Transfiguration B; Mark 9:2-9

Today we are ending the church season of Epiphany. A season that celebrates Christ as the son of God. A Season that starts with the wisemen traveling to a far off land to see a newborn baby king in unsuspecting circumstances. It is a season of light, one that starts with a star and is defined the words of Isaiah, "the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light, those who walked in deepest darkness, upon them a light has shined."

Vern Victorson, pastor of First Lutheran in Albany surprised me a couple of months ago by using a phrase that I used to always associate with this verse and this season that I hadn't heard in a long time. He went out to visit some family near Seattle where I lived for many years and he came back and said it was dark and gloomy all of the days that we were there but on the last day, on the way to the airport, the mountain was out! It was amazing, he said. That phrase, the mountain is out, is unique to the Seattle area but everyone there knows what it means. To give you a sense of what it means, you need to understand the setting.

Seattle is a rainy place. When I first moved there, a particularly rainy year was
drawing to a close. Now, Seattle is a rainy place in general. It has a
reputation for being a place where people sit inside, in dim coffee
shops and read books, for a long time both the bookstore and library
patronage was higher there than anywhere else in the country. When it
rains all of the time what is there to do but stay inside and read
books and play games and stare out the rainy window. People have to
stay inside a lot! Which leads to the next part of Seattle's identity,
it is a place where at least in pictures and descriptions, everyone
walks around with umbrellas and galoshes. There is even a festival
there at the end of each summer, a huge festival named for umbrellas!
You get the picture right, it is rainy and people spend a great
deal of time with things covering their heads, ceilings, hats, hoods,
umbrellas, newspapers if they get stuck out in it and don't have
anything else, rain clouds it they get stuck out in it and don't even
have a newspaper. So all this said when I say that I moved to this
place at the close of a rainy year, I mean rainy. I mean rain week
after week. I mean rain, everyday, I mean rain or at least threatening
clouds for nearly all of 200 days (almost a whole year). 200 days with something hanging over the heads of all of Seattle. 200 days of walking in darkness.



This makes people a little grouchy and depressed but it does something
else to people too. It heightens their awareness of good
weather. One day, the first truly clear, sunny day that we'd had since I got there, I noticed a strange thing. People were stopping in the streets to stare south. And they had these amazingly serene, happy, peaceful looks on their faces. So I stopped to look too. And there, so close it seemed like you could reach out and touch it was an enormous mountain. Huge, beautiful and snow covered, magnificent, Mount Rainier and it really, really seemed like it was just at the end of the nearest street. As Vern said, the Mountain was out! Where had it been before? I walked by that place everyday and I had been there at least a few weeks. Never had I seen this glowing mountain before. It turns out that you can only see it on nice days. Very nice days, completely clear
and sunny days. Only on those days does the mountain come out and when it does you know. You know before you see it, you know from the moods of the people around you, you know from the crisp clean feel of the air and the energy around you. You know because people share the news, they come into stores, classrooms, libraries, doctor offices, hospitals everywhere and the say, "The mountain is out. Did you see?". I've heard people tell others things like, "you have to go and see. I'll hold your place in line, go before it's gone."

And rightly so because it fades just as quickly as it comes out. It is about 100 miles from the city and so haze anywhere in between obstructs the view of it. For a confirmation lesson recently I tried to find a picture that would capture this phenomenon for the students. I must have looked at 50 pictures but none of them captured the closeness of the mountain, the hugeness, the majesty of it. The best that I could do was describe it to them like I am to you now, which is only giving you a vague since of the experience.

That, I think, is why people in Seattle transform into these friendly bearers of good news whenever the mountain is out. You can't capture it. You can't share it in any way half as good as saying, "come and see. I know the days have been dark, I know you haven't seen the sun, I know winter is coming and it will rain, you'll have something covering your head for weeks and weeks you'll be in darkness but right now the sun is shining, right now you can experience true light, right now you can have an experience of the mountain, come and see."

In the gospel lesson today Jesus and three of his disciples take a trip up the side of a mountain and while they are up there the sky lightens, the clouds part, there is a dazzling bright light, Jesus is made to shine, his garments glow with a white whiter than snow and God is so close it is as if they can touch him. And so the very first thing that Peter wants to do is hold onto the feeling. To keep it.

He sees something good, something amazing after walking around in darkness, after hearing terrifying news from Jesus and he wants to prolong the good. It is as if the dark cloud that has been hanging over his head is gone and he can finally see light again. So he says, this is great, let's put down roots, lets stay here! And roots are good, roots make sense but not in this case. He says let's build a foundation so that this amazing connection with God can be permanent. And a foundation is good, you need a foundation! But not in this case. He says let's keep this just like it is so nothing will ever change and it can belong to us, just to us! And Jesus says hold it! You can almost hear the sound, there has been great triumphant music playing, coming to a crescendo, sounds of birds and good things and all of the sudden, the record screeches to a stop and everyone is startled back to reality.

No! You can't keep it for yourself! Didn't you just hear the voice of God say, Jesus is my son, listen to him? And hasn't Jesus been saying all along that he came to spread the good news? No Peter, you can't keep the mountain to yourself.

So they walk back down.

And as they walk down I wonder if they are talking about how to convey the majesty and awe of this experience to the other disciples and to all people. Trying, like I did, to find a picture accurate enough that it makes the others understand. But Jesus, the only one who ever sees the situation very clearly in the gospel says there is no way that telling people will do the trick. His meaning might not have been to keep a secret so much as convey a truth, you'll need to show those people if you want them to truly understand. Show those people at the very least how being on the mountain changed you, so that they will be willing to come out and look for God too. You need to go into banks, stores, classrooms and libraries and say God is out, come and see. Come and see what God is doing. Come and see the place where I saw God, come and hear the things that I learned from the voice of God.

It takes until the next mountain top and a little bit after that, even, before they really get it, after Jesus is crucified on a mountain top and overcomes death before they know that what they are meant to show people has way less to do with the mountain itself and everything to do with what happened there. It is then that they start telling people and showing people that God is all around, you don't have to go up the mountainside, you don't have to sacrifice in the temple, God sent his only son here to this place, right here so that the people who walk in deep darkness can have everlasting light.

Come and see what he has done, come and see how he has healed the sick. Come and see how he has mended the broken, come and see how he has given hope to the hopeless. God is here right now, God is out in the world right now. Come and see. We'll hold your place in line, we'll watch your shopping cart or better yet, we'll take your hand and show you just where to look, God is present in our lives here at Trinity, God is present in our work as a church, God is present in the anchor and in the Sunday School, God is present in the fellowship that we have with one another, God is present in the wine and bread we share and most of all God is present in the love we show to one another and to the strangers in our midst. Come and see. Amen