A man had 50 yard line tickets for the Super Bowl. As he
sits down, a man comes down and asked the man if anyone is
sitting in the seat next to him. "No", he said, "the seat is
empty".
"This is incredible", said the man. "Who in their right
mind would have a seat like this for the Super Bowl, the biggest
sporting event in the world, and not use it?"
Somberly, the man says, "Well...the seat actually belongs to
me. I was supposed to come here with my wife, but she passed
away. This is the first Super Bowl we have not been together
since we got married in 1967."
"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. That's terrible. But couldn't
you find someone else...friend or relative or even a neighbor to
take the seat?"
The man shakes his head, "No. They're all at her funeral."
Super Bowl Sunday. Always a big deal in this nation. Now
we have another biggee - Transfiguration Sunday!. Come to church
early to get a seat, right? OK, probably less of a deal to most
folks than the Super Bowl. Not to Peter, James, and John, I
would bet. It starts off ordinary enough. Jesus and his three
closest friends go up on a high mountain. Nothing unusual.
Jesus often went off from the crowds to pray and rest. All very
ordinary.
But from here on, ordinary ends. No sooner do they arrive
than Jesus is suddenly "transfigured." He "glowed." As the text
has it, "his clothes became as bright as a flash of lightning."
Not only out of the ordinary, but absolutely out of this world -
which, of course, is precisely what the story wants to convey.
And if that is not out-of-the ordinary enough, two of
faith's most honored heroes suddenly appear by Jesus' side.
Moses, the great law-giver, and Elijah, the prophet par
excellence - the Law and the Prophets - paying respect to Jesus,
in whom both are brought together.
This is both literally and figuratively a "mountain-top
experience." No wonder Peter, James, and John are terrified. Of
course, a little terror never stopped Peter from speaking up; for
lack of any other ideas, he suggests erecting three shrines to
commemorate the event!
A big enough deal so far, but now, a cloud overshadows the
mountain. The damp air closes in and all the world slips away
into a grayness. Then the voice of God echoes around them
saying, "This is my Son, whom I have chosen; listen to him!"
Glowing face and clothes, visits from famous figures of the past,
hovering clouds and heavenly voices...Wow! It was so extra
ordinary that when it was all over, and Jesus and Peter and James
and John were headed back down the mountain, and, as the text has
it, "The disciples kept this to themselves, and told no one at
that time what they had seen." That made sense. Who would have
believed it anyway? But the three of them believed it. They had
been there, and those moments on that mountain would forever mark
their lives and change the way they looked at everything.
Certain "WOW" moments have a way of doing that.
There is a true story of a 33-year-old truck driver by the
name of Larry Walters who was sitting in his lawn chair in his
backyard one day wishing he could fly. For as long as he could
remember he had wanted to fly but he had never had the time nor
money nor opportunity to be a pilot. Hang gliding was out
because there was no good place for gliding near his home. So he
spent a lot of summer afternoons sitting in his backyard in his
ordinary old aluminum chair - the kind with the webbing and the
rivets, the kind most of us have. One day Larry hooked 45
helium-filled surplus weather balloons to his chair, put a CB
radio in his lap, tied a paper bag full of peanut butter and
jelly sandwiches to his leg, and slung a BB-gun over his shoulder
to pop the balloons when he wanted to come down. He lifted off
in his lawn chair expecting to climb a couple of hundred feet
over his neighborhood. But instead he shot up 11,000 feet right
through the approach corridor to the Los Angeles International
Airport. When asked by the press why he did it, Larry answered:
"Well, you can't just sit there." When asked if he was scared,
he answered, "Yes...wonderfully so." (1) Wow!
Larry Walters has passed on now, but we all know that he was never the same again after his trip to the
mountain in his lawn chair. He had seen things and felt things
that shaped the rest of his life.
