“A Mountaintop Experience”
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. David McMaster
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Text: Matthew 17:1-9
I've never been terribly fond of horror films and cultivating the emotion of fear. In fact, it is fair to say that I dislike the whole genre that brings to us things that are spooky, frightening, and violent; I find them obscene. I have, however, watched the odd horror movie when pressed by some dubious friend. It was probably 25 or so years ago that one got me to watch Friday the 13th Part 1. It had just hit television and she was dying to see it (pun intended). Some of you will remember the fictional character, Jason Voorhees, who drowned as a boy at Camp Crystal Lake due to the negligence of the camp staff. A year later, the lake is rumoured to be “cursed” and is the setting for a series of gruesome murders of camp counsellors. I hate this stuff, but I had to watch it because my friend wanted to watch it and being a man ... you know, you're supposed to be tough ... and I remember managing to hold my own, killing after gruesome killing I kept my emotions in check. At some point near the end of the movie, however, my friend and I were lying on the floor, eyes glued to the screen, as the last counsellor, Alice, is attacked by Jason's mother. Alice wins the battle. She seemingly gets away. Dawn is approaching and one begins to sense that the night of terror is finally over, the young woman is going to make it. In one of the final scenes, she is lying in a canoe in the middle of the lake. The sun is making a dent in the early morning mist. The emotions of the viewer are just beginning to relax. She is safe, the police are en route and then, suddenly, out of nowhere, Jason rises out of the water and with an outstretched arm drags her down and in. As Jason rose, my friend let out this horrific scream and with the combination of what I was watching on TV and the scream right next to me in my living room, I just about hit the ceiling. It was as though my body and soul were just elevated in fright. I was like one of those cats in cartoons that jump straight up from their place, with claws dug in and holding on to the ceiling for dear life. It was a response to the emotion of fear.
Fear has been defined in various ways. One speaks of it as “a human response to alien, unexpected, and unwanted realities that invade or disrupt our lives.” Another says that it causes distress; it is “aroused by impending danger, evil, pain, whether the threat is real or imagined.” It can also be a very useful emotion helping us avoid the perils of busy streets, hot plates, dangerous circumstances, or grizzly bears. One of the prime needs of human beings is to feel safe and secure. When trouble breaks out, as has been occurring in Libya recently, people want out, fear leads us to get away, to go back to places that we know are out of harm's way. In real life, few people cultivate or desire fear yet it is a part of our constitutions, a common emotion that helps with self-preservation.
Fear is also an emotion we encounter in the Bible. We find it between human beings as they encounter difficult circumstances. We find it also as individuals encounter God and there are some people who find that very strange. Never mind the fact that some of us seem to cultivate fear at the movies, and not just the horror flicks, never mind the usefulness of the emotion in certain circumstances, the one place many Christians today do not want to encounter fear is in relation to God. Many do not like the biblical notion of “the fear of the Lord?” Some write off the psalmist and teacher who say that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” We want safety. We want a God who is safe and so much so that it has become almost politically incorrect within the church to speak of “the fear of the Lord.”
This understanding has altered over time and has affected the church, for instance, in how we do worship. I remember when I was a child and youth, the fear of the Lord was something that was very much spoken of and taught in church. We grew up hearing about sin, judgment, and hell and that message filtered into our worship. The church sanctuary was very much a place of reverence and awe and silence. When one entered the sanctuary, one dared not utter a word. One was in the presence of the Almighty. Respect, awe, reverence, those were the name of the game.
I am not sure that we have lost that entirely at TEMC but there are many other churches that I have visited in which respect for the sanctuary has long gone. In some newer churches, it has never been. There is little sense of wonder or awe. What one experiences in most newer worship establishments is the emotion of joy and celebration. Smiling, energetic, amiable worship-leaders lead us in upbeat songs. We praise a lovely God, preachers joke with us, we feel good, everyone is made comfortable.
I do not wish to say that one of these models is any better or worse than the other, I just want to note the transition that has occurred from a more austere and sober worship in the past to a more celebratory, happy worship seen in many churches today. It seems that a pendulum of some sort has swung from one extreme to another. And with the swing of the pendulum, I keep asking myself, “Wherein lies the truth? ” When we worship, are we entering the presence of an almighty, powerful, ruler of the universe in whose presence we might well tremble? Or, are we coming to a God who is a buddy, a friend, who walks with us and talks with us along life's narrow way? We are fast approaching Lent and it is worth asking, if we were to encounter God during Lent, what would we experience? What God would we encounter? What emotions might we feel?
If you follow the church year, you may know that this is the last Sunday in the church season of Epiphany and is generally known as Transfiguration Sunday
As one reads through Matthew, one encounters the birth of Jesus, stories of John the baptist, Jesus' temptation and by chapter 17, one is nearing the end of a lengthy section outlining the public ministry of Jesus. He has been teaching, healing, performing miracles, encountering Jewish leaders, developing the 12 into disciples. The disciples are just beginning to grasp who Jesus really is when he leads Peter, James and John up into a high mountain where he is transfigured before them. We read in chapter 17 that his face shone like the sun. His garments became white as light. Moses and Elijah appeared talking with him. And then a bright cloud overshadowed them and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased. Listen to him.”
It's another passage affirming Jesus' relationship to the Father. It is an encounter with God and, surprise, surprise, the main emotion expressed by the disciples is fear. The bright cloud and the voice were outside anything they have previous experienced. They knew there was something other-worldly going on here and all that they could do was fall on their faces in exceeding fear.
