Sleeper Awake!

 SLEEPER AWAKE – SUNDAY MARCH 2, 2025


Luke 9:28-36: “Now about eight days after (Jesus talked about his impending death in Jerusalem), Jesus took with him Peter and John and James and went up on the mountain to pray. And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became as bright as a flash of lightning. Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Elijah, talking to him. They appeared in glory and were speaking about his exodus, which Jesus was about to fulfill in Jerusalem. Now Peter and his companions were weighed down with sleep, but as they awoke they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him. . .”

➖

Sylvia Plath in her 1963 novel *The Bell Jar* shared her struggles with depression writing, “I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead; I lift my lids and all is born again.”

Many of us understand this sentiment either from personal experience or wresting with what to do in these disastrous days of the Trump/Musk deconstruction. Sylvia is not the only one who shuts her eyes to make reality go away is she? How are you doing? I find it hard. Know you are not alone!

During the Transfiguration of Jesus the disciples also tried to shut out reality. “Weighed down by sleep” we read. In the verses just prior to this story Jesus had told his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem where he would be killed. This, obviously, was not what they signed up for. It sounded too hard, too hopeless, too discouraging. So, “let's shut our eyes,” go to sleep. Maybe it will all go away.

When we shut our eyes though - and let “all the world drop dead” - we lose sight of hope with everything else. While the disciples grieved and wished it wasn’t so, there was another reality being born right before their (unopened) eyes. There in front of them was the presence of grace and glory – a metamorphosis – something more powerful than the powers that be. There was a new birth. Love, focused on tomorrow.

The disciples almost missed the transfigured Christ. This Jesus was not bloody and beaten, nor was he defeated and discarded. Rather, Jesus was radiant and righteous. He talked with liberators of old, with Moses and Elijah - and the three of them talked about a new exodus, from death to life. Jesus and these elders of the liberated life did not talk about what was, but about something yet to be. And, once the disciples opened their eyes, they were also freed from what was, receiving the greater truth of what was promised. This is what fuels the faithful. We see where everything leads!

“I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead. I lift my lids and all is born again.”

Living through this time in America is like being in a never-ending nightmare. Every day our levels of incredulity and disbelief are amped up to a new level. Of course we shut our eyes. But don’t be deceived! The end of the story has not yet been written. “Lift your lids!” The transfigured Christ radiates out from tomorrow to transform today - even in the midst of Trump.

This is the greater Truth!

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