The Message (MSG)
Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson
1-3 Six days later, three of them saw that glory. Jesus took Peter and the brothers, James and John, and led them up a high mountain. His appearance changed from the inside out, right before their eyes. Sunlight poured from his face. His clothes were filled with light. Then they realized that Moses and Elijah were also there in deep conversation with him.
4Peter broke in, "Master, this is a great moment! What would you think if I built three memorials here on the mountain—one for you, one for Moses, one for Elijah?"
5While he was going on like this, babbling, a light-radiant cloud enveloped them, and sounding from deep in the cloud a voice: "This is my Son, marked by my love, focus of my delight. Listen to him."
6-8When the disciples heard it, they fell flat on their faces, scared to death. But Jesus came over and touched them. "Don't be afraid." When they opened their eyes and looked around all they saw was Jesus, only Jesus.
9Coming down the mountain, Jesus swore them to secrecy. "Don't breathe a word of what you've seen. After the Son of Man is raised from the dead, you are free to talk."
Jesus, Only Jesus
Intro: Mountain Top experience
Theme: vision, When we look at the world through Gospel eyes, we develop the ability to see God’s glory all around us.
What kind of experiences prepare us to develop vision?
“The Mountain top experience” is a phrase we use to talk about ecstatic and uplifting times, like a retreat to Mo Ranch where the weather is perfect and the key note speaker is so engaging it’s like she’s been reading my email and my small group is so great they we all exchange phone numbers and addresses and schedule an annual reunion and become friends for life.
I don’t want to minimize that kind of experience at all. When we ask adult Christians who are deeply committed to their faith in Jesus Christ through the church, “Is there an experience you can point to that was a turning point in your faith,” a camp or conference is the most likely response. That’s why many of us consider this a core element in our ministry budget – we know that Mo Ranch and Camp Gilmont, Youthquake, and Senior High Youth Convention, where our youth are this weekend, are life changing experiences.
There is another kind of Mountain top experience, however. When we look at the Mountain top experiences in today’s readings and throughout the Bible, we find something different. Moses and the people of Israel, when they come near the glory of God on the mountain, are not so much uplifted spiritually as they are terrified. The usual Old Testament image of God on the mountain is fire and smoke, a voice like thunder, and people down below trembling in terror.
Remember the story of Abraham taking Isaac up the mountain in response to God’s command to take your son, your beloved son Isaac, up the mountain to sacrifice him. Before it ends well (for Isaac, anyway, not so well for the ram), the story is horrifying and confusing.
In the gospel reading, the mountain top is a place of revelation, to be sure. Peter, James, and John see something and hear something there that deepens their experience of the mystery of Jesus. The radiant light, the voice from the clouds, the appearance of Moses and Elijah, all of that amazes them, but we can’t really say that it is an uplifting feel-good experience. It’s confusing. It’s frightening.
And yet, out of this fright and confusion, their vision is clarified. As they are lying on the ground with their eyes closed in fright, and Jesus touches them and says, “Don’t be afraid,” their eyes are opened and they see Jesus, only Jesus. They come down from the mountain with clarified vision and heightened hearing acuity, with the ability to see and hear what they could not before.
In the 1997 movie Amistad, a band of slaves, on the miserable voyage from Africa across the Atlantic, overtake the slave ship’s crew in an effort to free themselves. The slaves are caught and imprisoned, however, and put on trial. One of the slaves, Yamba, finds an illustrated Bible. While he is not able to read, he understands the basic story of Jesus from the woodcut illustrations – you may have seen them before, they are the Gustave Doré illustrations. Yamba goes through the illustrations and explains them to his cell mate. While he doesn’t understand the details, he is able to understand that Jesus is accused of being a criminal, put on trial, found guilty, killed on the cross, and raised from the dead. Yamba and his cell mate look at a picture of Jesus risen from the dead and say, “This is where the soul goes when you die here. This is where we’re going when they kill us. It doesn’t look so bad.”
“If you have no fear of death, what power can anyone have over you?” This, by the way, was something Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said to the civil rights marchers. If you know your destiny it limits the effectiveness of your enemy, and expands your possibilities to near limitlessness. Yamba ends by flipping from a picture of Jesus on the cross to a picture of three empty crosses.
As the slaves are marched from their prison cells to the court room, the line of slaves, hands tied together just like the hands of Jesus before Pilate in the Doré illustrations, all of them but Yamba have their heads down, defeated. But Yamba stands tall and straight, he looks around and sees the world with new eyes. Everywhere he looks, he sees a cross. In the boards of a fence; in the hands of abolitionists who have lined up to show their support for the slaves; and, when they lead him past the ship that was the instrument of his own oppression, he looks up and sees the three masts of the ship standing empty like Doré’s woodcut of the three empty crosses on Calvary.
He enters the courtroom with his head held high, with an expression of peace and serenity, unafraid of his own death.
Sometimes, in our own faith journey, we may find that mountaintop experience in the valley of the shadow of death. Almost all of us in this sanctuary are of an age to have been through at least one experience of terrible loss, failure, or near-death illness or accident. Those who have not, you can be sure that it is coming.
These are not the experiences we ordinarily describe as “mountaintop.”
The good news, however, is that, because of Christ, even our suffering can heighten our sense of God’s presence. The clouds of fear and confusion lift, and the air is crisp and clear, and we see Jesus, only Jesus.
Thanks be to God. Amen.