T'was the same with Peter, James and John. Up on that
mountain they had been given nothing less than a glimpse into the
future. They saw past the suffering and death of Jesus which the
Master had predicted a few days before; past their doubts; past
their fears. For one brief shining moment God had cracked the
door to the end of time and they had seen how history would be
worked out, their own and the whole world's. (2) And they would
never be the same again, having taken that ride. Wow!
What do you think? When you have seen how everything turns
out in the end, will it affect how you view the present? Of
course, it will.
One of my cyber-friends spent his ministry with those
nearing the end of life, which may sound like a colossal
"downer," but he says no. This hospice chaplain has been at the
bedside of many folks who have had experiences of "seeing past
the veil." He writes,
Among our hospice, we frequently explained this
with the metaphor that as one nears death, the boundary
between this life and the next becomes thinner, more
permeable...We have had our patients report lots of
visits. Several of them have reported visits from
Jesus; others have visits from passed-on family
members. A fascinating number (men and women) have
reported feeling the presence of babies in their bed.
(Wonder what the meaning of "babies" is?)
At any rate, after over three hundred deaths in
our hospice, all of the Near Death Experiences have
resulted in an increase of the sense of peace. One
patient I became particularly close to had a typical
experience. While in the hospital, (he was not a
hospice patient), his heart stopped. Aggressive
intervention returned his heartbeat. When I came
on-shift the next day, he had been moved to ICU. As I
entered his bay, his face broke into a big grin. The
first words out of his mouth were: "I've seen the
light." He described a fairly typical Near Death
Experience: bright light, overwhelming sense of peace,
etc. The upshot of this...was that he insisted his
doctor issue a "Do Not Resuscitate" Order. To get his
doctor to make him a No Code, he practically had to
twist the doc's arm. He was THAT convinced by what he
had witnessed. (3)
I wish everyone could have that WOW experience. Do you
remember that old sit-com that starred Candice Bergen, "Murphy
Brown?" I am remember one particular episode in which for some
reason Murphy asks the staff about their thoughts or feelings
about God. There were different responses from different
characters - one was an agnostic, one was a Baptist, and so on.
But the response of the character Jim stands out. He said he was
a Presbyterian and went to church every Sunday with his wife. He
said something on the order of, "I haven't had any experience of
God. I go because it is obvious to me that the people who attend
are experiencing God, and I am hoping that one day I will too." (4)
Sound familiar? I wonder how many real-life "Jims" there are in
our pews waiting...waiting. Plenty, no doubt.
No great mystery. After all, life is lived in the valley,
not on the mountain top. Things are different between the two.
Think about it:
- On the mountain, we encounter almighty God;
in the valley, there is an encounter with the demonic.
- On the mountain we encounter our faith's heritage;
in the valley, we encounter those who consider questions of faith as occasions for battle.
- On the mountain, God's calming voice is heard;
in the valley, human argument is heard.
- On the mountain, disciples are in a mood for worship;
in the valley, the disciples are spoiling for a fight.
- On the mountain, the glory of God is revealed;
in the valley, the power of sin and unbelief is revealed.
"O Lord, carry me away to the mountain," might be our
prayer. YES, Lord! But then we remember the place of our
ministry is with those who need our help down in the valley.
That being the case, how can we arrange those energizing,
even life-changing, mountaintop experiences during the course of
our journey? The easy answer is that we cannot! Sorry. We
wait...just like Jim. If you remember, Peter, James, and John
were there with Jesus because they had been invited - there were
nine others who were not. I suspect the reason is that some were
ready, others were not.
A friend of mine has noted that, when children are small,
parents discover that there are some words that we cannot say at
the dinner table. As soon as we say words like "cookies, candy,
or cake," our kids do not want to eat supper any more. They know
what "cookies, candy and cake" mean, but they do not seem to
understand the word "later." They want the dessert now. Forget
the main course. If we let them eat the sweet stuff, we know
they will not be interested in the nutritious stuff. They would
never have a healthy diet. (5)
A mountaintop experience is like dessert. If that is the
extent of our spiritual diet, we will be poorly fed. Our faith
will be unhealthy. It will be not much more than a spiritual
rabbit's foot, something that protects us from problems -- divine
cures for sickness, financial worries, the anxieties of life --
the glory on the mountain top. We need some preparation before
we can truly appreciate the WOW.
