Lectionary texts for the Last Sunday after Epiphany/Transfiguration Sunday
I haven't been able to take the time I'd like lately to explore and connect the lectionary texts, but I just read an article this morning called "Waking to Mystery" by Kimberlee Conway Ireton that connects to the Transfiguration passage specifically. She talks about how the disciples' response ("Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.") betrays a desire to hold on to the mystery they behold, instead of letting it flow through them and learning to trust in uncertainty.
The Transfiguration is a revelation, but it's a revelation of something amazingly mysterious that we can only hold in trust and contentment that the God of Love will be true to the promise of redemption. An alternative response is to attempt to contain the mystery in our own language and definitions of reality (as in, "Let us build a dwelling for you") and in doing so, we don't diminish the mystery itself, but we miss the experience of it and potentially distort the experience for others--which leads to the Corinthians passage. God is light, but as people who are both darkness and light, we cannot fully comprehend the light. God is not the maintainer of the veil--the "gods" of the world hold that post--but God is the lifter of the veil ("At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom" [Matt. 27:51]).
Let us be vigilant for the mysterious light of the risen Christ that is all around us, not trying to control revelation or explain it away, but trusting that there will be a time when we will see with clarity who we are and who God is.
