What Goes Up Must Come Down

Jesus helps me not to be afraid.

Well, not fully. I am not quite there. But He’s working on me.

I had a friend in high school who was so adventurous – nothing stopped him. There were roller coasters to ride, the loopier the better. There were cars waiting to be driven fast along the winding backroads of Valley Forge. Sky-diving and rock-climbing were on his list of things to do before he turned 18. He lived his life boldly and sometimes recklessly. Fear was not in his vocabulary.

And yet, it was my middle name. I would have wanted beyond a shadow of a doubt to live in the shade of Peter’s tent.

I really do love Peter: I am he in so many ways. He means well, doesn’t he? He loves this Jesus who he can’t quite figure out half the time. He says something so beautifully holy one minute; the next minute he’s telling Jesus what to do. (I think I tell God what He should do at least ten times a day!) He is a man of action, but action that is often based on what Peter needs for himself, not what God wants for Peter.

Thus, the tents come out.

Something beautiful happened on the Mount of Transfiguration that day. To explain it would take a lifetime, and even then we’d only scratch the surface. But it is enough to say that our Lord in his great Love wanted to share his divinity and glory with the disciples who would soon see him dying on a Cross. He wanted this one mountain to prepare them for the next mountain to come, that of Calvary.

And lest we forget, Peter and the others knew that Jesus at this point had spoken of his pending death. They wanted no parts of that.

They also knew that the world from which they just climbed – the one they momentarily left behind – was one filled with sickness, pain, hatred, evil, the possessed and the unloved. It had to exhaust them. Heck, it exhausts us …

So, it makes total sense for Peter to want to build tents: yes, to honor this moment where Jesus becomes an indescribable radiant light in front of their very eyes, as well as to recall the beyond-the-grave return of their two holy heroes, Moses and Elijah. The Law and the Prophets right there chatting with their rabbi.

Who wouldn’t want to stay forever? No worries. No anxiety. No messy world. No fear. 

No fear. “Let’s build tents,” Peter says, “so we can stay here.” So we keep Jesus as a permanent Holy Glow: something safe and warm.  Something that really doesn’t challenge us. 

But then – as Peter is babbling – the Voice breaks in: “Listen to him.”  Listen.

I haven’t. We often don’t. Because if we did, imagine how we’d be living.  He tells me not to sin – I don’t listen. Forgive – I don’t. Serve the least – I serve myself. Feed and clothe the least – but Boscov’s awaits me …

The Voice that commands us to listen also says to each of us: Follow. And not just follow in some easy, breezy sort of way. Follow this Beloved Son all the way to the Cross.

Yes, it’s easier to stay safe on a mountaintop in the shade of a religious memorial tent. But, Jesus challenges us otherwise: climb back down the mountain. There’s work to be done for Him and with Him. We can’t stay here.

That’s why I truly love what happens at the end of the Mass. Each of us receives Christ Himself in Eucharist, and while He is still truly present within us – literally – we are blessed and sent forth to serve the very people and situations for which God poured-out His Life at Calvary. Transfiguration moments should strengthen us to want to return to the good fight, not stay safe under a tent where we only bask in a holy glow.

I often ponder what that descent was like as the disciples followed Jesus down that mountain and back to the village, where the suffering and possessed awaited them. Were they afraid of what was coming next? Where they still basking in the mountaintop experience? Did they know what really awaited the One they were following?

Ultimately, Scripture is silent on this. But we do know that the minute they descended, they were faced with needs and hungers and pains that cried out for compassion and understanding and love. I can’t help but think they were better equipped now to enter into the lives of those who really needed them, disciples who were willing to roll-up their sleeves and serve, not stay safe under tents of their own safe making.

Disciples who were willing to go to the Garden of Agony with their beloved Lord and come as close as their faith and courage allowed to the foot of Christ’s Cross. Yes, Peter and James ran away in fear, but maybe – just maybe – they remembered the Transfiguration moment and were willing to come back to the Crucified and Resurrected One, seeking mercy and forgiveness. Willing to try again.

We are called, of course, to do the same. In a half-hour’s time, we will return down the mountain to the places where others suffer – our relatives, friends and even strangers. With the Presence of Christ in us leading the way, we follow Him into the hearts and the crosses of all those who need Him. We don’t have to do it all, nor are we the saviors of them. Christ alone does it all.

But He does ask us to take down the tents of our own safe making and be willing to go the Calvary we find wherever the roads take us after Mass.  “Go the land I will show you,” the Lord said to Abram (in our first reading), “and I will bless you and make of you a great nation.”

He has done exactly what He promised. That great nation is that of his own Jewish brothers and sisters. And it is also His Church – one, holy, catholic and apostolic. It is a flawed but divinely-inspired Church filled with saints and sinners who struggle and fall but rise again with His grace to feed and shelter, listen and forgive, love and sacrifice. She is a Church – a Bride – that stands at the Calvary of every one of us who cry out for God, who recognize we are all in need of a Savior. A Church that says that no matter how bad it is, we (the Body of Christ) will never abandon you.

This Body of Christ tells us: We will face our fears together. We refuse to stay safe in tents. We will come down the mountain and walk with you as you face your own Calvary.  We will love you in it all. We will not leave. And we will not be afraid. 



Better yet: the Beloved Son will help us face our fears in order to love as He does … all the way to the Cross.