Seeing Jesus Means Listening to Him
Text: Matthew
17:1-9
Aldersgate
1) We learn in Matthew 17 that it had been a long, hard
week
a) Just six days ago their leader had told them to take
up their cross
i)
Jesus had made
it clear to them that it was now time for him to go to
(1) He would submit to the ordeal
(a) Suffer at hands of religious leaders
(b) Die a painful suffocation hanging on a cross
(c) And then on third day he would be raised alive
(2) Peter protested, “Impossible!”
(3) But Jesus chastised him.
ii)
Then Jesus had told them that they had to let him
lead
(1) If they wanted to follow
(a) They would need to embrace suffering
(b) Not run from it
(2) Giving yourself he said was the way to finding your
true self
b) Now Peter, and John were traipsing up this mountain
i)
Looking forward
to down time away from crowds
ii)
wanting to spend some alone time with Jesus
iii) Feeling a little self-important because they had been
selected
(1) Singled out as his special companions
(2) They would again be his prayer partners
c)
It was a high mountain and it had been a long climb
i)
So at first they
did not believe what they were seeing
ii)
Maybe the glow before their eyes was related to the
altitude
iii) Sometimes that happened – the shortage of oxygen
played tricks on their minds
(1) This story always reminds me of my mountain top
experience about thirty years ago
(a) Climbing the Precipice
(b) Overcast day so found ourselves surrounded in clouds
(c) Gorged on blueberries
(d) Tired, so lay down to rest
(e) Heard voices in a half dream state
(f) Unsure what was real
(g) Felt as though God might be present in the
clouds
(2) Mountain top experiences shift our understanding of
reality
d) For the disciples, their experience was real
i)
They were
surrounded by the shekinah
(1) References to this shining cloud in Exodus
(a) In Moses’ mountain top encounter with God
(b) And a pillar of cloud leading the people in their
wilderness wanderings
(2) Shekinah represents the glory of God
(3) The very real presence of God
ii)
and then out of this cloud there appears a vision
(1) “Peter sees Jesus – his Jesus, the rabbi he’s
chosen to follow – chatting with the two –
(2) THE TWO – [greatest leaders] of his own faith, Moses
and Elijah, …” (Homiletics, January/February, 2008, p. 38)
(a) What an incredible experience!
(b) We can hear his excitement in the scripture
(c) And in his ridiculous idea to build three booths
iii) It’s hard to tell who was more excited
(1) Peter, James and John on the Mount of Transfiguration
(2) Or a bunch of groupies in a mosh
pit? (Ibid)
(a) Some of our youth were part of a mosh
pit last summer when they went to Youth 2007
(i) Sydney Tucker was one of them
1.
She said it looked like fun
2.
And she wanted to be closer to the band
(ii) Cheryl said of this experience
1.
Seeing the excitement of our youth being with so many
other youth was amazing
2.
She watched how the words of the songs touched the
youth
3.
and changed the look on their faces
4.
there was an energy that stayed with them into their
small group time
5.
may have helped the group to be more open with each
other
(b) Being in a mosh pit is
about more than just watching
(i) About seeing
(ii) and experiencing
(iii) and letting the music and experience change you
e) Now we know that Peter and James and John were not in
a mosh pit, but I wonder how it changed them to be so
up close and personal with the Moses and Elijah?
(1) This year the youth came home wanting to hear more of
the contemporary Christian bands that they saw in
(2) I wonder how the transfiguration of Jesus changed the
disciples lives?
2) Usually we talk about the transfiguration and our
understanding of Christ, in other words we think this day has a “christological meaning.” (Ibid,
p. 40)
a) For the western church it seems to be all about Jesus
i)
Peter, James,
and John were there just as observers
(1) They stood and watched amazed as this miraculous
thing happened to Jesus
(2) That’s why its so puzzling that Jesus tells them not
to say anything
(3) Why take observers and then tell them not to say
anything?
b) But Peter, James, and John are not just observers,
God speaks to them
i)
They are the
intended participants
ii)
This is all about them in a sense
iii) God says, “Listen to him.”
iv) “Seeing Jesus means listening to him”
c)
Early Christian writers and preachers who ended up
being associated with the Eastern tradition of the church explore how this
mountain top experience refers to the transfiguration of the resurrected human
nature.” (Ibid)
i)
Clement of
(1) writing in 2nd century, says
(2) “Even when [Christ] was shown in glory to the
apostles on the mountain, he did not give the revelation for his own sake but
for the sake of the church, ‘the chosen race,’ that it could learn about its
advancement after it passed from flesh” (Ibid)
ii)
Andrew of Crete preached
(1) Four centuries later
(2) “And so today we celebrate this feast, the
deification of our nature, its transformation to a better condition, its
rapture and ascent from natural realities to those which are above nature”
(Ibid)
iii) In other words what does the transfiguration have to
do with us?
iv) What does it mean to the human race that God came
into human life and changed our race forever and permanently?
3) Seeing Jesus means listening to him.
a) There are times when encounters with Jesus cannot
help but change our lives
i)
There is a tug,
a pull, a tension in this story of transfiguration
(1) “It confronts us powerfully with the ongoing tension
between the loved, the familiar, the human Jesus ...
(2) and the dazzling presence whose brightness overwhelms
us.” (Margaret Guenther, Sermon at St. Margaret’s Church,
(3) Jesus’ warning about not sharing what they have seen
may be about this tension
(a) He asks them to wait
(b) To let him be fully human as he makes his way to the
cross
b) There are times when we cannot keep from speaking
about what we have seen and heard
i)
Peter wanted to
stay up on that mountain
(1) It was such a glorious experience he wanted to
continue basking in that glow
(2) But one cannot stay on a mountain when one has truly
encountered the Christ
(a) Moses could not stay up on the mountain with God.
(b) Jesus didn't build booths on the Mount of
Transfiguration.
(c) If the disciples had stayed on the mountain, the
illumination they gained there couldn't have been shared with the world.
(3) We cannot stay on the mountain either
(a) The risen Christ will be encountered in the midst of
humanity
(b) The Christ is known when we experience him as fully
human and fully God
c)
getting up close and personal with Jesus
i)
truly seeing him
means that we have to listen to him
(1) in a sense all of us here this morning are seekers
(a) perhaps we’d like to be in a mosh
pit
(b) up close and personal on this Mount of
Transfiguration
(2) being in that mosh pit
means
(a) that he’s going to change who we are
(b) it means listening to Jesus
ii)
I hear him saying:
(1) Take a risk
(2) Step out in faith
(3) Share your gifts
(4) Embrace suffering
(5) Reach out to the stranger
(6) God’s kingdom is near
iii) when we encounter God, the experience cannot help but
change us
(1) the shekinah, or the grace
of God, if you will, surrounds us
(a) like fog
(b) or low lying clouds on a mountain top
(2) Hoarding God’s grace creates diminishing returns.
(3) Only by sharing, do we find more!