4th or 5th February Trinity
(5th Sunday before Easter)
Matthew 17: 1-13
After six days, Jesus took with him Peter, James, and John the brother
of James and led them together up a high mountain apart from the others.
There his appearance was transformed before them. His face shone bright
as the sun, and his garments became white, shining bright as the light. And
behold, there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, conversing in the spirit
with Jesus.
And
Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be in this place. If you wish,
I will build here three shelters, one for you, one for Moses and one for
Elijah.”
While he was still speaking, a bright cloud overshadowed them and
suddenly they heard a voice from the cloud that said, “This is my son, whom I love.
In him, I am revealed. Hear him.”
When the disciples heard this, they fell on their faces to the ground in
awe and terror.
And Jesus approached them, and touching them said, “Rise, and do not
fear.”
And raising their eyes, they saw no one except Jesus.
As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus instructed them: “Tell no
one what you have seen until the Son of Man has risen from the dead.”
And the disciples asked him, “What is meant when the scribes say, ‘First
Elijah must come again’?” He answered, “Elijah comes indeed, and prepares
everything [restores all things]. But I say to you, Elijah has already come,
and the people did not recognize him, but rather have done to him whatever they
pleased. In the same way the Son of Man will suffer much at their hands.”
Then the disciples understood that he was speaking to them about John
the Baptist.
4th February Trinity
Matthew 17: 1-13
Dandelions rise in leaves and blossom in the warmth of the
sun. The blossoms form seed globes, a miniature cosmos. The wind disperses the
seeds so that they fall to the earth in a different place; so that the cycle of
living growth and development on earth can continue and spread in a new season.
In the scene of the Transfiguration, Christ blossoms before
the eyes of His three disciples. They begin to understand the cosmic, divine
nature of Jesus, the Christ, and to perceive how he converses with the two
great luminaries of the Hebrew cosmos, Moses, the giver of the law, and Elijah,
the prophet who gives voice to the divine.
Peter responds in the traditional way of his forefathers by
offering to build external shrines for these spiritual beings. But the voice of
the Father intervenes—‘This is my Son; listen to Him; take his words into your
heart.’ Matthew 17:5 And the three
disciples fall to the ground.
Christ came to establish a new relationship between the
beings of the spiritual world and human beings on earth. It is to be a
relationship of conscious understanding, of conversation, rather than an
adherence to the law and traditional procedure. So Jesus helps them up, and
continues to enlighten their understanding. He says to them that the being of
Elijah, whom they had just seen conversing with Him, had indeed already
returned to earth to prepare for the coming of the Messiah. He had been John
the Baptist, who by then had already been put to death, just as Christ predicts
that He Himself soon would be. With John the Baptist, the process of seeding
this new relationship between heaven and earth began; human beings dwelling in
the cosmos again return to earth.
The cosmic blossom
creates out of our lives seeds that fall to the earth, to live and grow and
blossom again. Thus do our human spirits blossom in God’s warmth and light;
seeds of a new life are carried by the spirit-wind, to return again to the
earth in a new place and time, to live and grow further in the light of God.
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