Clouds of Glory in Fog
Sunday Next Before Lent
Mark 9.1-10
So much in life is mysterious. I often don’t even understand the terms. Neutrinos are the fundamental particles which make up the universe. Black holes are regions of spacetime from which nothing can escape,
not even light. Psuedo-randomness, are numbers which look random but aren’t. And what is the Higgs Boson – the so-called God particle, anyway? And that’s just a tiny selection of the science archive of that extraordinary radio programme about ideas ‘In Our Time’ – go on to philosophy, culture, history, religion sections and you’ll find more and more fascinating and mysterious stuff. Humanity knows such a lot, and yet the more we know the more there is to know. So much is mysterious.
Albert Einstein, whose very name is perhaps synonymous in many minds with the quest to know and understand, wrote in 1930: ‘The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious ... He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead.’
Whatever else this account of Jesus transfigured before Peter, James and John on the mountain top is meant to convey to us, mysteriousness must surely be the first thing –his appearance was changed as they looked; even his clothes shone with an out-of-this-world radiance; and it is as if the Moses and Elijah, both dead centuries ago, were actual there, talking
to him; and then even God spoke. Mysterious indeed. No wonder we’re told a cloud formed! Could anything be more clouded in mystery?
And that’s perhaps a key. We assume that this workaday, worrisome world is far removed from the joys and wonders of heaven, but maybe it isn’t. Maybe eternity is only hidden, as if by a fog, only to suddenly to break into view when so unexpected. Last week I had to drive home in thick, grey fog; then in a moment as I came over the brow of a hill the fog was gone, and all was streaming bright sunshine. A mile later and I was into grey fog again. Could it be that our lives are so often fogged up with things that we can’t see the bright rays of eternity through them?
Just before this transfiguring incident in Mark’s gospel, Jesus had been very explicit about his coming suffering and death. The reality of the cross was made plain – all too plain for Peter if you remember. Peter had rebuked Jesus; which in turn called forth a strong rebuke from Jesus. Jesus’ saving action will take place in a fog of despair, hurt, envy, and anger
that will be deadly. Jesus is setting his face towards Jerusalem, despite the loud and accurate fog warning. No wonder Peter is overcome. He doesn’t know how to respond, and like most of us in such a situation he’s eager to find something
to do; his making of tents perhaps a first century equivalent of ‘I’ll just make a cup of tea, shall I?’ – something done when no words or actions are adequate to the loss, the hurt, or indeed, the wonder.
Jesus has promised that they shall see the kingdom of God coming with power (v.1), but he’s also made plain the fog of
dismay and betrayal is about to descend. Mysterious indeed! The mountain top experience is awe-inspiringly bright but it points to things they will experience that are far from bright. Somehow these things have got to be held together: the mountain top vista of splendour and the grey, cold clamminess of perplexing hurt. Our human inclination is always to wish away the costliness of glory, but it cannot be. There is always a cost to triumph. It’s as if God is saying to Peter, James and John, ‘Here’s a glimpse of glory; here’s something to be amazed at; something to instil in you the realness of the eternal; something to buoy your spirits because you see it for yourselves.’Glory, splendour, majesty, beauty, the ineffable, and you’ve seen it for yourselves, so close that it was as if you might contain it in something you yourselves could make. That tangible.
And to underline the experience there comes a heavenly voice, “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him.” And notice at what point the voice comes. They are already shadowed in cloud. This cloud is at one and the same time the cloud in which the holy presence of God is known and the cloud of despair that signifies the cross that is to be. Overshadowed by God, a reminder of what happened to Moses; and overshadowed by the coming cross, a reminder of what Jesus has declared his destiny to be. Wonderful and worrying; sustaining and suspicious; heart-warming and heart-wrenching.
Mysterious – a place of longing and apprehension, of conviction and confusion – a place from which Jesus and his friends will journey towards the Jerusalem; a place from which we must journey too if we are truly his disciples. Keep company with the one whose glory we know; keep come with the one who gives even his very self in the cause of that glory. Hold together the splendour and the despair. And when the tension is too much, and the costliness too hard to bear, remember Jesus the Beloved striving, striving, striving ... and winning through.
Words from Wordsworth seem to both sum it up and give pause for thought about how we forget:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
...
Our noisy years seem moments in the being
Of the eternal Silence
...
Hence in a season of calm weather,
Though inland far we be,
Our souls have sight of that immortal sea
Which brought us hither,
Can in a moment travel thither,
And see the children sport upon the shore,
And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.
We come trailing‘clouds of glory’ indeed. But this mountain experience recorded by Mark must stir our hearts and minds to such carefulness of each other and ourselves that it is not only in the seasons ‘of calm weather’ that we have sight of that’immortal sea’ that brought us here. Peter and James and John, and no doubt the others of their band too, can’t yet
make the leap of imagination and trust so as to hold on to glory through the worst of weathers, and the terrors of the storm. But they will. For now ‘they kept the word to themselves,’ though they did discuss ‘what “to rise from the
dead” could mean.’ They will come to know, but for the moment it is only a glimpse of glory, and that must be enough, as hard as it is.
And that must be enough for us. Keep your eyes open through the fogginess of life, its triumphs and its tragedies. Acknowledge its mysteriousness. But above all keep alongside Jesus – the Beloved who is to be trusted – who will lead you through the fog to the bright vistas of glory. Heaven is but a step away, if we can but bear it.
