You’ll notice that in the order of service I have an icon of the temptation in the desert rather than the transfiguration. And that’s because it’s relevant to a theme I’ve noticed these past Sundays after Epiphany. In nearly all the readings Jesus tells someone (demon or disciple) not to say who he is or what they’ve learned about Him.

A friend in my Bible study gave me a clue to the conundrum of why Jesus didn’t want anyone saying who he is. She was actually contemplating why Jesus didn’t stay in a town and heal everybody before he moved on. She wondered if he might get full of himself from the adulation.

Now I had a different take on that question, but what she said made sense to me in the context of Jesus demanding silence about his nature. For at least part of the temptation in the desert was for Christ to fully use His Godly powers.

I imagine that was even more tempting given his humble origins. “What good can come out of Nazareth? I’ll show you what Nazareth has wrought!” Oh wait, no that’s not what I’m here for. And please don’t remind me what I am.

And this brings me to our theme for this liturgical year. Question (How do we live a Christian life?) and Answer (Live as if we’ve already died.) As Paul tells us tonight, the rest are perishing. We’ve come out the other side. But we do nothing to help the perishing by being full of ourselves because of this knowledge.

And honestly, we did nothing to deserve this. We were lucky and listened and heard. That’s all. And for all we know the next person may have heard about the life God wants for us from another source and has left perishing behind in their own way.

Now I’ve seized on this word perishing, because I was looking for a word to tease out the difference between those who have died and are living into the kingdom of life, from those who are just dying. The ones who are not living the life of God’s kingdom and so have no true life at all.

The perishing world condemns the poor, the meek, the mourning, and the yearning for justice, the merciful, the peacemakers, the suffering, the stranger, the persecuted, the hungry, the thirsty, the naked and the prisoner. If you forget to not read the comments on anything posted on the internet, this is plain as day.

As we live the life of the kingdom, the life that heard Christ when He said he WAS the stranger, the persecuted, the hungry, the thirsty, the naked and the prisoner, we’re not to fall into the trap of the Imperialism of Helping. To think we’re helping the “less fortunate” – it does not do to think of Christ as less fortunate than us.

Wealth, power and status are what the perishing seek and has no place in the Kingdom. For through the humble incarnation, the violent cross, and the resurrection of the still wounded Christ, the glory we read about tonight on the high mountain belongs to the very ones the perishing think aren’t worthy of God.

If we look at the historical Jesus on the scale of wealth power and status, putting aside Christ in our thinking for the moment, I don’t think any of us can truly say we’re less fortunate. And that’s a reason for us to not dwell on Jesus’ potential power, because if we forget Jesus’ humbleness, can we really see him in the downtrodden?

Paradoxically, we need Christ’s power to do this. The wounded person of the Trinity is where we draw true life from. To live into the Kingdom, to truly live apart from the world of the perishing, we need Christ and we need each other.

We’ve built a nice little community here. We’re comfortable in each other’s homes. And it’s a community that does center around Christ. This is a good and fine thing. We’re going to need it more than ever in the days ahead. For the leaders and followers of the perishing world will try their hardest to take us down with them.

A short time from now, we’ll eat the bread of life. We’ll be feeding on life as a defense against the perishing who demand we perish with them and as fuel to live with Christ in the margins. May we remember to see the true glory of Christ.