The LCA provides this sermon edited for lay-reading, with thanks to the original author.
Transfiguration, Year B
Mark 9:2-9
WITH CHRIST FROM THE MOUNTAIN TOP TO THE VALLEY BELOW
It’s human to want to hang onto mountain-top experiences, isn’t it? We have in our homes photos and mementos of the happy events in our lives, of weddings, anniversaries, trips interstate or overseas. We don’t want them to become just fading memories. They are treasured experiences that give life its sweetness and make the tedious or tough times bearable.
In the account of Jesus’ transfiguration in today’s Gospel reading, Peter wanted to hang onto that awesome, other-worldly experience. And who can blame him? James and John are lost for words. Peter, however, blurts out “It is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings: one for You, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” Peter wanted to hang onto the greatest mountain-top experience of his life. The context of this event – Jesus’ announcement of His suffering and death for us – reminds us that mountain-top experiences come to prepare us for the tough times ahead.
Peter was appalled at the idea of Jesus suffering for us. He wanted a triumphant Saviour, not a suffering one. Jesus rebuked Peter for his resistance to such an uncomfortable, even unbearable truth. After this awesome interlude, Jesus brings Peter down to earth by reinforcing what He said about His suffering, death and resurrection. Our Lord’s transfiguration is understandable only in the sober light of His crucifixion.
So it is for us. Our peak experiences in life are set in the context of our low moments. Naturally, we would like life to be exciting all the time. Our culture drums into us that life should consist of joy and success; always and only joy and success! Why does life have to have its down times? We were never promised “a rose garden”. Our peak, our pinnacle moments, are set within the context of life’s hard times. That’s what Peter had to learn about our Lord’s life. There’s no mountain-top experience of delight without the valley of daily duty below.
As a matter of fact, it is in life’s valleys that most of us grow. We grow as a result of having to struggle with right and wrong. We grow as a result of having to claw and climb our way out of life’s valleys. A psychiatrist has put it this way: “The opportunities we are presented with for growth are never the ones we would choose, but they are the ones we get.”
Isn’t it true that most of us mature as a result of wrestling with those things we didn’t want to deal with in the first place: a failure of some kind, the death of a friend, a severe illness or alienation from a family member? We’d prefer not to deal with these realities. But if we face them and struggle with them, we will grow. Our journey through life’s valleys makes our mountain-top moments ever so much more precious and wonderful. Hard times happen in order to reveal to us strengths we never knew we had.
A scientist was interested in collecting cocoons and watching them hatch. One day he and a friend were watching a large cocoon hatch its new life. The cocoon jerked and moved about for what seemed a long time. Finally the scientist became impatient. He cut a small hole in the cocoon in order to ease and speed up the process of the moth’s hatching. Sure enough, very soon a beautiful giant moth emerged from that hole. The scientist and his friend enjoyed the moth’s beauty. But in the weeks to come they noticed that this moth never learned to fly. The moth had been denied the opportunity to develop its strength by breaking out of the cocoon.
The difficult periods of our lives are often when we learn to grow the most. If we are ever to fly to one of the soaring peaks of life, it’s because of the strength we’ve gained crawling out of our valleys. Life’s highest experiences can be found in circumstances we’d never seek for ourselves. But they’re thrust on us. It’s amid these circumstances we learn to listen to God’s beloved Son and learn something we treasure that we cannot see from the vantage point of the mountain-top.
This Wednesday, Lent begins with its message that God’s victory in Jesus Christ came through the appalling agony of the cross. Our Lord’s journey through the valley of Good Friday tells us something incredibly valuable about our Creator. Lent whispers in our ears that in suffering and dying and the hurt of failure, that’s where we find God’s presence. God may feel near in life’s pinnacle experiences, but He holds us up as we grope our way out of the darkness of suffering. We have our suffering Saviour, who knows firsthand what we go through, to hold our hand. We’re not alone in our agony, our pain and loss.
