Today this cocoon could serve as a double metaphor for where we find ourselves physically this Sunday. The congregation is in our homes, snowbound by weather and isolated by the continuing COVID spread.
In our current cocoons of snowbound isolation, are we in the process of some sort of personal. internal transfiguration? We are moving from the season of Epiphany, where we are hearing again the stories of essential truths about the church, to the reality of Lent and that hard truth that we are dust.
This cocoon gives me at least one new perspective I can acknowledge here. Peter, James and John are terrified and yet Peter declares that their being there is good and that they should make three dwellings. This is faith prevailing over fear. Not fleeing from something that is terrifying you is extraordinary. And here there is no description of angels or Jesus telling them not to be afraid. How to overcome human nature in this way inspires our imagination.
Many of us are aware we are living in times that will become historically significant. We are distanced not only physically but from many of our rituals and routines. We are driven to new ways to imagine church. The time and energy to do this can make us feel that the work we are doing is less vital than what we are trying to imagine. It is natural to feel this way but we may be too hard judging ourselves using this yardstick.
This was not only Transfiguration Sunday it was also Frederick Douglass's birthday.
He was known to say something about a different kind of Transfigurative experience.
Education means emancipation. It means light and liberty. It means the uplifting of the soul of man into the glorious light of truth, the light by which men can only be made free.
After this past week of the Impeachment "trial" of the former American President Douglass's words are a reminder of just how important education is to the glorious light of truth.
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