February 23, 2020

Early in the morning of July the 16th, 1945, in White Sands, New Mexico, in the quiet of the pre-dawn darkness, suddenly, instantly, there was light, and the desert became transfigured, and shone like the sun. The earth became a dazzling white, but only for an instant, according to a man named Ralph Smith, who witnessed the event from about 20 miles away. When he wrote about it later on, he said that he “was blinded by a light which appeared instantaneously all about without any build up of intensity.” What he saw next was a ball of fire climbing upward, “like a tremendous bubble or nob-like mushroom.” Ralph Smith stood staring into the sky, watching it change from white, to yellow, to red, to purple, until all that remained was “a cylinder of white smoke,” a column that “seemed to move ponderously.” What Ralph Smith saw that morning in the desert of New Mexico was the first ever detonation of an atomic bomb, a direct result of the Manhattan Project, which was code named “Trinity.” He saw what it looks like when 22 kilotons of TNT are detonated, and the dazzling burst of white light that this reaction produces.

And then, just three weeks after the Trinity test, on August the 6th, on the other side of the world, the residents of Hiroshima, Japan were brought face-to-face with the bomb. 80,000 people, in an instant. Thousands more died in the aftermath from the radiation. It was the single most violent moment in this country’s history, an event of unimaginable desolation, a display of that worst that human beings are capable of. And it took place on a principal feast of the church, as August the 6th is the feast of the Transfiguration—the moment when the true nature of Jesus is revealed on the holy mountain, in a dazzling display of divine glory. The church also tells this story today, on the last Sunday after the Epiphany. But ever since August 1945, only 75 years ago, it’s almost impossible to hear about the Transfiguration without also thinking of Hiroshima. The moment when the full radiance of Jesus’ glory is revealed and we see him as the Son of God—when our eyes are opened and we see the world as it really is—juxtaposed with a horror that we hope the world will never see again.

But as wonderful a vision as the Transfiguration was, we should not mistake it for a moment of peace and serenity. It was more like an earthquake. As though the sky was ripped apart and the disciples were bathed in a brightness far brighter than the sun. Peter, James, and John think that they are going to have some alone-time with Jesus, away from all the other disciples and the crowds who follow him. Perhaps they would spend some quiet time in prayer; or perhaps they would sit and listen attentively to his teaching. What they were not prepared for was the Majestic Glory that literally knocked them to the ground, and seeing the founding fathers of their faith before their very eyes. The awe that the disciples experience should show us, at the very least, that Jesus is not an ordinary guy. The company he keeps with Moses and Elijah, who personify the Law and the Prophets, means that he has fulfilled them; that he is their culmination.

Some say that Jesus was a “great moral teacher,” and nothing more. Fair enough. But then what would be the point of a story like the Transfiguration? What teaching did he impart? If Moses descended Mount Sinai with stone tablets inscribed with God’s Law, what did Jesus descend with? Nothing. Why? Because we are supposed to see a glimpse of how things really are. Of who Jesus really is. Shining with the radiance of God’s glory. The only-begotten Son of God. The Word made flesh. Light from Light. The Beloved, in whom God is pleased to dwell.

Transfiguration icon by Theophanes the Greek.

We all have our “mountain-top” experiences, at one point or another. Maybe yours was the “sacred” kind of mountain-top experience: a time you went on a religious retreat and had a distinct sense of God’s presence; maybe it was something more “secular,” like seeing the Grand Canyon for the first time with your own eyes, or when you were a kid and having the time of your life at summer camp. And the thing about mountain-top experiences is that it’s really, really hard to come down from the mountain. You want to stay up there forever. I can remember kids ugly-crying on the last day of summer camp. And that’s kind of like what’s going on with Peter on the mountain—he sees a vision of heaven and he just doesn’t want to leave it. But here’s the rub about the mountain-top: it may show us the way the world should be, but there is still the world such as it is. Peter is ready to seize hold of heaven and put down roots, till a voice from heaven finally knocks him off his feet. Just because Jesus is the Son, the Beloved, and Peter and the others finally see it, doesn’t mean that Jesus will not walk down the mountain and into Jerusalem, where he will be betrayed, arrested, scourged, mocked, and crucified. He comes down from the mountain because he has chosen to be among us, no matter what. Because Jesus does not abandon the world, and he is not indifferent to suffering. He is not indifferent to the hundreds of thousands of people who were killed when the bomb fell on Hiroshima, on the feast of the Transfiguration. And he is not indifferent to the suffering that we experience now.

Christianity is not an escapist religion. Don’t believe anyone who tells you that. If it’s all pie-in-the-sky, then Jesus would have stayed on the mountain. And this is why, I think, that Jesus orders the disciples to tell no one about the vision until after he had been raised from the dead. Without the knowledge that Christ humbled himself to the point of death, even death on a cross, and finally destroyed death by rising from the grave—without that, the Transfiguration story doesn’t really mean much. Because if you are suffering, why would you care about a vision of Majestic Glory that took place on a far-off mountain? It’s got nothing to do with you. But if you told me about a God who took on suffering, who experienced suffering in the body, and who really was subjected to the worst that human beings are capable of—and that abject suffering and death was not the end for him? Well now I’m listening. Now, I’m interested. The Transfiguration is a glimpse, but we can’t see it clearly unless we are looking back at it. And there is no escape to heaven that leaves behind the troubles of earth. Jesus comes down off the mountain; and we are meant to come with him, so that we can shine the light of his radiance into a broken world. So that we can be a part of the healing that he brings.

May God grant us the grace to do so. May the radiance of Christ fill our hearts and make us glow with his presence. And may we be strengthened to bear our crosses, whatever they are, and to know that we are not alone, but that Christ is always with us, walking alongside us every step of the way.

Amen.