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We find ourselves on top of a mountain today. We are part of a select group. Maybe you didn’t sense this when the lesson was read to you. Jesus selects three disciples, Peter, James and John and leads them to the top of the mountain. We get to go with them.  Nine disciples stay at the bottom of the mountain. They weren’t selected to have this mountain top experience.  We get to go to the top while the others take care of the mundane daily affairs in the valley.

 

            You can think about the nine disciples who are left behind in a number of ways. You can imagine them at some base camp, like the mountain climbers of the major peaks throughout the world, getting ready to receive climbers when they come down from the mountain. There is a nonprofit organization that runs a permanent base camp during the climbing season of Mt. Everest. You might not be a climber but you can volunteer to care for those who make the trek up the tallest mountain in the world. Climbers come down exhilarated and tired and often in need of medical attention, particularly for frostbite and the high altitude Khumbu cough[1].

 

            Jesus and his three disciples aren’t climbing Everest. There isn’t a chance of frostbite or high altitude coughing. Matthew doesn’t identify which mountain Jesus climbs but tradition holds that it is Mount Tabor in southern Galilee.  It sits 11 miles south of the Sea of Galilee and rises to a height of 1,843 feet, significantly less than the 29,000 feet of Everest.  Still whether you are climbing Everest or Tabor, it is nice to have a base camp at the foot of the mountain. This is what the nine disciples might be doing.

 

            Maybe the nine were elsewhere, in a town perhaps, getting ready to follow Jesus to the next place where he will enlist support for his movement. This is what he has been doing since last weekend, since the first sermon in the series of two. It was titled “Getting Ready.” The disciples and Jesus were getting ready. A week has past for us but in Bible time, it’s been three years.  For three years, they have followed Jesus throughout Galilee, building energy and excitement about this wonderful, new religious movement. The disciples had no clue that he was going to be the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. They didn’t know he was going to be the risen Savior.  But as they followed, they began to see that Jesus was more than just the founder of a new religious movement in Judaism. He was their teacher; he was a powerful healer; he was a prophet.

 

            Jesus starts his movement in Capernaum, north of the Sea of Galilee, visits fishing villages along the seashore. Then he moves inland to the east, toward the Mediterranean Sea. He makes it all the way to the coast. Our lesson begins, “six days later.” Were you curious about what happened six days earlier? Jesus and his disciples were on the coast at Caesarea Philippi.[2] There Jesus asks, “Who do people say I am?’ They answer he’s like John the Baptist or a prophet like Elijah or Jeremiah. Then he asks them, “Who do you say I am?”  Peter answers, “You are the Messiah.”

 

            Like every passage of scripture, this one is loaded with information and ways to read it. Again, we most often talk about it being the first profession of faith. Peter is saying, “Jesus, I believe in you. I’m going to follow you.”  But just like everyone who makes their profession of faith, it is a starting point. He doesn’t fully understand who Jesus is. He can’t. Right now, Peter is saying, “This movement you’ve started, it’s big. You are the Messiah, the anointed one who will reign over Israel, just like King David.” That’s what Messiah meant to Peter at the moment. It was about reestablishing the Davidic dynasty; it was about being the anointed King. Peter believed that Jesus’ movement was so strong, so powerful, that Jesus will soon lead all Jewish people.

 

            Six days later Peter and Jesus, James and John are on top of Mount Tabor and we are there with him. Jesus is about to expand their vision about who he is and what his mission on earth is for. It comes at a moment when Jesus “was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him.” (Matthew 17: 2-3)  

 

            Peter’s response is not unlike our response when we have a mountaintop experience. Someone told me about skiing on their Christmas vacation. “At the top of that snowy mountain, it was so beautiful and glorious; I just didn’t want to ski down the hill. I just wanted to capture the moment.” Rangers say there is a hypnotic effect at the rim of the Grand Canyon. People can literally be frozen by the view. When I went up to Pike’s Peak, I wanted to stay there for a lot longer than our friends.

