Bible Readings Exodus 34:29-35, Luke 9:28-36
Prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations
of our hearts be acceptable in your sight O God our rock and our
sustainer. Amen
God’s glory does
shine, it certainly renders us conspicuous and its beauty absolutely
disconcerts. So says Thomas Currie.
God’s glory revealed to Moses on Sinai and to Jesus on the mountain top. Bible stories that take us into unimaginable
mystery and astonishing assurance of God’s presence with us.
Take Moses- on Mt
Sinai he had encountered the God whom heaven and earth could not contain, and
came down to the people glowing with the experience, so bright he had to hide
his face. And the light shining him was
powerful and compelling so that when he spoke to the people, they
believed. The light was
conspicuous and beautiful, telling all that something incredible happened up
there which strengthened and renewed him but also gave him an authority to
deliver God’s word to the people. He and
his people were encouraged in their faith by the experience of God’s
glory.
Glory is not
something that we do terrible well these days.
It’s a bit….brash, a bit conspicuous for us of the reformed faith - and more so, it seems to be at odds with our
often very pragmatic, work focussed, valley oriented faith ethic? As if we feel the valleys are where we should
be and the mountain tops something that calls occasionally but we are too busy
trying to make a difference and often too frustrated to recognise that we
actually would benefit from some encouragement, some mountain top experience
that is God affirming and strengthening us for our ministry.
The Gospel account
of the transfiguration of Jesus comes as a time when we as a world are
desperately in need of encouragement. If
we allow it, there are a myriad of things that will pull us down into despair –
see if anything in this list resonates for you:
Climate change,
crime, refugees, ISIS, economic terrorism, reverence for life and respect for
choice, breakdown of family structure, healthcare, an exploited and damaged
environment, power hungry idiots, clever self-centred global manipulators,
education standards, sexism, racism, poverty, apathy…….
We need, at times
like this, extraordinary encouragement to keep on going.
So too did
Jesus. He had come to the moment when he
was about to turn his face from exciting if exhausting ministry and mission
throughout Galilee toward the ignominy of his welcome in Jerusalem, the welcome
of the cross.
He had just been
affirmed as the Messiah, ‘Who do you say I am?’ and he had spoken to his
disciples of his coming suffering and death
I suspect he had
his own list of despairs that he needed to place before his father and most
certainly needed to turn to God for the strength to endure. And he did what he always did in times of
need, he found a place (this time he went up a mountain with Peter and James
and John) and prayed.
And God met him
there in spectacular fashion, Moses and Elijah too were present and the
disciples were awestruck.
It is interesting
that we often approach the transfiguration from our perspective, concentrating
the disciples reactions and what we can learn from them or the mystery and how
to explain it but I wonder if we don’t somehow ignore the fact that this moment
was actually for Jesus – that it wasn’t yet another thing he needed to participate
in to convince disciples or followers, it wasn’t primarily about showing the
world that he was the Messiah because God came to him on the mountain, but it
was actually about Jesus needing some serious encouragement, some building up
to take that path to Jerusalem.
And God’s response
– a moment of pure glory.
Just like Moses –
a spectacular shattering of the boundaries of belief and expectation and a
moment of supreme encouragement.
Moses and Elijah
were there, the great law giver and the great prophet – they who were the very
origins of Jesus journey brought a blessed assurance to his continuing
journey. They who were the towering
experience in this world of God’s continuing love and eternal promise brought,
by their very presence, a message to not be afraid, to be sure that the one who
sends you will be faithful in seeing you through. Moses and Elijah were there, whatever the
mystery of their appearance, to reassure and encourage Jesus journey when he
came down from the mountain.
Why did Jesus take
his friends and disciples up there with him?
Not I think another deliberate teaching opportunity, but rather so that
they would be with him, so that he could share with them the doubts and
uncertainties, to be with those he considered his closest friends, to hope that
they had his back. And they did, simply
by being there – despite their somewhat befuddled response they were part of
the encouragement.
And the glory of
God – the voice from the heavens, affirming Jesus where he was and encouraging
both he and the disciples in what lay before them. That not only empowered Jesus but what an
endorsement to the disciples too.
Encouragement all
round. They were some pretty thoughtful
people that came down off that mountain that day, pondering that which they had
experienced, absorbing the meaning of all they had seen and heard. Rattled to their very bones I expect.
What does this
understanding of the transfiguration as a time of God’s spectacular
encouragement mean for us? If we can say
that Jesus needed and received extraordinary encouragement and empowerment,
what about us? And are we prepared to be
the moments of encouragement for others?
Because that is what will happen as it did for the disciples who were
with him
I think that Jesus
offers us a pattern of faith here that can help us through in the face of
strong winds of opposition or tides of resistance. When our despair at the state of the world
threatens to overwhelm us we don’t necessarily do ourselves any good by trying
to tackle it all by ourselves – perhaps we need to climb our proverbial
mountain, whatever it might look like and await – or like Moses demand – the
encouragement that is time spent in God’s presence, for us to be not only
affirmed and strengthened by God’s light shining upon us but also to reflect
that light convincingly into the world for we too are the beloved of God.
For too often we
are the people in the valley below – trying to do things in the way of God, but
discouraged and demoralised because we have lost that clarity, confidence and
purpose that the sense of the divine presence instils in us and that can
encourage us to be extraordinary for God in the most difficult situations.
The proximity of
God enables us to embody and radiate God’s love in the world – the closeness
calls and sustains us just as it did Jesus.
How can we not be encouraged by the presence of God in our lives and our
world? Find your mountain and spend some
time there – and then come down to the valleys, Christ beside you, Spirit to
guide you, God to sustain you. Amen.
Margaret Garland
Resource: The vocation of encouragement by James
Forbes https://sojo.net/articles/vocation-encouragement
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