A Sermon Shared With the People of St. Matthew’s, St. Paul, February 19, 2012

Mark 9:2-9

Blair Pogue

The most recent issue of The New Yorker includes an article titled “Transfiguration.” It contains the true story of Dallas Wiens, how he lost his face and almost lost his life, and how both of them came back in a new way. Wiens was one of those troubled souls whose descent began in adolescence. At age 14 he witnessed a traumatic incident that affected him so much that he decided to detach himself from all emotion and never smile again. At age 18 he began to take drugs, and then to sell them. He also began carrying guns. Wiens joined the army to straighten himself out, but he had a bad knee and trouble with authority, and ended up dropping out. Poverty drew him back to his home state of Texas, he got a woman pregnant, married her, and then divorced. After the divorce he truly wanted to change and to escape “the mess of his story.” He wanted to be “a good father, a better man. Like all of us, he kept trying to find his way.[1]

Before he could return to the army, Wiens needed civilian medical and psychological examinations and he didn’t have the money. To get it, he took a job painting the Ridglea Baptist Church in Fort Worth with his oldest brother and his uncle. In order to do some touchup painting, one of them needed to go up on a boom lift. They decided that Wiens would go up, and his uncle remembered that he seemed preoccupied. Wiens kept going up, looking straight ahead, unaware of what was around him until his head hit a high-voltage electrical wire suspended above him. The electricity gripped his body and coursed through his head and the left side of his torso. The smell of an electrical burn hung in the air. His uncle thought, “I just killed my nephew.”[2]

Wiens miraculously survived his electrocution. He had no memory of being electrocuted, but clearly remembered a powerful religious experience. According to the author of The New Yorker article, “at the moment his head touched the high-voltage line, he had a profound sense of dying, of being sucked into an infinite void, which he understood to be Hell. ‘I saw every sin flash before my eyes, and then I felt a pain that I never before or since felt,’ he said. ‘It wasn’t physical and it wasn’t internal. It was like being forsaken, that’s the only way to describe it. I remember crying out and hearing nothing, and it was utter impermeable darkness. It was basically separation completely from the divine, and then coming back with God’s arms around me and an overwhelming sense of peace.’” After his electrocution Wiens was a changed man. He embraced the faith he had rejected, saying he could never deny God’s existence.[3]

What ensued was a long story of overcoming odds, endurance, heroism, suffering, loss and new beginnings. Wiens lost his entire face, including his ability to see, smell, or taste. He thus lost the living symbol of his identity. Over time the doctors rebuilt his face, and Wiens rebuilt his life. The journey has been long and hard for Wiens and his doctors, a journey full of pain and loss. But it has also be a journey toward new life and possibilities. Even though Wiens is now blind, he is able to see what is most important more clearly than before.

The account of Jesus’ transfiguration on a mountain before Peter, James and John comes before another hard and long journey. Mark’s account of the transfiguration takes place in the middle of his Gospel, half way between Jesus’ baptism and death on a cross. During the transfiguration a voice from a cloud says, “this is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!” At Jesus’ baptism a voice from heaven spoke directly to Jesus, “you are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” At Jesus’ death a Roman soldier reaffirms these statements of Jesus’ identity when he says, “truly this man was God’s son!”

Jesus’ transfiguration is a powerful event for all who witness it, a true mountaintop experience. It evokes awe, respect and fear in the disciples. Jesus asks them to keep what they’ve seen and experienced quiet until his resurrection. Imagine keeping such a powerful and transformative experience quiet. Then again, imagine trying to tell someone about it. I wonder if you’ve had a powerful experience of God’s presence that you’ve kept to yourself, fearing that others would think you were crazy, or a little flaky?

It’s no accident that the transfiguration takes place before Jesus’ journey to the cross, and that this particular Gospel is assigned to the last Sunday after the Epiphany. We’ve spent weeks pondering the many ways Jesus manifested himself to those around him, and continues to manifest himself to us today. And now we are on the cusp of a challenging and important journey called Lent, which mirrors the challenging journey life can be.

The account of Jesus’ transfiguration is located in a section of Mark’s gospel that explores Jesus’ teachings and healings focused on sight and blindness. While our story may not be as dramatic as that of Dallas Wiens, many of us have had experiences of God’s presence and clarity about who God is and what is important in life. We’ve all experienced moments of searching, blindness, and doubt. What’s powerful to me about the story of the transfiguration is that Jesus’ followers are given clarity about who Jesus is right before the most difficult journey of their lives. Jesus is the Messiah, the anointed one. He is God’s Beloved. Listen to him!

Further, this vision of Jesus doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It comes in the context of Jesus’ relationship with the disciples. Jesus lives with his students, teaches them, suffers with them and laughs with them. He shares his life with the disciples, embracing them with love, generosity and forgiveness despite their shortcomings and doubts. Dallas Wiens was able to change because he experienced God’s embrace. He felt God’s arms around him after a brief glimpse of what it would be like to live without God. That glimpse was so horrible and that embrace so powerful that Wiens was forever changed.

The new identity God gives us enables us to acknowledge the truth about our lives and the world we live in. It gives us the hope and courage to accept God’s invitation to follow Jesus wholeheartedly, to change, and to participate in the Holy Spirit’s work of bringing reconciliation and new life to people and places written off by others and considered dead. Knowing that we are God’s beloved and our eventual destiny is that of resurrection life, we are able to remain hopeful even in the most difficult situations. May we live into the new identity God gives us in Christ, trusting God’s embrace. Amen.