The story of the transfiguration and the demonised boy, that
the disciples couldn’t help, appear in three gospels, Mathew, Mark and the
passage we had read out from Luke today. In each gospel these two events follow
each other, they belong together not only because they follow each other in
Jesus ministry but because it tells us the two go together in life… “the glorious
mountain top experience, and the valley floor where stubborn demons shriek and
sufferers weep.” While some people would
prefer neither extreme in life, the passage tells us that as we seek to know
Christ more and more he will reveal himself to us and as we are more open to
the Glory of God the more we are opened to the pain of the world. The reality
is that we will encounter Jesus on the mountain top and when we come down again:
In the midst of life’s great joys and deep sorrows, the words that help us to
follow Jesus are the words that came from the cloud that day in galilee “this
is my son, my chosen one, listen to him”.
The passage starts with a temporal connection to what hasgone before. It was eight days after Peter’s confession that Jesus was indeed
God’s messiah, his chosen one. It was eight days since Jesus had told the
disciples that he would be betrayed by the elders, high priests and scribes in
Jerusalem and he would suffer and die and on the third day he would rise again;
that the road of the kingdom of God leads through the cross. It was eight days
since Jesus had told them and us that to follow him meant that we too would
walk the way of the cross, giving up our lives for Jesus and in doing that we
would find life. Now some of the disciples, John, Peter and James catch a
glimpse of the reality of who Jesus is.
Once again the context is prayer. They had gone up the
mountain away from other people, away from distraction and pressing demands to
seek God. In the Old Testament going to the mountain was associated with
seeking God for fresh revelation. Two relevant examples spring to mind, Moses
going up on Mt Sinai, in particular in exodus 34 where Moses face shines
because he has spoken with God. The other is Elijah on Mt Horeb, in 1 Kings 19
who seeks God for encouragement and direction.
In the gospels we often have Jesus going off to pray, we are aware that
he comes back with a new sense of direction or encouragement, but in this
instance there is a reality for the disciples of Jesus relationship with God.
It’s like our own prayer life, or our worship life, we seek God, and there are
those times when God manifests himself, we are aware of his presence in a new
and powerful way and others when it just seems to be going through the motions,
but in both we trust in God’s promise that he is there and he is with us. Psalm
30 was part of my devotional reading for Friday and in it David gives thanks
for God’s lifelong presence and in the midst of that also acknowledges there
were times when he was distressed because God seemed absent.
This is one of those times when the glory of God manifests
itself in a very real way. The disciples see Jesus face and clothes begin to
shine. They see him standing with two figures they recognise as Moses and
Elijah and they hear Jesus speaking to them about Jesus departure his exodus. Moses
and Elijah represent the law and the prophets in the Old Testament and in this
experience we can see how those are going to be fulfilled in Jesus death and
resurrection. The use of the word exodus here or departure gives us insight
into a way of thinking of the cross that just as Moses had lead the people out
of slavery in Egypt, Jesus was going to lead God’s people out of slavery to sin
and death.
The disciples don’t know how to react to this experience,
you get the sense they are struggling with it, they are tired and wondering if
it is a dream. Peter, always the spokesman for the group, asks whether or not
they should build a shelter for each of the three, there on the mountain. In
response to this experience he wants to do something. When we have a powerful
experience of God it is a natural human response to want to stay there in that
place, to keep the experience alive, or build something so we can capture what
we have experienced. It maybe that we associate closeness with God or a special
revelation with a particular place or activity or action, or worship style and
music and we build a shelter out of that. A lot of our traditions and how we do
things in church spring out of a particular revelation or move of God that we
have enshrined. A lot of what happens in our worship service comes out of the
reformation, a move of God through which many people rediscovered the wonderful
truth of salvation by faith, the centrality of scriptures: the praise and
worship format for services came out of the charismatic renewal, as people
encountered Gods presence in a new way in extended times of singing. At a
minister’s association meeting it was suggested we have a half day of prayer,
because when another group of ministers did that there was a real revival that
started in their city. It is easy to want to hold on to that encounter and
experience.
It’s interesting that the passage says that Peter didn’t
really know what he was saying. He’s very human and he is overwhelmed by this
experience. I’ve had experiences like that where you are fully engaged both
emotionally and physically and intellectually you just can’t process it.
