2 Kings 2:1-15
Now when the Lord was about to take Elijah up to heaven by a whirlwind, Elijah and Elisha were on their way from Gilgal. Elijah said to Elisha, “Stay here; for the Lord has sent me as far as Bethel.” But Elisha said, “As the Lord lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.” So they went down to Bethel. The company of prophets who were in Bethel came out to Elisha, and said to him, “Do you know that today the Lord will take your master away from you?” And he said, “Yes, I know; keep silent.”
Elijah said to him, “Elisha, stay here; for the Lord has sent me to Jericho.” But he said, “As the Lord lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.” So they came to Jericho. The company of prophets who were at Jericho drew near to Elisha, and said to him, “Do you know that today the Lord will take your master away from you?” And he answered, “Yes, I know; be silent.”
Then Elijah said to him, “Stay here; for the Lord has sent me to the Jordan.” But he said, “As the Lord lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.” So the two of them went on. Fifty men of the company of prophets also went, and stood at some distance from them, as they both were standing by the Jordan. Then Elijah took his mantle and rolled it up, and struck the water; the water was parted to the one side and to the other, until the two of them crossed on dry ground.
When they had crossed, Elijah said to Elisha, “Tell me what I may do for you, before I am taken from you.” Elisha said, “Please let me inherit a double share of your spirit.” He responded, “You have asked a hard thing; yet, if you see me as I am being taken from you, it will be granted you; if not, it will not.” As they continued walking and talking, a chariot of fire and horses of fire separated the two of them, and Elijah ascended in a whirlwind into heaven. Elisha kept watching and crying out, “Father, father! The chariots of Israel and its horsemen!” But when he could no longer see him, he grasped his own clothes and tore them in two pieces.
He picked up the mantle of Elijah that had fallen from him, and went back and stood on the bank of the Jordan. He took the mantle of Elijah that had fallen from him, and struck the water, saying, "Where is the LORD, the God of Elijah?" When he had struck the water, the water was parted to the one side and to the other, and Elisha went over.
When the company of prophets who were at Jericho saw him at a distance, they declared, "The spirit of Elijah rests on Elisha."
Mark 9:2-9
Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them. And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus. Then Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” He did not know what to say, for they were terrified. Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!” Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them any more, but only Jesus.
As they were coming down the mountain, he ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead.
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If we had to pick a word of the year for 2020, and for these first weeks of 2021, we should probably pick the word “unprecedented.”
Unprecedented. Something that’s never been done or known before. Something new that we don’t yet have tools to understand or to process.
We used this word to talk about the pandemic, natural disasters, and acts of government.
Unprecedented.
You might be tired of hearing this word.
Or you might just be tired.
Because, as it turns out, our bodies were not actually designed to weather the stress of making history every day for a year. Our spirits, no matter how resilient, were not meant to withstand constant shocks to the system. Our psyches were not designed to have to massively recalibrate our understanding of the world each and every day.
It takes an enormous amount of emotional and spiritual work to deal with the unprecedented.
This work makes us weary. And it might make us feel a little lost and afraid.
Elisha and then Peter, James, and John today experience the unprecedented; Elisha in witnessing Elijah carried up into heaven in a whirlwind, accompanied by visions of chariots and horsemen; Peter and the others witnessing the blinding, dazzling vision of Jesus unveiled, shining with the fully glory of God.
For Elisha, he has to process both the supernatural departure of his mentor and friend, and also his own uncertainty about what calling God is setting before him.
Elisha’s first response to the situation is grief. He tears his clothes in lament. He sits with his pain, grief, and confusion. He then picks up the mantle left behind by Elijah, and he goes back to the river. He strikes the water, crying out, “Where is the LORD, the God of Elijah?” and as a sign that he has received a double share of the spirit, the river parts before him, just like the waters parted for Elijah and Moses before him. He crosses back over the river to continue Elijah’s prophetic ministry.
In the face of the unprecedented, Elisha first honors his emotions and then takes one step forward at a time into his uncharted future, prodded forward by God’s spirit.
And then we have Peter, James, and John today, who accompany Jesus up to the mountaintop. There he is transfigured before them. Meaning that his whole appearance changes. He transforms before their very eyes, for just a moment, revealing the full glory of God that is within him.
Pastor and teacher Melinda Quivik describes the vision up there on the mountain as “wondrous, frightening, powerful, unexpected, and rich, connecting all ages…giving enlightenment. [But],” she continues, “Jesus’ transfiguration is not to be approached with the assumption that we can understand it. It means to draw us in toward what is abnormal, unnatural.”
