Today is the Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord Jesus. We celebrate the occasion on which a mysterious light shone from within him, transforming his countenance, and making his clothing dazzlingly white. A cloud came down on the mountain swallowing Jesus and his disciples, the cloud that guided Moses and the Israelites through the desert as they were making their way to the Promised Land, and within the cloud God’s voice directed Peter, James and John to listen to and obey Jesus, God’s chosen son. Though the disciples wanted to remain on the mountain, enjoying God’s presence there, they went down to the lowlands with Jesus.
Today is the anniversary also of the day (Aug. 6, 1945) on which at 8:15 in the morning, Japan time) the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. There also there was a brilliant light, but of a different sort, that lighted the heavens and blinded, burned and melted thousands of men, women and children. As the light faded, a mushroom cloud swallowed the land. When it lifted it revealed death and dying everywhere.
Peter did not want to leave the mountaintop. He wanted to remain there enjoying the consolation that God’s presence and Jesus’ majesty bestowed on him.
However, when thinking of the devastation that the A-bomb wrought on the city and the people of Hiroshima, perhaps, our desire is to escape the memory of this horrendous deed.
Some years after the A-bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, one of the physicists who helped develop it, told an assembly of clergymen, “People like you have to save the world from this insanity.” The physicist may have been speaking to a group of clergymen, but surely his words would be better addressed to everyone in our wounded world.
We have, all of us on one occasion or other experienced the Lord’s consolation, as did the disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration. Like Peter we might well prefer to stay on the mountain. The anniversary, however, of the destruction of Hiroshima reminds us that there are tasks of the utmost importance in the lowlands and that we must leave the heights to address them.