Do you want to be ready for an invitation to the mountain
top? Let me make a few suggestions.
First, make yourself available. Peter, James, and John were
invited up the slope because they were already in the company of
Jesus. The company of Jesus in the year 2010 is right here - the
church. Those who, for whatever reason, choose to absent
themselves from the fellowship will not be ready to respond to
the invitation.
Second, learn all you can about your faith tradition.
Sunday School, midweek study opportunities, personal devotions.
All the surveys indicate that biblical literacy is at a low ebb
these days, and going down! Sad. The text does not tell us how
Peter, James, and John recognized Moses and Elijah, but they did,
and they knew how incredibly important these men were. Had they
never heard of them, that moment on the mountain would not have
been nearly so special.
Third, listen to Jesus. Only twice in the gospels does God
(the Voice) speak - once at Jesus' baptism, and again here. God
minces no words. "This is my son, the whom I have chosen; Listen
to Him." Listen to Him. We hear him as we worship. Listen to
Him. We hear him as we study scripture. Listen to Him. We hear
him in the voice of other Christians. Listen to Him. It is SO
EASY to listen to other voices to the point of drowning Jesus
out. Not good. Listen to Jesus.
Fourth, remember where your work is. The valley. The
church is that exceedingly rare institution that exists primarily
for the sake of those outside it. If we listen to Jesus, we hear
him say again, "GO...make disciples."
One final suggestion (and this I get not from the text, but
rather sanctified speculation grown out of a lifetime of
observation). If you would be truly prepared for Christ's
invitation to the mountain top, have about you an air of joyous
expectancy. When you come to this holy place from week to week,
prayerfully begin your trip through the doors ready, not to run
into someone you would rather not see, not to sing a hymn you
don't know and would rather not learn, not to mumble through a
prayer and a creed without thought, not to suffer through a
sermon that somehow misses you. No. Rather come in ready to
meet Jesus...in a person, a song, a word. The older I get the
more I realize that ATTITUDE IS EVERYTHING. When the ATTITUDE is
right, then the invitation can come and be received with the joy
it deserves.
Five suggestions in preparation for a trip to the
mountaintop: make yourself available; learn all you can about
your faith tradition; listen to Jesus; remember where your work
is; and finally, ATTITUDE. Then you will be ready when the WOW
presents itself.
All this "mountain" talk puts me in mind of Martin Luther
King's last sermon. He delivered it April 3, 1968, on the eve of
his assassination, at Mason Temple in Memphis, Tennessee, the
headquarters of the Church of God in Christ, the largest African
American Pentecostal denomination in the United States. He
concluded his remarks that night:
I don't know what will happen now. We've got some
difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me
now. Because I've been to the mountain top. And I
don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long
life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned
about that now. I just want to do God's will. And
He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've
looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may
not get there with you. But I want you to know
tonight, that we, as a people will get to the promised
land. And I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about
anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have
seen the glory of the coming of the Lord. (6)
WOW!
Amen!
1. Robert Fulghum, Everything I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten, (New York:
Villard Books, 1988) p. 139
2. Ellen Madison, Weldona, CO, via PresbyNet, "The View from the Mountain," 1994
3. Brice Hughes via Ecunet, "Sermonshop 1996 02 21," #22, 2/17/96
4. Donn Brammer, West Palm Beach, FL via Ecunet, "Sermonshop Discussion," #1748, 2/7/97
5. Brian Stoffregen, via Ecunet, "Gospel Notes for Next Sunday," #2992 , 2/3/97
6. Quoted by Clyde Fant and William Pinson, eds., 20 Centuries of Great Preaching, Vol. XII,
(Waco, TX: Word Books, 1971), pp. 352-353
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