‘Trailing clouds of glory do we come,’ always, but always.
not even light. Psuedo-randomness, are numbers which look random but aren’t. And what is the Higgs Boson – the so-called God particle, anyway? And that’s just a tiny selection of the science archive of that extraordinary radio programme about ideas ‘In Our Time’ – go on to philosophy, culture, history, religion sections and you’ll find more and more fascinating and mysterious stuff. Humanity knows such a lot, and yet the more we know the more there is to know. So much is mysterious.
Albert Einstein, whose very name is perhaps synonymous in many minds with the quest to know and understand, wrote in 1930: ‘The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious ... He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead.’
Whatever else this account of Jesus transfigured before Peter, James and John on the mountain top is meant to convey to us, mysteriousness must surely be the first thing –his appearance was changed as they looked; even his clothes shone with an out-of-this-world radiance; and it is as if the Moses and Elijah, both dead centuries ago, were actual there, talking
to him; and then even God spoke. Mysterious indeed. No wonder we’re told a cloud formed! Could anything be more clouded in mystery?
And that’s perhaps a key. We assume that this workaday, worrisome world is far removed from the joys and wonders of heaven, but maybe it isn’t. Maybe eternity is only hidden, as if by a fog, only to suddenly to break into view when so unexpected. Last week I had to drive home in thick, grey fog; then in a moment as I came over the brow of a hill the fog was gone, and all was streaming bright sunshine. A mile later and I was into grey fog again. Could it be that our lives are so often fogged up with things that we can’t see the bright rays of eternity through them?
Just before this transfiguring incident in Mark’s gospel, Jesus had been very explicit about his coming suffering and death. The reality of the cross was made plain – all too plain for Peter if you remember. Peter had rebuked Jesus; which in turn called forth a strong rebuke from Jesus. Jesus’ saving action will take place in a fog of despair, hurt, envy, and anger
that will be deadly. Jesus is setting his face towards Jerusalem, despite the loud and accurate fog warning. No wonder Peter is overcome. He doesn’t know how to respond, and like most of us in such a situation he’s eager to find something
to do; his making of tents perhaps a first century equivalent of ‘I’ll just make a cup of tea, shall I?’ – something done when no words or actions are adequate to the loss, the hurt, or indeed, the wonder.
Jesus has promised that they shall see the kingdom of God coming with power (v.1), but he’s also made plain the fog of
dismay and betrayal is about to descend. Mysterious indeed! The mountain top experience is awe-inspiringly bright but it points to things they will experience that are far from bright. Somehow these things have got to be held together: the mountain top vista of splendour and the grey, cold clamminess of perplexing hurt. Our human inclination is always to wish away the costliness of glory, but it cannot be. There is always a cost to triumph. It’s as if God is saying to Peter, James and John, ‘Here’s a glimpse of glory; here’s something to be amazed at; something to instil in you the realness of the eternal; something to buoy your spirits because you see it for yourselves.’Glory, splendour, majesty, beauty, the ineffable, and you’ve seen it for yourselves, so close that it was as if you might contain it in something you yourselves could make. That tangible.
And to underline the experience there comes a heavenly voice, “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him.” And notice at what point the voice comes. They are already shadowed in cloud. This cloud is at one and the same time the cloud in which the holy presence of God is known and the cloud of despair that signifies the cross that is to be. Overshadowed by God, a reminder of what happened to Moses; and overshadowed by the coming cross, a reminder of what Jesus has declared his destiny to be. Wonderful and worrying; sustaining and suspicious; heart-warming and heart-wrenching.
Mysterious – a place of longing and apprehension, of conviction and confusion – a place from which Jesus and his friends will journey towards the Jerusalem; a place from which we must journey too if we are truly his disciples. Keep company with the one whose glory we know; keep come with the one who gives even his very self in the cause of that glory. Hold together the splendour and the despair. And when the tension is too much, and the costliness too hard to bear, remember Jesus the Beloved striving, striving, striving ... and winning through.
Words from Wordsworth seem to both sum it up and give pause for thought about how we forget:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
...
Our noisy years seem moments in the being
Of the eternal Silence
...
Hence in a season of calm weather,
Though inland far we be,
Our souls have sight of that immortal sea
Which brought us hither,
Can in a moment travel thither,
And see the children sport upon the shore,
And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.
We come trailing‘clouds of glory’ indeed. But this mountain experience recorded by Mark must stir our hearts and minds to such carefulness of each other and ourselves that it is not only in the seasons ‘of calm weather’ that we have sight of that’immortal sea’ that brought us here. Peter and James and John, and no doubt the others of their band too, can’t yet
make the leap of imagination and trust so as to hold on to glory through the worst of weathers, and the terrors of the storm. But they will. For now ‘they kept the word to themselves,’ though they did discuss ‘what “to rise from the
dead” could mean.’ They will come to know, but for the moment it is only a glimpse of glory, and that must be enough, as hard as it is.
And that must be enough for us. Keep your eyes open through the fogginess of life, its triumphs and its tragedies. Acknowledge its mysteriousness. But above all keep alongside Jesus – the Beloved who is to be trusted – who will lead you through the fog to the bright vistas of glory. Heaven is but a step away, if we can but bear it.
‘Trailing clouds of glory do we come,’ always, but always.