Both Moses and Elijah suffered rejection and sacrificed themselves for God’s cause. Their sacrifices would pale besides Christ’s sacrifice of His life for us. No other human religious leader or teacher can be compared with Christ. He’s in a class of His own. He alone is sufficient for our every need. All we expect from God the Father can be found in His Son, Jesus. He remains an inexhaustible source of regeneration and renewal for broken lives even today. He revives a spirit of compassion and self-sacrifice in countless people still today. No wonder the apostles found following Jesus such an awesome and uplifting experience. They never ceased to be amazed by Christ’s compassion and infinite patience with them. His loving actions continue to inspire and motivate us.
From the Mount of Transfiguration we look across the valley of pain, failure and loss to another mountain peak, the peak experience of Easter. Our suffering Saviour Jesus Christ enables us to make the sad and sorrow-filled experiences of life a harvest of patience, perseverance, sympathy and compassion for fellow-sufferers. Our mountain-top experiences will strengthen us and prepare us for whatever the future may bring.
Tender Mercies is the story of Mac, a country and western singer, who believed his mountain-top experiences of success, fame and fortune, were far behind him. He became an alcoholic, went through a divorce and was alienated from his daughter. He swore he’d never sing again. But then he meets and marries Rosalie. Rosalie showers Mac with tender mercies, love and simple acceptance. With Rosalie and her son, Sonny, Mac settles down to a new life. But just when Mac believes he’s begun to put his life back together again, his daughter is killed in a car accident. In the next to last scene of the movie, Mac says to Rosalie, “I don’t trust happiness. I never did. I never will.” In the last scene of the film, Sonny asks his step-dad to go outside and play football with him. The movie closes showing the two playing football. It closes with Mac beginning to build a new relationship with his new son. In the worst imaginable circumstances of life, Mac begins to find something new and promising in his relationship with his new stepson. He begins climbing out of a dark and gloomy valley towards a mountain peak, embraced by the love of family, showered with tender mercies. Mac would never have chosen his path through life. Nor would he have ever anticipated a new future with new blessings. He hears a voice of promise beckoning to move forward.
In the story of Christ’s transfiguration, we hear God’s voice saying to us: ‘This is My own dear Son – listen to Him.” We’re told that after these words, Peter James and John looked and “suddenly they saw only Jesus.”
A young pastor was trying to work on his sermon for Transfiguration Day. Before he could finish his sermon, he was called out to minister to a dying man a considerable distance from the manse. It was a long trip, and when he returned the next morning, he arrived barely in time for Divine Service. He grabbed a sermon book and began to read from it from the pulpit. He read out, “It is a blessed thing when a believing soul looks in the Word for Jesus only”. “That I have not done”, the young preacher thought. “I have looked for penitence, for amendment of life … but I have lost sight of Jesus in all this …”. The words “Jesus only” sunk deeper and deeper into his consciousness. Jesus only is the foundation of faith, and we’re to see nothing else, believe in nothing else, build our hope on nothing else. “Jesus only” is the answer now and always.
We’re not to find lasting bliss on earth in our own experiences, but only in Jesus. Only Jesus saves, not mountain-top experiences. None of us can constantly feel we’re saved; we can only believe it. And those who believe and stake their whole life on Jesus will not be disappointed.
That’s why we listen to Jesus so eagerly. And from Him we learn the sobering truth that the transfigurations of life are surrounded by experiences of suffering, hurt, and difficulty. Remembering that, we move on in our journeys and learn from Jesus.
Some of us may be sad today: depressed or hurting. We may want to hang onto our peak experiences of the past. And that’s okay. We need to grieve and think and talk about our bad times. But we also need to move on, to continue our journey. And as we do, we hear God speaking to us in His Son, Jesus Christ. And we listen to Him transfigure our sorrows into joy with his words of forgiveness and life so that suddenly, we too see only Jesus.
The peace of God, which surpasses all human understanding, guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
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