February 15, 2026 – Transfiguration Sunday
Exodus 12.26-27; Deuteronomy 4.9-14; Joshua 4.6-7
I Corinthians 15.1-8
Wish You Were Here
Transfiguration
There is general agreement that Jesus was crucified and raised in year 30 of the Christian Era. It is also agreed that the earliest written gospel, the gospel of Mark, was composed somewhere between 65 and 70 CE. Even I can do the math: at least thirty-five years elapsed between the end of Jesus’ earthly life and the first written history of it. In those days, this constituted about a generation and a half. But the gospels are not the only records we have of Jesus’ life. Paul’s letters were written between 52 and 65 CE, and while Paul never wrote a gospel, or a life of Jesus, one of the earliest things the church believed about him can be found in Paul’s first letter to the church in Corinth, which we heard this morning. It is tradition that the church passed along down through the years that tells what they thought was most important to remember about Jesus. “For I handed on to you,” Paul wrote, “as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day…” I Corinthians was written around the year 55, which was still twenty-five years since Jesus’ life. The question for this morning is, How did the writers of the Bible remember all those stories and tales of Jesus for 25 to 35 years before anyone ever wrote them down?
Of course those twenty-five to thirty-five years are but the blink of an eye when compared to the Old Testament. The oldest parts of the Hebrew scriptures are found in Exodus and Judges. In Exodus it is the Song of Miriam, Moses’ sister, celebrating the crossing of the Red Sea; and in Judges it is the Song of Deborah, celebrating Israel’s victory over Canaan as Israel made their way to the Promised Land. Yes, the two oldest songs in the Bible were composed by women. Both date to about the 13th and 12th century BCE. But there is no written evidence of either until six hundred years later, between the 7th and 6th centuries before Christ. Again the question, how in the world did people remember these stories for six hundred years between the history and the writing it down? And the answer is a simple one. They told stories. They told stories.
For the past half dozen years or so our church has remembered those family members and friends who have passed away by writing their names on a slip of paper and placing them on a small Christmas tree we called the Remembrance Tree. The names were lifted then lifted to God early every January around the beginning of Epiphany. But this year our Deacons wanted to try something new, which is why today we are celebrating loved ones passed on the last Sunday of Epiphany. About a dozen of you have written brief stories of remembrance about family and friends and posted them, along with some photos, on the bulletin board downstairs labeled Wish You Were Here. There we can read stories about Ed and Eileen Sypher’s mother Elsie, whom many of you remember; about Abbey Wiess’s grandparents Jackie and Dick Carroll; about Casey Snyder’s Aunt Mimi; about Marie Ready’s mother Ann Holomb, who called Marie on her birthday every year at 6:28 am, the time Marie was born (Marie, I was born twelve minutes later); we can read Diane Lindsay’s wonderful tribute to our dear Peg Lieberman; Paul Indorf’s tribute to his parents, and Cheryl Archer’s as well, and Deb Calamari’s memories neighbors Barbara and Dot Lavazzoli; there are more, and I invite you to take a look at them all during Coffee Hour today. The board tells many stories, and the larger story is about the importance of telling these stories. It is a way of keeping the people we loved alive in our hearts, and every time we tell another story, we keep that small votive candle we call the heart burning in their memory.
