Since it’s Valentine’s Day weekend, we’re going to start with the first testament reading this morning. Elijah and Elisha. It’s like the saddest break-up story ever. Elisha has been following and learning from Elijah, they’ve been through some stuff, and now while Elijah is on his way to the end of his life on earth, Elisha goes as far as he is able with his mentor. It seems everywhere they go there are other prophets reminding Elisha that Elijah is going to be leaving him. “Shut up, I know. Leave me alone!” he tells them. Don’t want to think about his leaving, thank you very much. Don’t want to think about the end. Elijah himself tells him that he’s being sent farther and farther away. Three times, he’s told, three times he covers his ears. “As you live and as the Lord lives, I will not leave you!” Heartbreaking, right? It’s similar to what Ruth tells Naomi: “Where you go, I will go. Your people will be my people, your God will be my God.” Often this is read at weddings, these words spoken between a mother-in-law and her daughter-in-law, both of whom have lost dear men in their lives. What a happy Valentine’s Day weekend reading, isn’t it?
Jesus tells his disciples again and again throughout the Gospel of Mark that the son of humanity will be delivered up to die and then three days later rise. They hear the words coming out of his mouth, but they just don’t make sense. “Surely this will never happen to you!” they exclaim. “Don’t worry, we’ve got your back, we won’t let the big bad Romans make a public spectacle of you.” Peter even goes as far as to say ‘even if everyone else should forsake you, I would gladly even die for you.’ We know how well that worked out for poor Peter.
And I wonder if today’s story was what Peter was thinking of when he said that. Not the Elijah/Elisha story, but the bright and glorious mountaintop experience Peter, James, and John had been witnesses to. I mean, if a guy goes up on a mountain in scripture, it’s to talk with God. If a guy goes up a mountain and there’s a bright light, there’s definitely something holy there, like when Moses spent 40 days on the mountain receiving the ten commandments. Moses had to wear a veil over his face when he came back, his face shone so brightly. It terrified the Israelites to no end. Not to mention that when Moses did come back down the mountain, the people had made themselves a golden calf to worship and there was a huge mess of folks who got killed for it. The Moses-in-the-wilderness-with-the-people story is gory and exciting and treacherous and full of miracles. I may have mentioned before that Game of Thrones has got nothing on the stories of the First Testament.
So Jesus is on the mountain, talking with Moses and Elijah. We’ve heard a bit of the Elijah story this morning, but his prophetic ministry is fascinating. He’s the one who called down three years of famine because of the terrible king Ahab and his terrible queen Jezebel. He’s the one who stayed with the widow and kept her jar of flour from running out during the famine. He raised that widow’s son back to life when he died, and he contended against 50 prophets of Ba’al on the mountain where God swallowed up the sacrifices with fire from heaven.
And it’s this Elijah who is on the mountain with Jesus and Moses, while Peter, James, and John look on. Elijah who represents the prophetic tradition, and Moses who represents the law. The defining characters of Jewish history and tradition and practice, right up there in plain sight, conferring with Jesus, when this great cloud covers them, the glory of the Lord, and they hear it spoken that “This is my Beloved Son. Listen to him!” No wonder Peter is overwhelmed. And wouldn’t it be great to stay up on that mountain where God’s glory is evident, where the founders of our faith are right there to teach us, where the rest of the world is down the mountain and has to come to where we are to experience this miracle.
No wonder Peter thought it would be a hayride from here on out. Seeing Jesus in that incredible light, it’s like falling head-over-heels in love and wanting to stay forever on your first date. The all-consuming awe of seeing the absolute best reality of the other person would give anyone a woozy head. But Jesus has already been telling them that he will be handed over and flogged. Jesus has already been telling them that the Son of Humanity came to serve, not to be served. Jesus has already been telling them that the Kingdom of God has come near, even before they had this vision.
Then Jesus comes down the mountain with them and tells them to keep quiet about the event until after he is raised from the dead. Which means he is going to die. Moses and Elijah don’t have any recording of their death. Moses just sort of disappeared, and Elijah was taken up in that swing low, sweet chariot. But Jesus will not be taken up until he has descended as far down as it is possible to descend. Jesus will next be held up for the world to see as a bloody corpse nailed to a couple of pieces of lumber. Hardly the glorious vision we have today. But that is the paradox. To know Jesus is to know him in both extremes. The glory and the pain. Life and death. Resurrected and walking among us.
We talk a bit about this when we confess in the words of the Nicene Creed. On this last Sunday of Epiphany, as we consider how Jesus has been revealed to us, we confess that Jesus is “God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one being with the Father.” Our historical creeds kind of skip over the preaching and healing and jump right from incarnation, being truly human from the Holy Spirit and the virgin, Mary, right into the suffering and death. From the mountain of glory to the mountain of the cross. Most folks in Jesus’ day would climb a mountain to get closer to God, but from that mountain, Jesus comes down into our valleys to get closer to us. He does not require us to bleach ourselves dazzlingly clean before we approach. He does not sit on a high and mighty throne and dole out blessings and curses from a far off distance. He does not tell Peter to go ahead and stay on that mountain with him. He goes down the mountain with Peter, James, and John, and continues to teach, to heal, to feed the hungry multitudes, and to lead the disciples in doing that same work.
When Elijah was ready to be taken up to heaven, he asked his faithful friend Elisha what he would desire as a parting gift. Elisha asked for a double share of Elijah’s spirit. The strength to continue on with the work he had begun with his mentor. And he received that gift. Just as we received the gift of the Holy Spirit in our baptisms, the Spirit of Jesus, to continue the Kingdom work he had begun, not in a distant place of glory, but right here among us. As Jesus walks down the mountain with us, into the valley of Lent, on the road to Easter, we rejoice in his presence, we struggle with his presence, we live in his presence, day-to-day. And on this Valentine’s Day weekend we reflect on the glory Jesus left behind out of his love for us, the life-consuming, life-giving love, which brought him down the mountain so that nothing ever again could come between us. Thanks be to God.
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