Exodus 24:15-18
Then Moses went up on the mountain, and the cloud covered the mountain. The glory of the Lord settled on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it for six days; on the seventh day he called to Moses out of the cloud. Now the appearance of the glory of the Lord was like a devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the sight of the people of Israel. Moses entered the cloud, and went up on the mountain. Moses was on the mountain for forty days and forty nights.
Matthew 17:1-9
Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. Then Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!” When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear. But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Get up and do not be afraid.” And when they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone. As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus ordered them, “Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.”
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There was an evening in college, I remember, when the unexpected warmth of springtime and the humidity of the evening conspired to bring a thick layer of fog over campus. Taking a break from my studies, I went out to wander in the fog. The lights along the pathway were obscured into fuzzy orange orbs. I couldn’t see but a few feet in front of me, meaning that all of my usual paths felt new and surprising. I could hear others who were out and about, but couldn’t see them. I felt happily alone, wrapped up in the cloud like a blanket. It was comforting. Warm. Reflective. Peaceful.
Sometimes that how the clouds of life feel. Safe and secure and all-embracing.
But then, there was the Saturday afternoon that baby Sam and I were trying to drive back home from Chicago to Decorah the my dad died. We made it to Madison in the clear, and then, shortly after passing by the city, a fog rolled in, surrounding my car in a blanket of thick white invisibility. I kept driving, slowly, focusing my eyes on the lights of the cars in front of me and on the lane lines along the side of the road. But as the December sun set, the darkness intensified the the cloud, and the cars I was following turned off at their destinations, and I was there, all alone, unable to see the road ahead of me, or the landscape next to me, and no matter how slow I drove, everything felt dangerous and scary. We made it halfway to Decorah and pulled off for the night. There was no comfort in the fog, only fear.
Sometimes that is how the clouds of life feel. Isolating and dangerous and fearful.
Today, Jesus and Peter and James go up a mountain. Peter and James and the rest of the disciples have been walking with Jesus toward Jerusalem - literally and figuratively.
Their heads are cloudy. Their spirits are foggy.
Because Jesus, in the midst of all of his acts of healing and forgiveness and compassion, has also been saying strange things like, “The Son of Man must undergo lots of suffering,” and “I am going to die and in three days rise again,” and “if you would be my followers, you must take up your cross and follow me.”
In the fog of confusion about who they are coming to know Jesus to be, they climb the mountain with him. There, they meet another cloud.
And this cloud talks.
“This is my son,” God says from the shimmering cloud. “My son, the beloved. Listen to him.”
We bookend the season of Epiphany with the Baptism of our Lord and with the Transfiguration, two stories when Jesus’s identity is revealed, two times when we hear God’s voice claim him as the beloved.
These are two Sundays when we celebrate seeing Jesus clearly for who he is.
But each of these stories begins not with clarity, but with a cloud. Each of these stories that reveal Jesus to us are stories that begin with encountering God in the mystery of the fog.
These aren’t the first or only times God shows up in a cloud.
Way back in the wilderness, after Moses led God’s people out of slavery and through the sea into a wandering path to the promised land, God showed up in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, to lead them forward as their guide.
God descended upon Mount Sinai as a thick cloud, into which Moses entered to receive the covenant of God’s commandments.
From a cloud hanging over the waters of the Jordan River at Jesus’s baptism, the voice of God claims him, saying: “This is my son, the beloved, in whom I am well pleased.” Today, from the cloud on the mountain, God repeats those words.
And then, once Jesus and the disciples go down the mountain, they will finish their trek to Jerusalem, and Jesus will suffer, just like he said, and he will be brought to the cross, just like he said, and as he will struggle to lift his chest for those last breaths, a dark cloud will cover the sky, and when Jesus cries out from the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”, right above him is this thick dark cloud that can be nothing other than the loving and grief-stricken presence of God, hovering over the suffering of his son, his heart.
On the far side of resurrection, and beyond the beginning of the church, the writer of Hebrews will speak of God’s presence in another cloud - the great cloud of witnesses that surround us, all those ancestors in faith by whom we gain peace and strength and knowledge of God’s love.
God shows up in clouds. And it seems when things are most obscured by the fog, this is when God speaks most clearly.
I wonder if we there is something to be learned from this.
What does it mean for us that God is not waiting to show up until after the skies part, but that God is in the cloud?
What does it mean for us that some of God’s clearest moments of direction come in the fog?
What does it mean that some of God’s clearest declarations and instructions come out of swirling mists?
When the fog feels inviting, and comforting and secure, how do we experience the presence of God in these same ways?
When the fog seems mysterious, and scary, and uncertain, how do we experience the presence of God in these same ways?
Barbara Brown Taylor, in her book Learning to Walk in the Dark, says, “Those of us who wish to draw near to God should not be surprised when our vision grows cloudy, for this is a sign that we are approaching the opaque splendor of God. If we decide to keep going beyond the point where our eyes or minds are any help to us, we may finally arrive at the pinnacle of the spiritual journey toward God, which exists in a complete and dazzling darkness.” (48)
She continues,
“If we turn away from darkness [and cloud] on principle, doing everything we can to avoid it because there is simply no telling what it contains, isn’t there a chance that we are running from God? Moses knew God as well as anyone ever had, yet God did not tone it down for him. The mountain shook like it was about to blow apart. The cloud at the top of the mountain was so thick that even Moses could not see inside it. [Moses] took the full dose of divine darkness and lived to tell about it.” (57)
When we are wrapped in cloud and fog and mystery, when we tremble with the power of the storm, when we watch the darkness roll in, when we cannot see, when we feel like the cloud might, indeed, swallow us whole…God pierces the skies with simple truths: I will lead you. I will teach you. You are beloved. Listen to Jesus.
These small and simple truths are as dazzling as the divine cloud from which they come. That God is for us. That God loves us. That all the mysteries and hope of God can be accessed, quite simply, by listening to Jesus’s words and following his example: loving God with our whole selves, and living lives that love and honor our neighbors.
These simple guiding truths can carry us through the times when life seems as overwhelming and scary as a dense fog that obscures the road in front of us.
And these simple guiding truths can increase our joy in the times when life seems wrapped up in a thick fog of warmth and beauty and protection.
So often on Transfiguration, we focus on the transformation of Jesus, changed from light into light, glory into glory.
But today, what if we instead lingered not in the bright light, but in the stunning darkness of the cloud from which God speaks to our hearts? What if we remembered that from the cloud, we are transformed. We are changed from fear to holy fear, from confusion to holy mystery, from chaos into divine order.
Because the God of the cloud is the God who speaks, the God who comes near, the God who meets us on the mountain and in the wilderness and during the thunderstorm, the God who meets us on roads of grief, who guides us through our pilgrimages in the dark.
So blessed be the foggy times, my dear ones.
Blessed be the times of wondering, the times of questioning.
Blessed be the stormy days and the overcast nights.
Blessed be the clear brightness of Christ on the mountain.
But even more, blessed be the God of the cloud,
the voice from heaven,
the mystery who blesses our mystery
and calls us beloved.
Amen.