Message 03-04-07
Series: Lectionary [Lent]
Scripture: Luke 9:28-43
Title: March Forth!
There’s a mountain in Israel that is the traditional site of the Transfiguration. No one knows which mountain it took place on, but this is the mountain that’s been chosen as a likely candidate. It is called Mt. Tabor.
There’s no charge to visit Mt. Tabor, but the easiest way to get up the mountain is by taxi which will cost you something. The taxis are driven by Arab men, usually, and, as you can imagine the more trips they make the more money they make. I want you to know that they make that trip, up this tight road of switchbacks, really fast. And the way down, is even faster. One person who was on the trip with me said, “Well, if your intent was to get closer to God by visiting this place, the trip up or the trip down will do it.”
Mt. Tabor is the place where Christians have gone since very early to remember the transfiguration of Jesus. The first structure recorded to have been built there as a church was in 422AD – about the same time that Patrick was alive and working in Ireland. Churches have been built and worn down for centuries and now if you go there is this large structure. What’s kind of interesting is that our Scripture tells us that Peter suggested that they build a house for Moses and Elijah and Jesus, and then there’s the comment that he didn’t know what he was saying. It was just another moment when Peter just started talking before his brain kicked in. But when you get up there you realize that there actually are, now, three parts of the building – one for Moses, one for Elijah and one for Jesus. Christians are funny people. Even when we get it wrong we do it in a big way.
But this is the place where people go to remember not what Peter said, but what happened to Jesus.
Suddenly, in the midst of his ministry and his movement toward Jerusalem, Jesus is revealed to three of his closest disciples in glory. This experience for the glory of God coming into a person or place is found in the Bible and it’s been come to be known as Shekinah. It’s literally the presence of God, the settling down and dwelling in of the presence of God. It is a tangible expression of the glory of God coming into a place and living there. The word “Shekinah” is never used in the Bible, but it is the word that’s come to be used by the ancient Rabbis for this presence and this experience.
People of the Bible said that the glory of God settled in the Temple. This is what they said when the original temple was built. God’s glory entered and settled into the Temple. It came in such an immense way that the priests could not stand. The presence and glory of God was too overwhelming. If you go into conservative synagogues today you’ll find a lamp glowing always, reminding you of the glory of God. What Peter, James and John later reported was that the glory of God was revealed in Jesus, the light of God’s presence permeated from the inside out and changed the appearance of Jesus.
This is a rather staggering and shaking experience. These three men go up on this mountain with Jesus to pray. They get tired but Jesus is praying, and as he prays two men appear out of nowhere. Somehow they are recognizable as Moses and Elijah – two men who no one saw die. Moses died alone we are told, after sending the people of Israel into the promised land and Elijah was taken away from his disciple, the prophet Elisha, in a fiery chariot. No one ever saw these men die. That in itself is intriguing but then they are also representative of particular parts of the Bible. Moses represents the law of God and Elijah represents the prophets of God. Moses was the lawgiver – the one who received the law of God and brought it to God’s people. Elijah was the first of the prophets of God. The Law and the Prophets were to many people simply the parts of God’s Word. So here we have the Law and the Prophets standing in witness to the truth and person of Jesus. Any good Jew of that time would have realized what was being said in this story. The glory of God is manifested in Jesus and supported, witnessed to, by the word of God in Scripture – the Law and the Prophets.
And then, they are covered by a cloud and the voice of God comes out of the cloud telling them that Jesus is his Son and they must listen to him. Suddenly, it’s all gone and they’re alone on the mountain with Jesus.
The next day they come down to the valley below. There they come to the rest of the disciples and a large crowd. There’s been trouble and they’re walking right into it. A man brought his son for healing and the disciples could not drive the demon out. Something is up here that we can’t really see plainly in the story, but in each version of this moment we find that Jesus and other people are talking about belief and a lack of belief. But then Jesus heals the boy and everyone is amazed at the greatness of God.
Think for a moment about the experience of Peter, James and John. They have this overwhelming moment on the hill. They come back down into the valley of human need and watch as Jesus dispels this evil spirit. And they, and everyone else, are amazed at the greatness of God.
I want us to consider this together.
