“But you must not
forget this one thing, dear friends: A day is like a thousand years to the
Lord, and a thousand years is like a day.” – 2 Peter 3:8
For all my liturgically-bent friends, I hope you are having
a blessed Lenten season of spiritual (and possibly literal) house-cleaning in
preparation for the Resurrection of our Lord. And greetings to the rest of you
who may or may not have even realized that we are eye-ball deep in Lent.
I know it’s supposed to be a solemn time of reflection,
ashes and repentance, but I must confess, I love me some Lent! And it’s not
just my joy in Fish Fry, or the good excuse to give up an unhealthy habit; I
love the regular rhythm of Seasons in the church year. I don’t know if you also
find this to be true, but my life has a tendency to spin out of control after a
while and I need a fixed time and space to push the reset button and refocus on
what really matters. After the craziness of Christmas but before the victory
dance of Easter, there’s a deep breath in. And out. The Peace of Lent.
This year I need this peace more than ever. Everywhere I
look, the world is worse and everyone is angry and afraid. Each day seems to
bring less and less justice for the poor and marginalized.
One of the passages we read every year during this season is the Transfiguration of Jesus. Basically, Jesus, Peter and John go up on a mountain, Moses and Elijah appear, and then Jesus gets his glow on.
I have
always thought this particular story was, well, pretty weird. I mean, I kind of
get why Elijah shows up. To this day, the Jewish Seder meal includes a whole
section on sending the youngest child to the door to look for him. Elijah is
like a giant billboard announcing “Hey guys! The Messiah is here!”
But why is Moses there?
I’ve always been told that he’s there because he’s an
important figure for the Jews but that answer isn’t particularly satisfying.
Why not Abraham or Jacob? Or even King David? Those were all pretty important
figures too.
So really, why is Moses there?
Well let’s talk about Moses for a minute. This was God’s chosen
guy, Called and Sent to deliver the Hebrews out of slavery with signs and wonders.
For forty years he had the unenviable job of leading the aggressively whiny
people as they wandered the Wilderness while God forged them into a nation. The
Bible tells us there has never been a prophet like Moses, “whom the Lord knew
face to face.” And after all the dangers, miracles, and countless pairs of
replacement sandals, Moses gets right to the edge of the Promised Land…
aaaaaaaand then screws up one time and doesn’t get to go. What?! That’s just…so…
monstrously unfair! Moses knew God better than anyone except Jesus and he doesn’t
get to set one foot in the Promised Land?
In my evening ladies Bible study, we’ve been going through a
study on Mark’s Gospel by Lisa Harper. As she taught through the portion
containing the Transfiguration, she pointed out that in Matthew's version of the Transfiguration, he tells us that the
mountain Jesus went up on was in Caesarea Philippi, north of the Sea of Galilee, well within the borders of
the land God promised to Abraham and his descendants.
Moses makes it in.
He died on a mountain within sight of the land across the
Jordan and that seems like a terrible ending to his story. But that isn’t the
end of the story. God authored this and He isn’t bound by our limitations of
time and space or even of life and death. God is much, much bigger. The next time we see Moses he has both feet planted firmly on a different mountain – one in Israel,
in the presence of the Deliverer.
I love that!
When we try to limit God by our own expectations and our own
time, the world does seem so unjust. Why is He waiting so long to come back and
fix everything? But Peter tells us not to forget that God doesn’t deal with
time the same way we do and His Day of Justice IS coming.
Peter, who, incidentally, was also there on that mountain,
watching Moses finally enter the Promised Land.