Spiritual experiences, mountain top times are best dealt with through
reflection. There are times when I doubt my call to ministry, and I’m sure
there are time when you doubt it to, often in those times I am drawn back to
spiritual encounters that I have had in the past. Turning up with dreadlocks and
not having bathed for a week at Orama Christian communities’ summer conference
and the key note speaker pointing to me in the middle of a meeting (I thought
he was going to throw me out) but rather had a profound word of encouragement
for me about taking up Christian leadership. That call to leadership has been
tested by the church in our training and call process and often now that
expereince helps me in testing times… In 2 Peter 1:17 as peter is wrestling
with people who would deny Jesus coming again in glory, he affirms that we can
rely on the fact that the word of God says it will happen and also he thinks
back to what he saw on the mountain of transfiguration and says he knows it’s
true because he has had a sneak preview. He’s heard God’s affirmation of Jesus
as his son.
Peter’s train of thought, his rambling about building plans
are interrupted in an amazing way, the mountain is shrouded in cloud. In Old
Testament encounters with God this is seen as a theophany, God actually turns
up, the Hebrew word shekinah the physical presence of the glory of God. In
exodus it is the cloud that leads the people of Israel through the desert by
day and is a fiery pillar by night, it settles on Mt Sinai as Moses receives
the law. The disciples hear a voice from the cloud saying ‘This is my son, my
chosen one, listen to him’. God points to the unique relationship that Jesus
has with him, one so close it is expressed as son and chosen one… Peter had
wanted to build three shelters to the three figures he had seen, but here God
is pointing to the importance of Jesus above Moses and Elijah. In our time and
culture there in the name of tolerance people want to put Jesus on par with
other religious figures but we have God’s affirmation of Jesus unique status.
Secondly
the voice reinforces what Jesus had been saying about saving faith in Jesus
that we should listen to him. It’s not about enshrining our experiences or
build structures and rituals around them but rather to listen… to hear what
Jesus has to say and to put it into action in our lives. You may remember at
the beginning of the year when I came back from holidays I sensed that the one
word for us this year is ‘listen’ and here it is again. God’s call is to listen
to his son, to listen to Jesus. Allow Jesus to speak into our lives, listening
is not passive it is active, to hear and to put into action what Jesus is
saying. That is saving faith, that is what it means for us as a church to grow
as disciples of Jesus, which is at the heart of vision statement as a church…
which is where our being a vibrant authentic sustainable community flows out
of, where the inspiring of other to join us on the journey comes from.
It would be great to stay in the cloud and on the mountain
top, but we have those words ‘the next day they came back down’. People often
attest to the fact that after an important spiritual experience they have times
when they seem to come crashing back to earth, when the reality of a broken and
hurting world strikes home. And Jesus and Peter, John and James walk straight
into it. There is the crowd waiting with all its expectations and demands.
Amidst the crowd is a desperate man whose son is tormented by an unclean
spirit. While the three with Jesus had been having a wonderful mountain top
experience, the rest of the twelve had been facing defeat, a problem that they
couldn’t handle. Just a week ago they had come back from their mission trip
full of rejoicing that even the demons obeyed them and here they seemed
powerless to help. Sometimes being church actually feels like that, we can feel
powerless, our ministry just doesn’t seem to make a difference. Some people
seem to be on the mountain top and we are stuck on the valley floor. We try but
it just doesn’t seem to make a difference. But Jesus turns up.
Jesus words are rather stinging and challenging to the
disciples and the crowd that they are a an ‘unbelieving and perverse
generation’ there and our expectations of and trust in God maybe weak and
compromised. We don’t know how the disciples went about dealing with the
situation, in the other gospel’s Jesus said that there are some demons that
will only come out with prayer and fasting. Maybe they gave up to quickly, put
it in the too hard basket. Maybe they were full of compassion but were afraid
to do what they had seen Jesus do or they themselves had done on their mission
trip. But even here where the demons shriek and the suffering weep they
encounter Jesus, and as he is prepared to get his hands dirty with the nitty
gritty of life we see transformation and wholeness.
You know we
don’t often have those mountain top experiences. In Jesus life this is really
only the second time we hear God’s voice in such a way, the other was at his
baptism. We can spend a lot of times seeking after them, when they happen they
are wonderful and great. There are times when in our services there is a real
sense of God’s presence, God is always with us, but sometimes it just feels
like God just want to let us know it…They are there to encourage us and reaffirm
of who Jesus is, maybe you also feel them in times of devotion or prayer as
well, when you are ministering to other people. The great promise of the gospel
is Jesus presence both on the mountain top and when we come back down, in those
joys filled highs, where we are so overwhelmed by God’s presence you just don’t
know what you are saying, and in the sorrow filled moments of struggling with
innocent people suffering. In both we encounter Jesus Christ being with us,
with a shining face or a rebuke or healing touch.
And we know on both mountain top or when we come back down,
even on an over cast day here at St Peters the call for us as disciples is to
hear God’s words “this is my Son, my chosen one, listen to him”.
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