We’re in the season of Lent – the forty days before our Resurrection Celebration on Easter Sunday. It is a time of preparation. A lot of people think you should give up something for Lent. I always suggest that you take something on. And what I’d like us to do on Sundays through Lent is to focus on Adoration – adoring Jesus.
I think that this is a tough thing for us, but it’s what our Scripture tells us we should do and what our songs sing about doing. Adoration is not an easy thing for us. It’s not a word that people today tend to use easily in conversation. At least I don’t hear it around me. But I think it is what happened to the disciples. I think they came to adore Jesus. As we move toward Easter and our celebration of the Resurrection I want to suggest that we consider how to move our hearts to a place of adoration.
Adoration is an old word that comes from an even older activity. When you break the word down it seems to come from the words for hand and kiss. It may be that in ancient times people came to statues, idols, and kissed their hands. Some of you may be thinking of images you’ve seen in movies or in real life of people kissing rings on someone’s hand or simply the kissing of someone’s hand. There was a time, culturally, when men would kiss a woman’s hand. It is an act of adoration. It may even be seen in the “blowing of a kiss” where we kiss our own hand but then blow the kiss off to someone. It might also be seen as something of a salute where someone touches their heart, touches their mouth and sends that off to another.
Adoration, adoring another, is an emotional idea that may seem a bit overdone or too much in our time. But, it is, as I said, what we seem to be called to. When we read and say “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind” we seem to be saying that we should adore God.
How do we do that?
And, particularly men of Palma Ceia, how do we adore Jesus? Culturally, it might put us off a bit, or at least confuse us, to consider how we could adore Jesus. I remember a woman expressing how she felt wrapped in the arms of Jesus sometimes when she prayed, but that might not be an image that works for a lot of guys.
Let me give you another image that might help. There was a movie a little bit ago called “The Man in the Iron Mask”. It’s the story of the three Musketeers when they are older and a time when the king of France is a scoundrel. D’Artagnan is still a musketeer, captain of the guard and the body guard of the king. And in the story it is discovered that the king has a twin who has been locked away in a dungeon in an iron mask for years. In the battle to bring the twin to his rightful place, D’Artagnan and the original Three Musketeers are trapped. In an intense moment, the King tries to stab his twin and D’Artagnan leaps between them receiving a mortal blow. He falls dying, but the King is suddenly trapped at the end of the sword of one of the lieutenants of the guard. Holding him to the ground, the lieutenant looks at D’Artagnan and then says to the king, “All my life, all I’ve ever wanted to be was him.” That might be a way for us to come closer to adoration. As we look at Jesus, realizing that he is the one who died for us and lived in such a way as he did, we might understand that feeling – all we’ve ever wanted to be was him… in the lives of others.
Whoever we are, how do we come to a place of adoration? I think this is such a big thing that I want us to take some time to consider it. And I want to start with the fact that God and Jesus are just bigger than we think. Think of these disciples who have been living and working alongside Jesus for a while now, who come to this place of transfiguration. I think, suddenly, it was bigger than they realized.
But it must have been close to that right along. These moments, up on the mountain, down in the valley, just opened it up even wider for them. But think back to when they were called to be disciples. Let me share with you an image I was told of when they were fishermen.
Jesus preaches from the boat of Peter and when he’s done he tells him to push out and throw his nets out for fish. Do you know this story? Jesus, this construction worker/preacher is talking to professional fishermen and telling them how to fish. If you read the story you can almost hear the sighing. “Master, we’ve worked hard all night and caught nothing. But if you say so, we’ll do it.”
Fished hard all night, aching muscles, tired eyes, just plain weary and now being told by a non-professional to try it again. Can you imagine?
And then it hits, a huge catch of fish. The nets are breaking. They’re screaming for their partners to come and help. Can you see the “money signs” popping up in their eyes like cartoons? All the men in the boats haul in probably the biggest catch of their lives. They bring the boats to shore and now, with the fish still flopping, the biggest day of their lives, with the haul of a lifetime, imagine in your mind the footprints across the sand as they walk away from it all, right then, and follow Jesus.
It was bigger than they imagined. The first step of adoration, just realizing that God is bigger than we imagine.
Open your eyes as we begin our walk toward Easter, open your eyes and ask God to show you how big, how much bigger he is, how much more there is.
The first step toward adoration – this is bigger.
