How do you understand and experience the most, the best – the sublime? And what is utterly ridiculous, out of the question – absurd? God wants to transform us through His son. Our heavenly father gives us two short passages that let us glimpse into why our doxology sings: “Praise God, from whom all blessings flow.” “To know glory” – that is what the Greek word doxology means. Some of us resist imagining things too advanced. We avoid really knowing God’s glory. It’s too far above us. It’s not the simple humble servant life.
In today’s message Jesus takes us up to another mountain where He is physically transfigured into His heavenly glory in the presence of three of His closest disciples and two deceased prophets. Then we follow Jesus down the mountain into a big crowd of people and a virtual valley of despair where our Lord simply commands a demon possessed boy healed.
It is about eight days after Jesus left a teaching session like the sermon on the mount we visited last week. We climb another mountain where Jesus begins to pray. While he was “in prayer,” His face and clothes changed into “blinding white shinning brilliance” (leukos). We are taken into another world like nothing heard or seen before this. Jesus’ physical existence became a blinding flash of lightning (exastarton). And then He begins to talk with two men. They are Moses and Elijah (the main representatives of the Law and the Prophets). Jesus literally enlightens them and all of us with a flashing glorious picture of His radiance.
They are talking about the “exodus”, not of Moses taking the Hebrews out of Egypt and not of Elijah taking the Israelites back to the promised land and hope of the promised Messiah. Jesus IS the Light of the world, the new Moses, the promised Messiah, the prophet of prophets - who is about to lead us out of Jerusalem onto the hill called Golgotha (the skull), through His “exodus” which is our exodus - coming out and passing through this limited dark world into a completed creation of limitless perfection.
He is the first fruit of them that were dead but now live. We are mysteriously put to sleep (like Adam before God made Eve) - passed out like Peter, James and John during this blinding glory. We come to, rubbing our eyes, just staring at Jesus in His glory. Like Peter we want to preserve “this great moment” by talking Jesus into building three memorials for Him and the two patriarchs. We blurt out this plan without thinking. Peter’s babbling is like many of our prayers. Imagine God’s lightning charged light-radiant “Shikanah” cloud surrounding us, while we want to make suggestions about how to arrange the furniture, rebuilt His creation, and do things according to our sense of righteousness. When we finally become deeply aware of God’s presence, a voice out of the cloud says: “This is my Child, the Chosen One (the Messiah)! Listen to him.”
Let Him unveil your faces, so you will see God’s glory - not reflected in a mirror, but transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit. (2 Corinthians 3:18)
Jerry Krueger pastors a small West Texas community. He recently preached how we can see our everyday lives transfigured in ordinary encounters of a singular kind. When he was driving home after that Sunday morning service, he slowed down, to watch some ducks and Canada geese in a large flooded area in a nearby field. It had just rained on a very dry West Texas plain. Imagine how he pulls over, parks the car, and gets out to watch the waterfowl. No sounds from traffic, airplanes, voices, or telephones can be heard. The only sounds you hear are the geese honking and the wind blowing through the large clump of brush nearby. The sun on your back and the breeze in your face reminds us that we can take time to be transformed daily. On that solitary, rural road, once again you and I see our Creator's handiwork and feel God's transfiguring presence.
We are speechless. And we continue speechless, not saying one thing to anyone during these days of what we have seen. Until we sing: “And He walks with me and He talks with me; and He tells me I am His own. And the joys we share as we tarry there – none other has ever known.”
Now we come down off the mountain with Jesus the next day and a big crowd meets us. A man calls from the midst of them, “Please, please, Teacher, take a look at my son. He’s my only child. Often a spirit seizes him. Suddenly he’s screaming, thrown into convulsions, his mouth foaming. And then it beats him black and blue before it leaves. Other disciples of Jesus have tried and failed to heal the boy.
Even though Jesus gave us power to “Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons” (Matthew 10:8) - Jesus reminds us why we fail. “What a generation! No sense of God! No focus to your lives! How many times does He have to go over these things with us? How much longer does He have to put up with this?”
The very grammar of this scene teaches us why we fail to heal in the name of Jesus. Our Lord commands, “Bring your son here.” But while the little boy is coming alone and NOT with others bringing him to Jesus, then a demon attacks his defenseless soul and slams the child to the ground in convulsions. Jesus intervenes, in spite of His disciple’s failure to obey and failure to “bring your son here.” The father had only prayed an intercessory prayer, but failed to bring his son to Jesus. Then God miraculously commands the evil spirit away. He heals the boy and hands him back to his father.
We all shake our heads in wonder, astonished at God’s majestic greatness. God’s glory is much greater with those in turmoil than with those in austere mountain top experiences.
Joanne Kennedy recently reminded me how children seem to expect some miraculous healing power from the rest of us. You can make a scraped knee better with a kiss or soothe an aching heart with a hug and pat.
We may never make the blind see or the lame walk as Jesus and the apostles did. But all of us can help to heal the ordinary (sometimes just as crippling) hurts of the heart and mind in those around us.
A sincere compliment, appreciation expressed for a job well done, or warm words of welcome (especially for those not usually welcomed) – these are examples of the healing force Jesus gives us. Building the confidence of a shy child, offering a loving touch that often says more than words, or listening with patient, nonjudgmental understanding to someone in trouble - these are healing acts as much as caring for the ill. Though each one of us is wounded in some way, each of us also has the power to bring some measure of healing to another.
This is not a Science Fiction thriller. This is no pie in the sky lie. This is God’s promise that comes to us in our mind’s eye – in our heart of hearts.
Jesus is God’s sublime glory who comes in our most absurd lives. His radiant Godliness and simple lowly human existence are one. We breath His Holy Spirit’s doxology in while praising God from whom all blessings flow. We breath out His “gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free, 'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be, And when we find ourselves in the place just right, 'Twill be in the valley of love and delight. When true simplicity is gain'd; To bow and to bend we shan't be asham'd, To turn, turn will be our delight; 'Till by turning, turning we come round right.
Dear Heavenly Father, turn us round right. Transfigure our lives away from sinful disobedience. Raise us to Your perfection and glory sensing Your presence in everyday events around us. Restore us daily with awe and wonder. Help us to heal with kind words and soothing touch in body, mind, or spirit. May your Holy Spirit empower our simple gifts in Christ Jesus’ name, the Healer Divine. Amen.
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