It's probably no accident that this is reminiscent of something that happened to the Israelites and Moses during the exodus around Mount Sinai. It was when the Ten Commandments were given. The Lord came down on Mt. Sinai in a thick cloud, there was thunder and lightning and as Moses spoke to God, the Lord answered. And, it is written, “all the people who were in the camp trembled.” It is as though we are being told of a continuity between what God had done in Israel and what God was doing now in Jesus. And as Peter and James and John experience God like their forefathers and mothers, they experience great fear.
Fear pops up throughout the Bible as human beings encounter God. Perhaps, in one of the most surprising places, it occurs with most of those who witness the birth of Jesus. These days, we tend to sentimentalize the birth of Jesus. Our Christmas pageants, carols, and festivities are full of peace and goodwill and we scarcely note that within the biblical accounts of the birth fear is a big part of what goes on. When angel of the Lord came to Mary, she was filled with fear. When God's angels appeared to the shepherds, they were “sorely afraid.” And it went on as people encountered Jesus during his ministry. When Jesus assisted the disciples after a night of fishing failure and gives them a miraculous, early-morning catch, they look at him in fear. When Jesus calmed the wind and the waves and saves the disciples in the boat, they are afraid of this man whom even the wind and waves obey. When the women come out to the tomb, on the first Easter morning and find the tomb empty, they were afraid. Time and time again, Jesus has to say to his followers, “Do not be afraid.” There was something about Jesus, something fearful, frightening, something that scares even his closest followers out of their wits at times.
Whether we like it or not, whether we consider it politically correct or not, one of the emotions that is felt in the presence of God and even of Jesus, his Son, is fear. It is such that when we encounter God even the most spiritually attuned could only exclaim with Isaiah, “Woe is me. I am ruined, for I am a man of unclean lips and I come from a people of unclean lips.” And I'm not sure that we should be that surprised for almost any time we meet with something or someone greater than ourselves, that emotion kicks in. It happens in the presence of royalty. Maybe in the presence of our boss or some great figure we know, why not, then, if a person were to encounter the greatness, the holiness, the purity of God?
But something else happens in this encounter, for no sooner does Jesus realize that the disciples are afraid, than we hear him say, “Do not be afraid,” and the disciples lift their eyes to see Jesus. And when the angel comes to Mary, the angel sees her fear and says, “Do not be afraid.” Before the shepherds, the angels say, “Fear not for we bring great tidings of great joy…” God encounters our fear and with grace raises us up. If I may speak in very broad categories, whereas God, in the OT, is often portrayed as transcendent and beyond anything in our existence, God in the NT is primarily immanent, coming to us in Jesus and raising us up. There is still be fear for he is related to the transcendent, but he is also a bringer of grace, he says, “Fear not,” for Jesus has come to restore, to repair the broken relationship between Creator and created, to bring us into God's family in which we can relate to God as though he were a heavenly parent. In the Gospels, Jesus calls his Father in heaven, not just Father but he was Abba, an Aramaic word meaning something like “Daddy.” And when Jesus comes to us he invites us into his family so that we can relate to the Father in a similar way to him.
I don't know if you have seen the film entitled The King's Speech yet but in it there is a tremendous portrayal of King George VI as a human being and family man. We see in the film also that once a person assumes the role of sovereign, that person is to everyone, including his family members, set apart, “your royal highness.” We saw it as George V's sons and family related to him, as Prince Albert related to his brother, Edward VIII, and then when Edward abdicated for his beloved, Wallis Simpson, and Albert became George VI we see it again with his family. When he returned home that first evening as king, he was greeted by his daughters, Elizabeth and Margaret. What had been a warm, loving relationship to that point was suddenly formalized. The young Elizabeth knew their place and she beckoned her younger sister, Margaret, to curtsey and together they bow their heads to their father and say, “Your majesty.” There's an awkward pause on the landing of their residence until the now, King George VI, their father, stepped forward grabbed his girls and gave them great hugs. He may well have become the sovereign but he was still their Dad.
I wonder if that can serve as a useful metaphor for us. In Christ, a transcendent, sovereign God becomes immanent. And even though in the biblical texts as individuals encounter him there is still the fear factor there is also grace. It is a grace that meets the fear and says, “Fear not.” It is a grace that lifts up our heads and our eyes and draws us to himself. It is as though in Christ we are God's children. While t first we may bow to the transcendence and sovereign majesty of God, like King George VI, Christ gives his children a hug, he raises them up.
We sometimes like to reduce God to one concept like love and then allow that concept to govern our whole understanding of who and what God is. We must keep asking ourselves when we do this, “Is it true? Is our concept of God correct?” Perhaps, the story of the transfiguration draws us toward a more complex understanding of God but perhaps it is also a more accurate concept: A great God who is to be feared but a God who shows grace and would lift up our heads and our eyes to see Jesus.
I think we need both of those things when it comes to understanding God. We need a God who is strong and able, the immortal, invisible, God only wise, we sang about this morning ... in light inaccessible, hid from our eyes, most blessed, most glorious, the ancient of days. Almighty, victorious, whose great name we praise. It is the strength of God that ultimately provides our safety and security when we need it. And it is the transcendence of God that helps us to transcend ourselves, to look beyond, to be greater than we are, to strive after a purity that is greater than our purity, to be holy as he is holy, to be righteous in our dealings with one another. We need a great God who can call us to greatness.
But we also need a gracious God. We need a God whom we can come to in all of our humanity, in all of our struggles, with all of our burdens, and in all of our sin. We need a God who will take us as we are, say to us, “Be not afraid,” and draw us into loving arms in Christ. We need both the might and the grace of God. And perhaps as we journey through this Lenten season, we will encounter a God who is greater than all our imaginations. Perhaps it is these things that will motivate our lives toward greatness in God's eyes and mercy and graciousness to others. Amen