My sermon for Transfiguration 2004, series C - “Beauty, in the Dark,” follows in this extended entry.
Grace, mercy and peace be unto you all from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
We pray.
Father of infinite mysteries and Lord of our hearts, keep us steadfast in knowledge of you and guide us to ever seek your face every day of our lives. Remind us constantly that your hand is in all we do and all we see. May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Have you ever had even one moment of perfect beauty? I used to think about this all the time when I was in college, and especially in high school - which for me was actually not all that long ago. I’m going to get to a specific example in a mintue, but I want you to think about this right now - have you ever had one of those moments? A moment of perfect beauty? A moment of extreme clarity? A moment where everything just seemed to make sense - where, for even a short few seconds, you were completely at ease and at peace with your life and with God’s plan for you? It can take many different forms and can be many different things to different people.
Maybe, for some of you, it would be looking at a piece of art. Or a stained glass window. Or being in a quiet church, with no one else around, and the silence like a shell around you - feeling so small in the presence of God and of being in his house. For some of you, it could be sometimes when you’re sitting here in church, listening to a hymn or a sermon, or a Scripture reading, and your mind wanders for just a second - and there it is. Or you could be listening to a particular piece of music, or thinking about a particular event that’s happened to you in your lifetime.
But sometimes - well, OK, often - there are moments in your life where you feel the exact opposite in your life; where you feel like God’s plan and his guidance are miles away from where you are and what you’re going through, and you don’t know what to do. It’s human nature to want to know more about what’s going on - to see where you fit in with God’s plan like we tend to see when those moments appear in our lives. We’d be able to see it more clearly if it weren’t for that pesky problem of our sin messing everything up. It’s a pretty lonely feeling when you aren’t sure where your life is headed, or whether or not what you’re doing is making a whole lot of difference.
I was reminded about these little moments by something I was watching not all that long ago - I was watching a TV show that I first saw a few years back - and here’s what happens - there’s a guy who’s in the military, and he’s facing problems with all sorts of people plotting against him, and a huge war looming on the horizon, where he’s going to have to make hard decisions and his situation is going to become cloudy. His life is bothersome and wearisome. He’s even being accused of murdering someone. And in this particular episode, he’s being trained for the future by his mentor. And this mentor leads him to the darkest corner of the neighborhood - a gritty, industrial corridor, a place to which no one would ever like to voluntarily go. And this military leader asks: “What is in that place?”
The mentor responds: “One moment of perfect beauty.”
And so, the guy goes into this crawlspace, where he is met with nothing but darkness - a metaphor for his situation - and this:
**play “Puer natus est nobis”**
The words are those of Isaiah - “Unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given.”
He leaves that place in a different mindset - and when his assistant asked him later what he had seen, he responds: “Beauty, in the dark.”
Beauty, in the dark.
My moment was my senior year in high school - we were on a youth retreat at a wonderful place called Land Between the Lakes in Tennessee. And this particular morning, I was the first person up - chaperone or youth -something like six a.m., with the sun just barely up over the horizon. And here’s what I remember: I remember standing in the lodge with a cup of tea, and looking out onto the lake - and it was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. The water was clear and still in the dead of February cold - not frozen, but not moving - and the sky was without a single cloud, just bright sunshine. And I looked out at the lake, and I saw the bloue of the lake fade into white at the horizon, and the white of the horizon fade slowly into the deep blue of the sky above.
High school was a confusing and turbulent time, looking back on it - well, you remember what adolescence was like - but in that moment, I knew I could do anything I wanted to, and I knew that God knew what he was doing with me.
It was one moment of perfect beauty.
Beauty, in the dark.
Moses messed things up a bit. God told him to trust in him alone, and to take care of his people as his servant, and Moses went off and got angry one day and trusted in himself more than God. And so God called him out and broke to him the bad news - they’d been wandering in the wilderness, living off only God and his providence, with the promise that they would receive their admittance into the land promised to Abraham - something they had been waiting for for a long time. But because Moses trusted in himself and not in God, he was not going to be given access to that land - instead, his student Joshua would lead the people into Caanan.
