2-19-23 Sermon & Scripture

Good to see you again. Didn’t I just see you last week? And you’re back again?

Isn’t it weird that we come back to church every week? Not everyone does it that frequently, but there is that opportunity. Think about it. If it’s true about what we believe happens when we come together. We encounter God. We hear a message, what God wants for us to know, and actually it’s not just information, but the Word of God that actually changes us as we hear it. And then we partake of divine flesh and blood. How many times do you think you should do that in your lifetime? I think once would probably be enough and all I would really want. That’s too heavy to want to do more!

But yet we do it all over again, weekly! There is a lot of life where we do the same thing over and over again. So which category does church attendance fall into? We regularly get our haircut, trim our nails, take a shower. If we don’t our hair and nails get longer and longer, and that’s not a pleasant experience. Or our odor accumulates more and more. Also not pleasant. Is that why we keep coming back? Something, some aspect of who we are gets out of whack, needs trimming, needs washing? Maybe.

We eat, we sleep, we fill up our cars with gas, regularly. Is that why we go to church? Do we become depleted of something godly, and so we need to come back and get filled up again? Do we leak? Maybe.

The Guinness Book of World Records says that – Shelly Duvall walking backwards up the steps swinging a bat at Jack Nicholson in The Shining – they did 127 takes of just that one scene. Why? Because Stanley Kubrick was a demanding perfectionist for whom it was never going to be good enough. Is that why we keep showing up? Didn’t quite take last week? Again. Again. Let’s try it again.

Now, I know why most of you are in church whenever you can be. You like it. You like the people. You like the music. The ritual is comforting. You learn more about the Bible and the Christian life. It grounds you. It grounds you. 

But today we’re talking about being somewhat ungrounded. We’re talking about mountains and mystery and marvel. Again. Every year, right before Lent, we talk about Peter, James, and John, going up a mountain with Jesus, and he starts glowing. We talk about Matthew’s account this year. Next year we’ll talk about Mark’s account. Then we’ll talk about Luke’s account. There’s not a lot of difference. Yet pastors have to think of something new to say about glowing Jesus. And actually, I’m being honest here, I’m having a hard time caring, wondering what the big deal is. Now, I’m not the type of pastor that believes this is an invented story. I think it really happened. Sure. Why not? But also, who cares? How does this help me or the world? If you took this moment out of the Gospel story, does it really matter? It’s not in the Creed we say, after all.

Peter says it matters. And I’m sure to Peter it did. What’s bizarre to me is that, in 2 Peter, when Peter is talking about the assurance of our faith and of the scriptures, and what Peter had been an eyewitness of, he brings up this mountain experience with Jesus. He doesn’t say the resurrection. He doesn’t talk about walking on the water. For some reason, this is where Peter goes. Maybe this was the first thing he really couldn’t find some other explanation for. You know how it goes. Some miracle happens to you or some other person who is relating something to you. The mind tends to think of explanations other than God’s supernatural intervention. 

And also remember, because I was forgetting, Jesus lighting up wasn’t the only thing that happened. Moses and Elijah showed up. A cloud overshadowed them. And a voice came from the cloud, which said, “This is my Beloved Son. Listen to him!” All those things coming together really gets your attention. Certainly got Peter’s. And John, our Beloved Disciple, who was there as well.

Draws our attention to what exactly? Well, one, we see a pattern with the Scriptures taking place. Earlier we read Exodus, about Moses and the elders being invited up a mountain to see God. Moses entered into a cloud, and waited six days before meeting God. Matthew records that this happened after six days. So from the top of this mountain where Jesus is, we can see Mount Sinai, where Moses received the law from God, and we can see Elijah, seeking direction from God, and who encountered fire and earthquake and wind, but God wasn’t in those things, God was in a still small voice who asked Elijah “What are you doing here?” 

You look one direction and you see the past, Mount Sinai. Turn around, and you can see another mountain in the future, in the very near future. And you see Jesus ascend this mountain also. Very different mountain. And you know you’re going to need this mountaintop experience to get through the difficulties of that one. On this mountain, Jesus brings others; on that mountain, others make Jesus go up. This mountain is enveloped in light; that mountain will be shrouded in darkness. Here, Jesus’ clothes are shining; there, Jesus’ clothes will be stripped off. Here is glory; there is shame. Here is Elijah; there it seems to some that Jesus calls out for Elijah, but Elijah never comes. Here are two saints next to Jesus; there Jesus will be between two criminals. Here God speaks; there God is silent. Here people bow down in reverent majesty; there, people will bow down in mocking revelry. That’s Mount Golgotha, Calvary in Latin. In English, Skull Hill. How do you get through that? You get through it by remembering that the Jesus on that mountain is the same that was on this mountain. And maybe even seeing in the far off distance another mountain, the Mount of Olives upon which Jesus will return to rule the world. 

But Peter is fine right here. This mountain will do. No need to go down, no need for any other mountains. Let’s just stay here. Set up camp.

Asbury University in Kentucky is a lovely place I have visited a few times. I considered going to seminary there and have many friends who did. At Asbury there is a revival going on. What is a revival? That’s a great question. I have spent a lot of my life praying for revival, yet often puzzled as how to define it. But basically, a genuine revival looks like, at least at first, people going to church, but then, for whatever reason, people don’t want church to end. They keep singing. They keep praying. They keep preaching. People are moved, and they confess, they testify, the commit, they are renewed. And it just keeps going, because God is moving in people’s hearts. There’s a lot of joy involved. That’s been happening at Asbury since February 8th. Hopefully it turns into a mass movement of turning to God. I hope that happens at Asbury. That’s what I pray for.

Now Asbury is in the Wesleyan-Methodist-Holiness stream. Not Lutheran. But it has happened in Lutheran churches as well, especially in Scandinavia. My old denomination, the Evangelical Covenant Church, formerly known as the Swedish Mission Covenant, formed as an outgrowth of revivals among Swedish Lutherans. What if it happened here? It could. I pray it would. That God would so move among us, renew us, soften our hearts, and we just ride the wave for as long as it takes us. 

Now imagine this worship service as a mountain we ascend from our week, and then we descend into the rest of our week. And when we come here to worship, it feels good. We see Jesus glorified. We encounter where it all fits with the Old Testament and the life of the church. God speaks. Maybe we even have a really good day and we get some goosebumps. Or maybe revival breaks out and we don’t want to leave just yet, so we don’t. 

Yet eventually we need to. Our time here is done; we go back down the mountain. Is it disappointing to have to do so? Is it drudgery? Are we in dread, having seen a Golgotha awaiting in the future? I so want you to encounter Christ today, to partake of Christ, a glorified, glowing Christ. I want you to hear the voice of God. God is getting our attention today. Drawing our attention to what?

Drawing our attention to the fact that the glorified, illuminating Christ is with us out there as much as in here. You don’t have to leave the presence of God. You carry it with you, and it transfigures everything. All your disappointments, your drudgeries, and even your dread. The glorified Christ is with you on every dark Golgotha. 

We come back up this mountain each week, not to get God back into our lives again, not to cut back our growing unruliness, and certainly not because previous times of worship haven’t perfected us yet. We just need to see Jesus to remind us of who is with us, and whom we serve, all the time.

As we head into the deep valley of Lent, let us pay attention that the Christ of suffering and self-denial is also the Beloved, illuminating presence who brings joy.