The Mountain is Calling
Session 11.09
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Podcast
Introduction
This is the week the Christian community remembers the transfiguration of Christ on the mountain and it is our text this week, Luke 9:28-43. In the context of the church year, many Christian groups read this text on the Sunday before Ash Wednesday as a way to prepare for the Lenten journey that is ahead of them. In many ways, this experience on the mountain probably served the same purpose for Jesus.
Scripture: Luke 9:28-43
Now about eight days after these sayings Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray. And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Elijah, talking to him.
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Nikki's Video Script
The Mountain is Calling
This is the week the Christian community remembers the transfiguration of Christ on the mountain and it is our text this week, Luke 9:28-43. In the context of the church year, many Christian groups read this text on the Sunday before Ash Wednesday as a way to prepare for the Lenten journey that is ahead of them. In many ways, this experience on the mountain probably served the same purpose for Jesus.
In the gospels, we have a literary form we often refer to as the passion predictions and each of the synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke have three of these. These are moments in the story of Jesus’ life when he or someone else refers to the fact that Jesus would suffer and die. The first of these in Luke’s gospel shows up in 9:18-22 and the second show us in 9:44. Our story today comes between these two passions predictions. There is a sense that Jesus is growing ever more aware that his time on earth is drawing close to the end.
In the midst of this, he goes to the top of the mountain for prayer and renewal with the three disciples that seem to be closest to him, Peter, James, and John. While they are up there, Jesus is changed before them. He sort of glows. Then Moses and Elijah seem to appear and speak to Jesus. Peter is so enamored with the experience that he wants to just stay on the mountain and never leave.
This is real folks. Isn’t it? When we find ourselves in spaces that insulate us from the hardness of the world, we want to stay there. We want to remain in the spaces that make us feel safe and warm and like we belong.
As Peter was saying these things, God comes in a cloud to speak to Peter, James, and John. In a voice from above, not unlike Jesus’ baptism, God says, ‘This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!’ Then everything goes back to normal and for companions travel back down the mountain. We are told that they all kept silent about what they experience on that mountain. I imagine this was the only possible response just such a unique experience.
Have you ever experience the presence of God in a way that felt impossible to describe. For me, it happened on my back porch near the end of my second year of seminary. It had been a difficult semester and I was restless. I lived in a quiet neighborhood outside the city limits. I enjoyed sitting on my lawn chair after dark, in the quiet, watching the stars. There is nothing magical about my experience or even particularly abnormal. But that evening a sense of peace watch over me that I desperately needed but has not gone seeking. I cannot explain to you how it happened or why it happened and trying to convey it to you now feels like an impossible task. What I do know, is that experience has sustained me even until now. When I find myself restless again or facing a challenging time that memory will often come to mind. It helps me. It is as simple as that and I am eternally grateful for the gift.
One thing I do know about that experience is that I was able to experience it because I was making space for it. In that season I have developed a habit of sitting on my back porch in the evening. Making space to experience and encounter God is such an important part of Christian faith. We know that Jesus regularly took time to be alone or in a small group for prayer. In the story, we read for today Jesus and the disciples experience God in a way that likely sustained them through Jesus betrayal, trial, conviction, and death. It was the spiritual nourishment and they needed as they entered a time that will challenge their commitment to following Jesus and a time when Jesus’ commitment to his own teaching and mission would be challenged.
Our passage today ends with a crowd, a desperate father, a sick child, and fledgling disciples. The very day the return from the mountain, the work resumes. We even hear some of Jesus’ own frustration in his comments. The lectionary places these two texts together, in part, I think because it reminds us that there is always work to do. We are called to retreat, to rest, and to make space for us to become more aware of God among us. But then we are called to return to the world and continue our work of healing and helping and hoping.
Nikki's Notes
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