk Thomas Merton was standing on a busy street corner when he had the most famous mystical vision of modern times. All of a sudden, he saw the people around him “shining like the sun.” He wrote that it was as if he were seeing the crowds around him through God’s eyes, and everyone’s innermost beauty was for an instant laid bare. He realized that the glory of God is in everybody, “like a pure diamond, blazing with the invisible light of heaven…and if we could see it we would see these billions of points of light coming together in blaze of a sun that would make all the darkness and cruelty of life vanish completely.” At this vision of light, Merton was overwhelmed with love for these strangers, and only wished he could show them how brightly they shone.

If we follow where Jesus leads, then the path back down the mountain brings us to one another. We witness to the Transfiguration in each other, and when we do so, we are ourselves transfigured. We carry God’s light into the world for each other to see.

Christ is shining all around us. Christ is shining in us. Trust that, and seek it, and you will see that it is true. You will see Christ – everywhere.