Moses’ life at this point is a storm of darkness and disappointment - but God takes him up to Mount Nebo and shows him the whole of the land he is going to give the people of Israel - every beautiful corner of it, from one side to the other. He gives Moses one moment of perfect beauty before his death, and then God himself buries Moses and lays him to rest as his chosen servant to the people. “This is the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob when I said, ‘I will give it to your descendants.’ I have let you see it with your eyes, but you will not cross over into it.”
Beauty, in the dark.
The disciples have no idea what is going to befall them at the end of Jesus’ earthly ministry; everything is going along well for them, and they are learning at the feet of Jesus, trying to understand the things he is saying to them. But soon, Jesus will be taken from them, arrested, beaten, tried, and executed - and the threat will be that his followers will be next. There will be persecution, contempt, and hatred aimed towards these followers of the Christ, and they will look for something upon which to pin their hopes.
To this point, Jesus has chosen to humble himself to be a human being, veiling his divine power and living the life of people like you and like me. He got hungry, he got thirsty, he got tired - he felt the same emotions you and I feel. Think about it - the God of the universe - infinite in majesty and glory, limited himself to human flesh and blood, to save you and me. It must have been very difficult for Jesus.
But on this night, Jesus allows the briefest glimpse at a small part of his divine presence. He prays, and becomes bright and blinding. Moses and Elijah appear and begin to speak with him about what he must do - his coming sacrifice on the cross to save all of humanity. This glorious appearance of Christ with the two great prophets of Israel is for the benefit of those disciples, of course taking a nap at the time, who would not understand what they were seeing. “It is good for us to be here,” Peter says. At least he has some kind of idea that this is a very special event.
God knows that his people - his sheep - need a little guidance every now and then. The cloud of God’s presence envelops them, and hear the voice of God - “This is my Son, whom I have chosen; listen to him!” Then, as soon as the moment had begun, it was gone - the cloud receded, Moses and Elijah were gone, and Jesus was again veiling his divinity in his humanity.
The disciples wouldn’t say anything to anyone about this event, because they didn’t understand it. But in the times of darkness and persecution, they would come to understand the nature of Christ - that of their God and Lord, and they would find comfort in their memory of this one special night. This one moment of perfect beauty.
They would find beauty, in the dark.
You, too, can find beauty in the dark. There is no secret to it, there’s nowhere you need to go, there’s nothing you need to do, no money you need to pay. I’m sure many of you have been thinking about moments in your life where you’ve felt the same way as the examples I’ve given you so far. You can find it - but where, you may ask?
We’re headed into the season of Lent - 40 days minus Sundays worth of church year - where our call is to consider our situation, to meditate on what Christ has done for us and his passion and sacrifice on the cross, and to come to God for forgiveness. It’s a very introspective time - and Lutherans like us tend to be very good at making it maybe just a little more morose than it really needs to be - but the point is that, when we look at our own lives and compare them to what God has done for us, our own lives look pretty dark.
We live in a world of darkness and sin, where many people live without faith and knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ. It can feel oppressive. It can feel depressing. Sin clouds our vision and darkens our skies. Without Christ, the world is empty, void, and darker than the blackest of nights.
So when you’re facing that 99 per cent of your life where you’re not sure where to turn, and you’re far away from those moments of perfect beauty, remember the divine Christ of the Transfiguration. Remember the words of St. Paul: “For God, who said, “Let light shine out of the darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the ligth of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.”
Christ is your light in the darkness. His Word is your beacon of hope in the storm of sin and death. The Spirit of God in your heart brings light to you just like Christ brought light to those disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration.
Want to know where you can find moments of perfect beauty? Drop the worry, drop the doubt, drop your cares and concerns, drop your anguish, your sadness, your pain - and turn towards the shining face of Christ. Turn to your God - and have faith that he knows what he is doing. Hold on to that faith - hold on to Christ - for that is where you will find your solace and your peace.
In Christ, you will find beauty, in the dark.
