February 14th is Transfiguration Sunday, the Ninth Sunday of Epiphany, and February 17th is Ash Wednesday, the First Day of Lent.
Epiphany focuses on the revelation of who Jesus is; it begins at with his baptism and the voice of God declaring, “This is my Son, with whom I am pleased.” Epiphany ends with the transfiguration in which the divine nature of Jesus’s person is shown, and the voice of God says, “This is my Son; listen to him.” In both moments Jesus is revealed as the unique Son of God; the first reveals the glory of his humility as he publicly identifies with sinners through his baptism, and the second reveals his divine nature. The scripture passages traditionally associated with Transfiguration Sunday include Psalm 99, which recalls God’s descent upon Mt. Sinai in the Exodus and praises his majesty, power, justice, and forgiveness. But the transfiguration of Christ, found in Luke 9:28-36 and the parallel passages in Mark and Luke, surpass even the events at Mt. Sinai. When Jesus is transfigured and his divine glory is plainly seen, Moses and Elijah appear with him, showing that Jesus fulfills both the Law and the Prophets. They speak with Jesus of his departure (literally, his Exodus) at Jerusalem. Nothing else compares for that departure, his death, alone can accomplish the eternal salvation of God’s people, including Moses and Elijah themselves.
In light of this, in II Corinthians 3:12-4:6, the Apostle speaks of seeing the light of the glory of God in the face of Christ. Only in him can we now see that light by faith, confident that we will see it forever face to face in the new heavens and earth.
Lent
In contrast to the glories revealed and celebrated in Epiphany, Lent has been called a time of bright sadness, for this season in the church year focuses on the need for our repentance and humility. It is a time to recognize our sin and consequent mortality. It was to cure those very woes, our sin and sorrow that Jesus set his face resolutely to go to Jerusalem where his death awaited. The twelve committed themselves to go there with him, even as Thomas said that we might die with him.
The reminder of our sin, our mortality, and Jesus’s impending death, unavoidable if we were to be redeemed: that is the sadness inherent in Lent. Lent begins with Ash Wednesday, February 17 this year, a day that signs our mortality and sin. Traditionally, a day of fasting, many Christians through the centuries have worn a mark made of dust and ashes on their foreheads. The dust symbolize the result of sin, dust to dust; the ashes symbolize mourning for sin, shown in the Old Testament by wearing sackcloth and ashes. Also over the centuries, many believers have “given up” some good thing they otherwise enjoyed as a reminder of the need for humility and repentance before God. However, it must be understood that these acts have no power in themselves to bring us close to God. Christ alone can do that through his perfect life and death in our place.
Indeed, Matthew 6:1-21,one of the passages traditionally associated with Ash Wednesday, is a warning that our repentance must not be done outwardly as a show to impress other human beings, but inwardly before God. The reality of repentance and faith must be inward in our hearts and minds, and these outward signs can at best function only as reminders and pointers of our need and sufficiency of Christ’s work. But we cannot receive Christ in pride, self sufficiency, and denial. Receiving Christ must involve humbling ourselves before God in repentance and faith. The focus of Lent is on these ongoing truths: sorrow for sin, ongoing repentance, and faith in the sufficiency of Jesus’s work for us. Therefore, other scripture passages traditionally associated with Ash Wednesday include Psalm 51, David’s psalm of repentance when confronted by his sin with Bathsheba, and Isaiah 58, a reminder that true repentance before God is not shown in external signs such as fasting, but in seeking to live lives of righteousness, justice, and mercy.
Ash Wednesday and Lent as a whole are signs of our sin and mortality. Though each of us may feel it differently and in differing intensity at various times, facing our sin and death naturally involves an element of sadness. Yet even in facing that sadness, we know what the first disciples did not as Jesus journeyed to Jerusalem. Unlike them, our sadness should be bright with the knowledge that beyond the cross lay the light of new life: an empty tomb, Jesus’s resurrection, and through him, our own.