It was about noon. The blue sky was vast and open, with a few picture perfect clouds in just the right places. People rushed, or sat, or slept just as they would have on any other day. The sun that noon was so bright that no one could do more than glance in its general direction. So my friends and I just took its presence for granted and moved on. The strong sunlight came straight down, banishing all shadows and pouring sleepy heat over everything.

And then a dark disk began to sweep away one side of the sun. It moved slowly, but inexorably, across the sun's face until the dark body of the moon hid all but the outermost edges of the sun. It was as though the earth stood still. Birds landed and grew quiet. There was no routine that remained unbroken ­ all living things took notice in their own way.

Around us, everyone stopped and looked up through the strange and sudden twilight. We tilted our heads and squinted our eyes and suddenly features of the sun that are ever present, but hidden from our sight, stood out in plain view.

The plumes of solar radiation that soar through space and make life possible on this earth became distinct and visible, for a time. The fiery ring of the sun's corona appeared in majesty. The earth plunged into shadow. And in this coronation in the dark we gave up another piece of our imagined sovereignty.

In the space of a few heartbeats the event was over. But my friends and I were full of wonder and left with more than a little fear. The universe got a lot bigger that day. And we learned that there was more to heaven and earth than we could explain out of our simple store of knowledge.

Once on a mountain long ago, a fiery crown became visible and Peter and James and John saw more than they understood. Just as in the story of the eclipse there was darkness and there was light.

A few days ago Jesus had told Peter and the other disciples that Jesus was headed for Jerusalem and death. Peter could not hold this possibility within the world of his understanding and he cried out against it. But who can make the sun stand still?

Jesus stood his ground. He rebuked Peter. But he did not send him away for his ignorance. Instead Jesus took Peter and James and John, up to the mountain to pray- up to the place of illumination.

On that summit something happened, something more challenging to understand or explain than an eclipse. Peter says that Moses the bringer of the Law stood before them. And there was Elijah the prophet whose appearance signaled the coming of the Messiah, the coming of the Kingdom of the Lord. Jesus spoke with those two figures out of sacred history, while his face changed and his clothing blazed, a dazzling white. Then a cloud plunged the disciples into fear and darkness while the voice of God thundered in their ears.

"This is my Son, My beloved," Peter heard booming out of the cloud, "Listen to him."

In the flash of light and the darkness of the cloud, Peter was changed as irrevocably as a photographic plate in the moment when the shutter opens. The image would persist within Peter as long as he lived. And the sense of that day was of such value to him that it was written down so that we might hear of his experience and allow ourselves to be challenged by the light of Christ.

In the Second Letter of Peter, we read, "We ourselves heard this voice come down from heaven, while we were with him on the holy mountain. So we have the prophetic message more fully confirmed. You will do well to be attentive to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star arises in your hearts."

Peter knew full well that dawn could be a long time coming, the words in his letter were written long after the day on the mountaintop. On the day of Transfiguration, Peter wanted to build booths as a response to the mystery he had just witnessed. Peter wanted to make the moment concrete, to take action and give sense and context to his experience. He wanted to make this amorphous mystery fit neatly into his world. Itıs the sort of thing you or I might do.

We have to give him credit. It may have been an ignorant response, but it was an act of courageous ignorance. When Moses had come down the slopes of Sinai shinning like the sun, and the voice of God spoke­ people ran screaming. "Bring it writing," they said, "Donıt let God talk to us any more."

Peter may have babbled a bit, but he had spent a shinging night on a mountain with Moses and Elijah. On this mountain, God spoke, Peter stayed, and after awhile Peter spoke too. "It is good that we are here," Peter said to Jesus. We donıt know if his voice quavered.

It is an awesome thing to try to stand still before God.
It is even harder to be quiet.

But if we allow ourselves to be still­ to be swathed in attentive silence ­ we may find ourselves changed by what God makes visible to us. Like the revelation that comes during an eclipse, if we will look at the place where the Spirit of God intersects with our everyday life we will see everything differently. There is a crown of glory just beyond the edge of our days. It is not obtained by grasping. It is discovered by giving.

It can take awhile for the morning star of which Peter spoke to rise. The depths of night come before the illumination and the dawn. Peter, James and John had their ideas about how Jesus should be and what lay in store for them. They were wrong.

Their ideas were not unfounded; they were simply based on misperceptions. Jesus was not going to avoid death on the cross. The only way to conquer the fear and the power of death was by going through it. A messiah who endures a death worse than we could even imagine, and rises from it, has far more to tell us about than some conquering general.

The disciples were not going to wield political power and overthrow the army of the Romans. There was no promise of ruling over an earthly kingdom. But ironically, the word the apostles proclaimed is still going out into the world while the soldiers of the Roman Empire stopped marching long ago.

Jesus' message of God's kingdom is about the reversal of fortunes. However much we may hanker after riches and control and power, these are not at the center of the human equation. God knows we need love more than riches, and meaning more than power. God's idea of what is central and how to measure success can be as different from our perspective as day is from night.

We get glimmers of this. The light shoots into the corners of our dissatisfaction and offers us another perspective. Glen Martin relays one person's wry experience of illumination in his book, Beyond the Rat Race

"I have found the road to success no easy matter," said a modern
business executive to an interviewer. "I started at the bottom. I
worked 14 hours a day. I sweated. I fought. I maneuvered. I
schemed. I took abuse. I did things others might not approve of. But
I kept on climbing the ladder."
"And now, of course, you are a success?" prompted the interviewer.
"No, I wouldn't say that," replied the business executive. "Just
quote me as saying that I have become an expert at climbing ladders."

The first rungs of such ladders are easily grasped. But the heat of the moment and the bright light of our own desires obscure where these ladders may lead. The world is full of ladders standing straight in the bright sun.

God has all the time in the world. But we do not know the length of the season we have been granted. Jesus stands in the middle of the forest of ladders and waits for us to listen to him.

There will always be more ladders to climb, but we will only find that which we truly need by climbing the mountain, instead. On the mountain, there is darkness, and there is light and the sound of God speaking to those who have ears to listen.