Reflecting Jesus - Rector's Rambling for August 2, 2020

When my wife was expecting our third child, I continued my annoying game of thinking of good biblical or churchy names for our children.  When Jennifer was expecting with Samuel, our first, I rushed back one day from Evening Prayer with the perfect Bible name suggestion: Mephibosheth (King Saul’s grandson, found in 2 Samuel 4:4).  Jennifer was suitably horrified.  She also torpedoed my hoped for three sons, which I thought we could name Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.  I got the three sons after all, but not the names.

But when Jennifer was expecting with William, his due date was near The Feast of the Transfiguration, August 6.  I thought it would been nice to incorporate the Feast day into his naming.  But my choice of Fuller was not so popular either: “And his raiment became shining, exceeding white as snow; so as no fuller on earth can white them.”  Mark 9:3

This week on Thursday we will celebrate at 10:30 AM the Feast of the Transfiguration, where we celebrate Jesus appearing to his inner core group of apostles in this amazing, glowing state.  He also appears with Elijah and Moses.  The apostles are so stunned, Peter offers to build three tabernacles, one for each, as the people of ancient Israel did to house the Ark of the Covenant, as they journeyed through the dessert.

Peter, in seeing Jesus so radiant, must have been reminded of what happened to Moses when he saw God face to face.  God’s radiance reflected onto him and his own face shown so brightly that the people of Israel asked him to veil his face from the brightness.

But in the case of Moses, the brightness was a reflection of God’s glory that lighted him up.  But for Jesus, he did not need an external source of glory to reflect on him, but rather those apostles saw the DIVINITY of the second person of the Holy Trinity which was veiled under his own human flesh while he dwelt on earth.  Almost as if it leaked out in that instance in the presence of Moses and Elijah.

But Peter makes a mistake in offering to build three tabernacles.  The Tabernacle is the place where God uniquely dwelt for the people of Israel, represented by the Ark.  And only one of those three persons they saw was divine – Jesus.  Elijah and Moses were the among the greatest of the old testament personages, and their presence was a sign to the apostles of Jesus’ pre-existence in human form, but a sign to the Jewish hearers of just the right type of company Jesus kept.

Let us let Jesus shine in and through us.