So God calls Moses to an important meeting on the mountaintop. Of course, Moses has to make some practical arrangements first, to take care of his responsibilities. He instructs the elders and clarifies the lines of authority during his absence because he is taking his assistant Joshua with him, at least part of the way.

It is only after these somewhat mundane details are tended to that extraordinary events unfold – the glory of God experienced through a great cloud, a devouring fire, and the voice of God that calls Moses into a time apart. For Moses, this is a holy encounter, a time of recognizing who or what this God is, an epiphany.

This story about Moses is so familiar, I'm sure I can trust you to sort out the symbolic, mythic parts of the story for yourselves. We'll also lay aside any ideas about what natural phenomena may have been involved. What I'd like you to think about in regards to this scripture this time is a few questions about your experience.

Do you believe you have ever experienced a Holy Encounter? Can you remember a time in your life when the Holy has transformed your very being and changed your direction in a way you might never have imagined? Was it a big event, or can Holy Encounters be small and more frequent in your everyday life?

When and how do you hear the still-speaking God calling you to a time apart, a time of reflection and intensity in your spiritual life – a time up on the mountaintop, metaphorically speaking? Have there been times when you felt yourself touched by the glory of God, at least for a moment? Have you experienced such a moment in this church?

In the life of this church do you find an experience of both the daily-ness of faith (the mundane) and also the inexpressible, transcendent presence of God? Even if you've only experienced that in an indirect, fleeting way, has it ever made bearable something you had thought to be unbearable? How was God speaking in those holy encounters, and how does God still speak to you in the daily, even mundane, activities of your personal life and of our church life?

We turn now to today's New Testament story which is obviously modeled on the Moses story. This Transfiguration story ends the season of Epiphany every year, and this year we hear Matthew's version.

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 came over 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."

The season of Epiphany began with the story of the Magi following a star to find the Christ child. The word epiphany means a sudden realization of something, like a flash of light that illuminates everything, usually referring to a recognition of the presence of God.

We're now at the close of the season of Epiphany, when light as an image for God's incarnation in Jesus has been our constant image. With Ash Wednesday this week we will begin the season of Lent, a time of preparation for Holy Week, when we journey scripturally with Jesus to his suffering and death, and Easter when we celebrate Resurrection.

It seems fitting to end the season of light with a flash of brilliant, blinding revelation that illuminates who Jesus really is (just in case that wasn't clear by now). In that vision, the stunned disciples recognize the power of God that is at work in Jesus, just as it has been before, through the Law of Moses and the preaching of the Prophets.

You can read story this as an account of a vision that revealed to the disciples the true nature of Jesus as he was there with them. Or you can read it as an interpretation of what Jesus and his ministry had meant, written 50 years after the fact.

On the first Sunday after Epiphany Sunday, we read the story of Jesus' baptism, in which he heard God saying, "You are my beloved son in whom I am well pleased." And now at the end of the Epiphany season we read of the disciples hearing similar words about him in their mountaintop vision.

What exactly does it mean to be a beloved child of God? Matthew tells us, "...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." Is this what realizing our beloved-ness means?

When something dramatic or unforeseen happens in our lives, we too can be overcome by fear. A loved one dies suddenly, or we or a loved one receive a scary diagnosis, and we too experience that mouth-drying, knee-buckling kind of fear that the disciples felt.

Or the recessive economy strikes home and we find ourselves with job, career, and self-identity at risk. Then, depending on our genetic predispositions toward adrenalin overloading, we may react with a flight or fight response, either lashing out at others or retreating in misery.

But Jesus' first directive to his quaking disciples was simple and clear: Get up! Getting out of the fear position and into a more positive posture prepared the disciples' minds and hearts to follow their bodies. Jesus specifically told them, "Don't be afraid," and I think that's because he knew the unpredictable nature of a fearful heart. It's been said that the people we should fear the most are those who are most fearful.

Next, after hoisting them out of the fear position and telling them not to be afraid, Jesus gets the disciples moving. He doesn't allow them to stand around contemplating and arguing what they have just experienced. He seemed to recognize that even if Peter, James and John didn't turn their fear into anger in the "fight" response, they might still succumb to the "flight" pattern of response.

We all know how to run away from frightening or over-whelming situations – we've all done it. But Jesus counsels his disciples to jump back instead into the mainstream of everyday life.

Avoidance, after all, is not adjustment. Locking oneself away with fear or grief or confusion keeps you trapped in that single response.

Of course, Peter had wanted to remain on the mountaintop when he was having a vision of Moses and Elijah there with Jesus. So his urge to stay in that place came from wanting to prolong the glory.

But neither fear nor fascination should keep us out of returning to the ongoing ebb and flow of life after a jolting experience. Even if we don't feel normal, even if it seems like we are just going through the motions in our shock, Jesus' advice is to get back into the fray.

So what happens then after a mountain-top experience, after we've listened, and gotten over our fear, and been transformed? As beloved children of God, mustn't we then also recognize and accept a certain amount of responsibility?

What is the responsibility that one incurs in being beloved by another? What is the responsibility that comes with loving another?

Lastly, this text makes me ask: What things distract us from hearing God speaking to us, calling us to time apart? Do we truly believe that the Christ Spirit can overcome the forces that separate us from God and from true holiness and peace? Do we recognize Christ as the power that can overcome every barrier, every distortion, every violence?

When Jesus talks of the "kingdom of God," do we recognize that he is posing an opposition to the imperial rule of Rome, replacing that authority with a rule of reconciliation and peace, justice and healing? When he summons his disciples to come back down the mountain, do we realize that he is knowingly making his way to the place of his suffering and death?

So here we are, at the end of a season in which we have focused on stories of amazing experiences of God's manifestation, not just to a chosen few but to the ragtag crowds to whom Jesus preached the Beatitudes on a mountain top, and even to the Magi of his nativity story who represent "the nations" – that is, the Gentiles, foreigners, others, not just us and our own. So there have been mountaintop experiences, and now we approach the journey of Lent.

The Lenten journey is one of trekking through the wilderness, not one of glory or the shining light or the reassuring, affirming voice. And yet, here, on the edge of Lent, we still hear that voice, "Listen to him."

So what is God still speaking to us today, here, on the edge of Lent? What is the Lenten journey to which we are being summoned?

How have you witnessed the glory of God, or experienced it quietly, deep in your heart, or, perhaps just as importantly, how have you missed that glory, as it quietly slipped by? The question then may be: How in the ordinary chores and rituals of daily life can we experience holy encounters, and experience God's glory and our own transformation, however briefly?

That's part of the power of the sacrament of Communion which we are about to share. May it be so for us today. Amen.