Year B

Mark 9:2-9

The Rev. Denise Vaughn

Peak Mountain Moments

There is a true story of a 33-year-old truck driver by the name of Larry Walters who was sitting in his lawn chair in his back yard one day wishing he could fly. For as long as he could remember he had wanted to fly but he had never had the time nor money nor opportunity to be a pilot. So he spent a lot of summer afternoons sitting in his backyard in an old aluminum chair just looking up into the sky. One day Larry had an idea and hooked 45 helium-filled surplus weather balloons to his chair, put a CB radio in his lap, tied a paper bag full of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to his leg, and slung a BB gun over his shoulder to pop the balloons when he wanted to come down. He lifted off in his lawn chair expecting to climb a couple of hundred feet over his neighborhood. But instead he shot up 11,000 feet right through the approach corridor to the Los Angeles International Airport. When asked by the press why he did it, Larry answered: “Well, you can’t just sit there.” When asked if he was scared, he answered “Yes….wonderfully so.”

Larry Walters will never be the same again after his trip to the mountain in his lawn chair. I am not recommending anyone try do this with their lawn chair because it is dangerous and I believe he did get into trouble because he caused a problem at the airport. Yet, it was a special time in his life, one I’m sure he will never want to forget, because he saw things and felt things that shaped the way he will live the rest of his life.  It’s our human nature to want to hang onto those special moments or times in our lives to preserve them. They are the precious times when we feel as if we are savoring life as it should be. In the story of the Transfiguration, Peter, James & John experienced one of those special mountain top moments that shaped the rest of their lives. A moment where eternity breaks in and we get a glimpse of God’s glory where Heaven and earth meet in an extraordinary human being.  We complete the season of Epiphany with a voice from heaven, just as we started this season with a voice from heaven in Jesus’ baptism.

This story which lies at the very center of Mark’s Gospel, halfway between Jesus’ baptism and his resurrection, gives us a glimpse of a new view of reality that changes our understanding and our world. Because the voice that speaks from a cloud confirms that Jesus is not only the Christ, as Peter had just confessed, but God’s own Beloved Son and God tells the disciples to “Listen to him! This command asks them to believe what they have already heard Jesus tell them and what he will tell them again that rejection, suffering, death, and resurrection lay at the heart of his mission as the messiah. Just prior to this text today, Jesus taught the disciples that he “must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.”

Yet, because Peter and the disciples cannot yet completely see and understand Jesus’ teaching about the cross, we find them at the transfiguration of Jesus confused and terrified. Who wouldn’t be? Peter was so terrified that he did not know what to say. Yet, felt he needed to say something because all heaven seemed to be breaking loose with the holy ones of ancient Israel, Moses and Elijah, showing up. His desire to build three dwelling places was his effort to hang onto that moment and not allow this grand event in their lives to pass away. It’s also possible that Peter wanted to remain in the glory of divine presence because the thought of having to go back down the mountain and follow the way of the cross was more than he could understand and bear. Suffering and “taking up the cross,” following the way of the cross, as Jesus soon will, lies at the heart for all who would follow him. The disciples stand on that mountain hoping for an easier way, but there is no easier way. The Transfiguration took place to empower Jesus and the disciples with the strength and vision they would need to walk the way of suffering together.

As they come down the mountain, Jesus warns them not to say anything about what happened until he is raised from the dead; the disciples will not understand the glory of this moment on the mountain until they experience the cross. This event only becomes clear in Christ’s suffering, death and, resurrection. It is after the Transfiguration that Jesus knowing he will suffer and die sets his face to Jerusalem. No doubt the disciples explanation after his resurrection brought great encouragement to the early Christian believers who themselves would experience suffering and death for his sake.

For those of us who follow the way of the cross today, when we think about the experiences in our lives many times our peak moments and experiences are set in the circumstances of our suffering moments. Of course we want life to be filled with joy and success, yet there are also those hard times in our lives that cause our mountain top experiences to be better understood. We come to appreciate those moments of joy and success because of our suffering. It is in those hard times that we grow the most and gain the strength to have the really good times. God’s purpose for us involves the experience of transfiguration and suffering.

This Wednesday we begin that season of the church year known as Lent. One of the mysteries of the Lenten message is that God’s victory in Christ came in the agony of suffering and death on the cross. Even on this side of the resurrection, we cannot completely understand this mystery until we are face to face with God. But Jesus’ journey through his valley tells us something important about God that the hurt of failure and the suffering of death and are where we find God’s presence. God may stand with us on the mountaintop, but God also holds us as we make our way down and out of the darkness of suffering. Our experiences on the mounts of transfiguration are possible because of God’s help through the valleys and deserts of our life.

It was on that mountain, that Jesus received the strength and courage for the journey ahead. A journey filled with pitfalls and dangers.  But looking across the valley we see another mountaintop, the peak experience of the resurrection. This is the view of life’s journey for all who follow the way of the cross; it is God’s way of salvation and the transfiguration calls us to live this way with all our heart, soul and strength in the confidence that we can “Listen to him.” Listening to him the disciples go back down the mountain into the valley of life. Their experience is just one on a long journey toward faithfulness; just as our experiences make up our journey toward faithfulness.

And we are promised that for those who listen for the voice of God in Jesus their lives are linked with God’s journey. It is a Lenten journey that follows a way out of comfort through risk, all the way to resurrection. It is a journey that helps us to refocus on what matters most: Christ’s call which is our life purpose; the love of God, neighbor, family, friends and self; those moments that fill our souls and make us whole. Our mission, like those disciples, is to carry that vision of the mountaintop experience down with us but, unlike them, we get to tell everyone what we have seen. We are the blessed ones who get to share the Good News of God’s love in Christ Jesus. But the only way to reach others is to come on down from the mountain, pop those balloons, and be with those who need to hear about what we have experienced in that Wow unforgettable moment on the mountain.