the transfiguration: how the holy one is revealed; how we receive the revelation

this year i have been struck by the cloud in this story. it is high summer, and this is certainly a feast of light, the antipode of candlemass, when simeon and anna recognized the light of the holy one in the face of the infant jesus. peter and james and john are beginning to stay awake, and they see the glory of jesus. then comes the cloud, and they are afraid--terrified is the word the nrsv uses.

ah, how like these three i find myself. it is not the absence of the holy within the cloud which is terrifying, it is the presence, and the voice: "this is my son, my chosen; listen to him." i want the revelation of the holy to be all nice and shiny, in a context i can understand, in which i can celebrate my heritage, my past experience (surrounded by moses and elijah, in other words). this cloud thing scares me wordless. like peter, i don't know what i'm saying, i want to build shrines. but of course it is the cloud that always announces the presence of the holy in scripture.

i find the contrast that paul makes in the second letter to the church in corinth very perceptive: ". . .the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God." (4:4) this date, the sixth of august, is also the anniversary of fallen adam's greatest light, the bomb over hiroshima. the god of this world wants to keep us dazzled, to pretend that light is all there is, to deny us the cloud, the sheer silence in which the beloved revealed himself to elijah (1 kings 19:12) we find it hard to take time to keep silence (luke 9:36), to treasure these things in our hearts (luke 2:51).

we read in the eucharist for this day peter's remembrance of the transfiguration (2 peter 1:13-21). but i think we overlook john's reflection on his experience. both peter and john are old as they write, peter explicitly referring to his near death. john's treasured memory becomes part of the prologue to his magnificent gospel, even as his intimate memory of a breakfast on the beach after the resurrection, including jesus' talking about these two friends' deaths, becomes the postlogue. john writes:

"in the beginning was the word,
and the word was with god,
and the word was god.
the same was in the beginning with god.
all things were made by him;
and without him was not any thing made that was made.
in him was life; and the life was the light of men.
and the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.
. . .
that was the true light,
which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.
he was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.
he came unto his own, and his own received him not.
but as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God,
even to them that believe on his name:
which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of god.
and the word was made flesh, and dwelt among us,
(and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the father,) full of grace and truth." (john 1:1-5, 10-14)