Jesus’s transfiguration is beyond understanding. Abnormal. Unnatural. Supernatural. In other words, unprecedented.
Mark makes it clear that Peter and the disciples were not just shocked and baffled by the sight unfolding before them. They were also terrified. The scene on the mountain wasn’t just new, it was frightening.
We get a repeat of this mix of wonder and fear at the end of Mark’s gospel, when the women come to the tomb and find not Jesus, but a messenger who tells them that he’s been resurrected and that they should head back to the city to catch up to him. Mark writes that "they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”
If transfiguration is unprecedented, then resurrection doubly so. Mark is honest with us that the disciples, in all their humanness, struggled to make sense of these big events. He is honest about the fact that dazzling displays of God’s glory sparked fear before they inspired faith.
The confused, amazed, terrified disciples on the mountain and at the empty tomb are stand-ins for each of us. When faced with the unknowable and insurmountable, whether shockingly good or shockingly devastating, we, too, feel confusion and amazement and fear.
And we have to figure out what we do next.
I love Peter in today’s gospel. He has no idea how to process what he has just seen, so he searches for a hammer to build a few dwellings up there on the mountain. He gets it totally wrong - Jesus is going to nudge them down the mountain, not encourage them to take up a second residence up there - but there’s something right and admirable about Peter’s instinct to do something. He might be terrified and confused, but he isn’t paralyzed.
He just needs a little prodding from God to direct his energy the right way. We do, too.
With God beside him, Elisha crossed the river. With Jesus behind them, Peter and James and John hike back down the mountain. God doesn’t ask them to understand the fullness of their visions or anticipate the vastness of the unknown future lying ahead of them. The Spirit simply empowers them to take the next step. And then the next step after that.
There will be missteps. Pretty quickly after crossing back over the river, Elisha will let loose a few she-bears on some kids who make fun of his baldness. James and John are going to argue about greatness and glory while Jesus teaches them about humility. Peter is going to deny ever knowing Jesus.
But the missteps are just steps. God’s grace yet abounds. There will still be a way forward for Elisha and the disciples and for us.
These stories today give us hope for when we come face-to-face with the unprecedented. They show us how to walk through grief, how to function in the midst of a pandemic where we cannot yet see its ending. They teach us how to wrestle mystery and weather uncertainty.
We pick up the mantle. We walk down the mountain. We trust God to lead us one step at a time. We do what we can in each and every moment to love one another, to recognize joy, to seek justice, and to extend grace.
To borrow from the Frozen II soundtrack, “we do the next right thing.”
This isn’t your typical princess song. It isn’t all songbirds and falling in love. It’s a song about shock and grief and dealing with things that you can’t process, things that you can’t make sense of. I don’t usually recommend building a theology off of Disney music, but in this case, I’ll make an exception. Because listen to these lyrics:
Take a step, step again
It is all that I can to do
The next right thing
I won't look too far ahead
It's too much for me to take
But break it down to this next breath, this next step
This next choice is one that I can make
So I'll walk through this night
Stumbling blindly toward the light
And do the next right thing
And, with it done, what comes then?
When it's clear that everything will never be the same again
Then I'll make the choice to hear that voice
And do the next right thing.
Dear ones, the promise for Elisha and for the disciples is that, even in the face of the unprecedented, God remains with them. The Spirit leads. Jesus nudges. Even when all we can do is take the one next step that is before us, we do so surrounded by God’s grace.
Theologian Frederick Buechner writes: “The grace of God means something like: Here is your life….Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid. I am with you. Nothing can ever separate us. It’s for you I created the universe. I love you There’s only one catch. Like any other gift, the gift of grace can be yours only if you’ll reach out and take it. Maybe being able to reach out and take it is a gift, too.”
It is a gift to reach out and grasp the grace of God each day. It is a gift to take each small step down the mountain. It is a gift to pick up the mantle that is lying on the riverbank. It is a gift to do the next right thing. A gift given to us. And a gift we give to the world. We do not have to know the fullness of the future. We simply place that future in God’s hands. And step forward, one small movement at a time, trusting the love of God to walk with us all the way.
Let us pray.
O God, you have called us to ventures of which we cannot see the ending, by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown. Give us faith to go out with good courage, not knowing where we go, but only that your hand is leading us and your love supporting us; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.