This had to be a special moment in the lives of the disciples. They had been with Jesus for some time and had experienced the ups and downs of Jesus’ ministry. The miraculous cures, the messages of compassion and forgiveness, but also the times when Jesus and His message are rejected by the people, and He has to leave a town or village.
Moments like those probably put some doubt in the disciples’ minds as to who Jesus really was, and if He was in fact whom He said He was; the son of God.
But then comes the Transfiguration, a moment when it all seems to come together. And so, their natural reaction is “let’s freeze the moment; let’s stay on the Mountain.”
The Rev. Bill Bausch in one of his writings compares it to those moments in life when our commitments, our good intentions, are challenged. He speaks of us going through a series of steps.
First, we attempt to revise “the dream.” You come to see the impact that the realities of life have on the original dream or commitment.
The second stage is the temptation to escape. Escape can take the form of cynicism or pragmatism. Cynicism, the loss of a sense of the special, a sense of wonder. Pragmatism, the message, the commitment, becomes lost in legalisms and rights.
The third stage Bausch says is what he calls the turnaround. You realize that life isn’t the ideal, that commitments take time and effort, and that there will be setbacks and failures.
The fourth stage is acceptance, you accept life with all of its challenges. Finally, the 5th stage, you get the ideal back.
Like the disciples you are ready to go back down the mountain and recommit yourself to the work at hand, the work of building up the Kingdom of God.
The Theologian Sandra Sneiders once said that, “the greatest challenge to a commitment is not that circumstances change, or events happen, or situations are different, but rather that we become complacent.”
May we never lose sight of the ideal. May we never lose sight of Christ! When we hear this Gospel proclaimed, let us not think of it in terms of magic, but rather as an important lesson in life.
Stay focused on the ideal but be willing to go through the passages in life that make the ideal possible. Never allow yourself to become complacent.