A Reflection for the Last Sunday after Epiphany All Saints’ Church,
Southern Shores, N.C. February 15, 2015 Thomas
E. Wilson, Rector
Mountain Top
Epiphanies
This was the weekend of St. Valentine's Day. I remember 26
years ago, during the Season of Epiphany, I was vacationing in Guatemala on a
trip with my mother during the week before Valentine's. I was enjoying being
with my mother, but on my solitary walk in the fog one day in the highlands
around Lake Atitlan, I reflected that I was really missing this woman I knew
back in Virginia. My mother and I had just returned from Atitlan to Antigua,
and we went shopping at the Jade Market there.
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| Jade Factory in Antigua |
.
This is the last Sunday of Epiphany and the last Sunday
before Lent. Epiphany means a
manifestation, a sudden insight and realization, when we look at something that
is right before us and then realize its deeper significance and meaning. The
season of Epiphany begins with the story of the Magi who see a star and have a
revelation that the star means that a new kind of Kingdom is coming, and they
follow the star until they come to the place where the child Jesus lies. These
were gentiles who knew nothing of the Jewish hope for a Messiah, but on their
journey they find the deeper meaning of what they have seen. The Epiphany season
ends with the story of the Transfiguration when Jesus is seen by his disciples
as they are in the fog on top of a mountain. Suddenly the light of the glory of
God shines through Jesus, and when the fog clears, they begin to look for a
deeper meaning of the event. They realize that this Jesus is more than just a
teacher, but is a human being filled with the creative energy that began the
universe. They see a sacred space opening up to the Divine and they want to set
up a memorial to this place. However, Jesus tells them that they must go down
the mountain and continue the ministry,
except now their ministry carries a deeper dimension.
If you have noticed, every Sunday of the Epiphany season has
had a theme of seeing something anew, which raises questions and calls for
re-action and action.
Mountaintop experiences always carry a desire to linger in
the place of the numinous, but we are to bring the experience of the numinous
to daily life. I meet with a group of friends each week, and we have three
questions we answer with each other. They are:
a) What was your moment closest to Christ this week? In essence,
that question is designed to share an experience of the numinous, and since I
know that I will be asked this question, I try to keep my eyes open all the
time.
b) What did you study this week? This question is designed to
get us to use our brains to study and to see a deeper dimension to what we have
experienced.
c)
What has been your action? This question is to
keep us from staying on mountaintops and get to the living out of our numinous
experience to benefit the world in which we live.
In essence, every week we go through the Epiphany exercise
of being open to seeing the glory of God shine through Christ in this world, we
try to figure out what that experience means, and then we take it into everyday
life. We use our senses to touch, smell, and see the experience of God alive in
this world, we use our minds to better understand, and we use our hands to put
ourselves into Christ's work in the world.
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| Looking
toward the gate off Salah Ed-Din into the compound of the Diocese of
Jerusalem, St. George's College and the Anglican Cathedral of St George borrowed from myjourney-algodon.blogspot. |
Twenty one years ago around this time of the year during
Lent, Pat and I went to St. George’s College in Jerusalem to study a course
called “The Palestine of Jesus.” We read books in preparation for each class,
and every night we would have a lecture about what we would experience the next
day, with an emphasis on what to look for. We would have the experience the
next day and, when we got back to our dormitory, we would share what we had
learned and get ready for the next day’s activities.
One day we went to Mount Tabor that tradition suggests was
the Mountain of the Transfiguration. The road was crooked, and when we got to
the end of it, we had a climb to the top of the mountain, and there, a couple
thousand feet down, lay the Valley of Jezreel which opened up to show a major
trade route full of history. In my imagination I was able to visualize the
story from the Book of Judges in the 11th century BC with Barak and
Deborah looking down on the armies and chariots of Sissera and planning the
trap they were going to spring and defeat his army in order to set the people
free from domination by the Canaanites. I saw the armies of the Pharaoh Neccho II
of Egypt in the 7th Century BC marching up to challenge the
Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar for control of the Middle East. Neccho's
defeat sealed the fate of Jerusalem which was captured by the Babylonians and
taken into exile. I saw the Roman armies of Octavian moving down to destroy
Antony and Cleopatra in the 1st Century BC. I saw Jesus in the 1st
Century AD look down on this valley of violence and show the energy of God's
love shining through him. There is a Franciscan Monastery there at the site and
Francis tried to hold on to Jesus' message of love and peace. Yet, for the last
twenty centuries, the Valley which had been the site of the numinous has seen
continuous warfare. Over the centuries,
people have set up up memorials but somehow we have never gotten around to seeing
the deeper truth that God's love and peace is meant to be shared with the
people down in the valley in everyday life.
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| Franciscan Monastery on top of Mt. Tabor photo taken by Shalom Holy Tours |
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| when the fog come in on Mount Tabor looking over Jezreel Valley - - photo from feuchtblog.net |
As we were standing there, the fog came in across the
coastal plain off the Mediterranean and we were unable to see the valley or the
mountain itself, which forced us to look deeper into ourselves and reflect on
what the Transfiguration means. The Mount of the Transfiguration is not just in
Israel but in every hill, valley, molehill, and beach all over the world, and
it is not just that one time 21 centuries ago when Jesus was transfigured so
that we might see the God in him shining through; I think that if we are to
follow Jesus, then we are to allow the love and peace of God to shine through us.
If we can just slow down in the fog of our lives, we can hear Christ asking us
to allow God's love and peace to shine through us, change us and the world, and
go down into the valley of everyday life.
Mountain Top Epiphanies
Looking, but not seeing,
yet with new light being
as we now so apprehend
a once overlooked friend.
Discovering on the climb
which is here all the time
bringing us all new lease
of Divine's loving peace.
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