Grace and peace to you from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The Word of the Lord which engages us this morning comes from our Gospel lesson (Luke 9: 28-36).
Many of us have had them, those times when we felt like we were on top of the world, really happy, confident that we knew all the answers, could solve any problem that came up. Or we felt that we were really close to God, really in tune with God's plan for us. In those moments we were excited and alive, and everything seemed new.
The moment might have come at some exciting event in your life: graduation, baptism, your first kiss, your first day on your first job, your wedding, the birth of a child, a first successful day in school. It might have been something really spiritual, like a week at church camp, or a church retreat, a youth lock-in or national youth gathering. Or it might have been something of a smaller, quieter nature, like a phone call from a beloved soldier in Iraq, or very intimate conversation with your father or mother when you felt that they honestly understood what you were saying and why you felt the way you did.
We call these "mountaintop experiences," and oh how we hate to come down off that mountain! We want to hang on to that moment for as long as we can. "Let's just stay right here and let the rest of the world go by for a while."
In the Gospel reading for today Luke give his version of the event which we call "The Transfiguration of Jesus." Matthew and Mark also contain an account of this strange occurrence, with some minor variations in the telling. It's one of those rare moments we were just talking about, one of those mountaintop experiences of life, which somehow defy adequate description and challenge us to stretch our concept of reality to the point that we usually wind up asking the question, "Did this really happen?" Events such as the Transfiguration somehow connect us with the mystery of creation and eternity. (Opening paragraphs modified from Sermonillustrations.com, Feb. 2004)
For Jesus it was a time of affirmation of his ministry. For Peter, James, and John it was a brief glimpse of the transcendent, a peek at the reality that lies just beyond everyday life. God the Father sends Moses and Elijah, the two extraordinary prophets of His first covenant to talk to Jesus. They speak to Him, not about their mountaintop experiences hundreds of years before, but about the even more extraordinary thing He is about to do, what their work had pointed toward. They are speaking to Him about what He is about to bring to fulfillment in Jerusalem, His Passion, His crucifixion for all mankind, soon to occur. Jesus will soon go to another mountain, Mount Calvary. But for now His heavenly, eternal glory is being revealed to Peter, James and John. Jesus' garment is bright white, flashing like lightning. Peter blurts out something, anything, probably like you and I would have if we had been there. Peter wants to remain in this mountain top experience. But while he is speaking a cloud appeared and enveloped them, and they were afraid. These men surely knew the story of how a similar cloud had enveloped Moses 1300 years before, and that the people were told to stay away from the cloud or else they would die. Seeing Moses, seeing a shining Jesus, being in a cloud knowing that story, Peter, James and John must have thought they were about to "buy the farm."
How many of you drove through that pea soup fog last Tuesday morning. I was driving Brittany to the bus stop, and that was some of the thickest fog I had ever seen. It was dangerous driving. We were less than 100 yards of the stop light out at 77 and McFarland Road before I could see the light. It was scary, awe-inspiring especially since I had just read this Gospel text the day before. I had a minor sense of what Peter, James and John might have felt like, especially when I happened to look up, and saw an airplane flying overhead. This pea soup fog, so dense at the surface, was low, and the sight line to heaven was still there.
For Peter, James and John, their sightline to heaven was still cloudy, but the audio lines were wide open. A voice came from the cloud saying, "This is my Son, whom I have chosen; LISTEN TO HIM."
How are you listening to Jesus? How often are you listening to Jesus? Peter, James and John had been following Jesus around for months, perhaps years at this point. But apparently they weren't listening to Him. They weren't hearing Him when He told them just the week before (Luke 9: 22) "The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life." They were not going to stay on this mountaintop for very long, even though they wanted to stay. They were going down, and accompany Jesus his death. They weren't going to lose their own lives in the cloud. But Jesus was going to lose His on the cross, on his next mountaintop experience.
The Mel Gibson movie the Passion of the Christ has people talking about "Who killed Jesus?" I'm so glad that this movie is causing some stir, that people are listening. The crucified and resurrected Christ will always cause a stir. Jewish intellectuals fear that this movie will stir 'anti-Semitism,' that is anti-Jewish feelings because it portrays Jesus being killed by the Jewish elders, chief priests and teachers of the law. It is possible that some people who are already anti-Semitic could misuse this movie, just as they've misused the Bible, to claim Jesus was killed by the Jews. But those of us who know why he came, who know that he predicted beforehand why he had come, we know who killed Jesus. We know that He was killed for us, by our sins. Did the Jewish leaders have an earthly role in it? Sure. Are they more at fault than the rest of us sinners? No. Jesus gave up his life so that we could be saved. LISTEN TO HIM the Father said. LISTEN to Him tell of the love of the Father. Listen to Him tell of his mission to save. Listen to Him point to his death. Listen to Him break out of the grave. Listen to Him ascend back to the Father and reign in heaven above. Listen to Him. Where? How can we hear Him? In HIS WORD. Some people talk about "giving up something" for Lent.
I rarely do that myself, that's simply not been part of my devotional life. If you want to give something up and that helps remind you of the Lord, fine. But instead of giving something up, I encourage you to add something. Add the words of Jesus and his apostles and his prophets to your life regularly, daily. If you're not currently reading the Bible daily, LISTEN to Jesus. Start reading just one chapter per day from Scripture. Let the Word of Christ dwell richly in your heart. If you're currently reading one chapter per day, add an extra chapter per day during Lent. If you're already reading two or three or more chapters, add just one more. Read it, mark it, inwardly digest it. Take just a few minutes to ponder and pray about the words of Christ you just read.
Add those words to your spouse, to your family. Even if some family member doesn't want to regularly have a devotion with you, have some audiotapes or CD's of Scripture and play them occasionally in your home. God's Word cannot be fully avoided. You children, if you and your parents aren't currently having some devotions, ask your parents if you could do that together. Part of the reason they might not be having devotions with you is because they fear you would resist, that you wouldn't sit still or enjoy it. But if you ask them, I'm certain they would love to share God's Word with you regularly, to help you LISTEN to Jesus. Now don't go and say "Pastor Marrs said we better start having devotions." Don't be disrespectful, that would break the 4th Commandment about Honoring your Father and your Mother. But ask them, respectfully and I'm certain they would love to help you listen to Jesus.
Our daily lives here are rarely mountaintop experiences. I'm hoping that this Passion Movie will be a mountaintop experience for many of us, even though it will likely be an emotionally exhausting experience. But whether you've had a mountaintop experience lately or not, remember that you can always have the end of Peter, James and John's mountaintop experience. LISTEN TO HIM, to Jesus, here at worship encouraging and being encouraged by your fellow Christians. Then LISTEN TO HIM daily through your own devotion to His Word.
And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4: 7)