And if we doubt the value of telling these stories, over and over again, which is the best way of telling them, well, the example of Miriam and Deborah and Paul and the evangelists tell another story. the Hebrew people preserved and guaranteed their history would be remembered by telling their stories over and over again, generation after generation after generation. And the method is a simple one, one we heard repeatedly in this morning’s Old Testament readings: “When your children ask you,” we read in Exodus, “this is what you shall say, ‘This is the Lord’s Passover, when he passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt.’” From Deuteronomy we heard, “Take care and watch yourselves closely, so as neither to forget the things your eyes have seen nor let them slip from your mind; make them known to your children and your children’s children.” And from Joshua, “When your children ask in the time to come, What do these stones mean? you shall tell them that the waters of the Jordan were cut off in front of the ark of the covenant of the Lord… so these stones shall be a memorial forever.” It was incumbent upon the Hebrew people to tell their stories to their children and their children’s children, to future generations, as a way of preserving their history, their stories. In Exodus, it was the story of the Passover; in Deuteronomy it was the giving of the law, the ten commandments; and in Joshua, it was the story of the Exodus. The fact that you and I know these stories today is due to the oral tradition that handed them down for six hundred years before anything was ever written. Likewise the story of Jesus survived for more than a generation because people continued to tell stories about him. Paul specifically mentioned that oral tradition that kept the story of Jesus alive: “For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received;” basically, I am telling you the story that someone has told me, that Jesus died, was buried and was raised on the third day. This is the enduring power of telling stories, and telling them again and again so they will be remembered.
When I was small, I thought it was kind of funny when my old Italian grandfather kept telling the same stories of his family and upbringing. When I was older and somewhat wiser, I understood it was not because he forgot he had already told these stories, but because he wanted the stories to be remembered.
I did not put anyone’s story or picture on the board downstairs for two reasons. First, the people and stories I remember I have already shared with you. I told you about that Italian grandfather who first put a violin in my hands more than sixty years ago. I told you about my Grandmother Froggatt, who even though she didn’t drive, made absolutely certain I was in church every Sunday morning. I’ve told you about her daughter, my Aunt Ruth and godmother, who encouraged my higher education and helped make it happen. I’ve told you about both my parents, and many of you came to know my Dad before he passed. So yes, I have told their stories, and I couldn’t bring myself to single out one or two to honor on the board downstairs. So let me tell you this story instead.
Stuart is actually still alive, but not for long. I spent the better part of yesterday afternoon visiting with him; by the time his undiagnosed colon cancer showed up in his lungs, it was already at stage four. His family, his current minister and I are already making plans to celebrate his life. Stu was a beacon of light in my ministry. He was an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ who served churches in Berlin, CT and Briarcliff Manor, New York. But by the time I met him, he had demitted his ordination and was a layperson at my Bridgewater church. Stu was on the Search Committee that called me there, so I knew him from the very start of my ministry. But as former clergy, he was invaluable in helping me to know and understand and love the congregation, as I have come to know and understand and love all of you. His faith was deep and profound, he is smarter than I’ll ever be, although he’d be the first to say otherwise, and we had multiple conversations about ecclesiology and theology through the years. When my daughter Blythe was born, it was only natural that I would ask Stuart to baptize her, and he did, and as a baptismal gift he gave her a pewter mug inscribed with the words baptizata sum, “I have been baptized,” words defiantly spoken by Martin Luther when his faith was challenged by the church of Rome. When we were leaving Bridgewater for Beverly, Stu stood at the front of the church and reminded the congregation, “Clergy and their families are the only ones who know, on the day they join the church, there will also come the day when they will leave it.” At my installation service in Beverly, Stu preached the sermon. And it was only by happenstance, serendipity or providence, call it what you will, that the day I told the good people in Beverly I was coming to Chester, Stuart just happened to be in the pew that morning with his bride Marjorie. In fact, after church that morning, as we were driving to lunch, Stu said with a wry smile, “You handled that very well Alan; now tell me the rest of the story.” Stuart easily listened between the lines.
By telling you the story of Stuart, I keep him alive just a while longer, until his story lives in eternity. By telling the stories of those friends and family you love, you too keep their light burning bright. And if you have ever attended a memorial service I have led, you have heard me say just this. By telling a person’s story, or by emulating a positive trait they have passed on to us, something we admired about them, we perpetuate their memory and keep them alive in our telling and in our hearing.
So if you have not yet had the opportunity to write down a little something about someone you want to remember, go ahead and do it. We’re going to leave the remembrances up on the bulletin board for a while in honor of the many, many saints who have gone before us. Remember them with your words; honor them with your memories; tell their stories which keep that little spark of their spirit glowing within you and shine their light for all of us to see.