 

            This is Peter’s response. Seeing Jesus standing with Moses and Elijah, he thinks, “We’re set. I was right. I know Jesus was going to be the leader of Jewish people. He’s like Moses and Elijah.” He wants to capture the moment and stay right there. This makes more sense when you know that Mount Tabor is strategically located between the north/south and east/west travel routes and was used by Barak and an army of 10,000 to defeat the Canaanites. Given Peter’s answer six days earlier and his response to build three dwellings it is clear he is getting set, planting a flag right there on the mountain. He’s getting set to rebuild David’s kingdom from Mount Tabor.  

          

            Because we are there, witnessing through the Word what is happening, we know there is much more going on. Before Peter can finish telling his plan, a voice from heaven interrupts him saying, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!”  (Matthew 17: 5b) Suddenly, Peter, James and John see and hear something that they’ve not experienced the past three years.  They fall to the ground with fear. Jesus, ever the caring friend “…touched them, saying, “Get up and do not be afraid.” And when they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone. (Matthew 17: 7b-8)

 

            Have you had that moment when you see someone very differently? Parents  experience this when a child appears different almost overnight. A baby suddenly becomes a toddler, a teen appears like a child one moment, and like an adult the next. Students coming home from college after their first semester appear much more mature.  There are other moments in life when we are awe-struck by the achievement or heroism of someone who we previously believed to be ordinary. We think, “I never saw him that way. I never believed he had that capacity. I didn’t think he could do that.”

 

            For a moment the Disciples see a very different Jesus. They see that Jesus is more than a movement organizer, more than the teacher and healer and prophet they’ve come to love.  On Mount Tabor, they glimpse who Jesus is. In the Transfiguration, the curtain between the heaven and earth, between our temporal world and God’s eternal kingdom is opened. They see and they hear that Jesus is the Son of God. As quickly as this is revealed to them, the vision is over. They are left alone with Jesus and his three disciples, and we, watching them from our corner in the world, are like them.

 

       We wonder what we witnessed. I’m confident that his instructions about saying nothing were gratefully received. What would they say? It would take a lifetime for them to begin to understand what happened on that mountain. Mystical experience just can’t be explained. But I also believe this. They shared it, even before the death and resurrection of Jesus. The three talked to the other nine. They must have because even if you can’t explain an experience like the Transfiguration, you have to debrief it. You’ve got to process it, to literally talk it out until you don’t have to talk about it again.

In fact, it may have been why Jesus selected those three. Peter is always opening his mouth and James and John, well they are nicknamed Borangenes, which means Thunder. Do you think two guys named thunder are quiet about anything they do?

 

            When they come down the mountain, things are different with Jesus. Scholars talk about the Transfiguration being the transition point from Jesus building momentum in Galilee and taking his movement to Jerusalem. One calls it “the end of the Galilean summer and the beginning of the Judean winter.” Another says, “He turns his face toward Jerusalem.”[3] Depending on the gospel narrative, this is more poetic than literal. A few verses later in Matthew, he has the disciples gather with him again in Capernaum. Then, “he left Galilee and went to the region of Judea beyond the Jordan. Large crowds followed him…” (Matthew 19: 1b-2a)

 

            It is time to go. No more getting ready. No time for getting set. It is time to go. Go. Jesus is heading to Jerusalem where he will confront the Roman authorities. We know what his followers do not know. He will be rejected, crucified as a common political dissident. His followers will feel as if the movement has failed.  A vision of something more is required and at least three have it. It will be what gets them through the most awful week of their lives.

 

            It’s what a mountain top experience can give you. It can give you a vision. What cannot be imagined surely won’t come to pass. That’s a theological point and it’s a practical point about life. In fact, one of the commentators said it about the New York Giants. If they think they can beat the Patriots, they might. If think they can’t, they’re right.”[4] On top of Mount Tabor, for a moment, the disciples glimpse the future. It will be important when in seven weeks as the events of Holy Week begin to unfold. And it is important for us.

 

      I said last weekend that we spend a lifetime getting ready. We get ready for those joyful moments when it is easy to praise God and we get ready for those tough moments in our life, which come all too frequently. If we don’t have a vision for something greater, something grander, something that God will make happen, then we get really stuck. Without vision, we get set, but not so that we can go. We simply get set in our ways.

 

            I spent the week at a clergy conference in Kansas City, representing our congregation among the top 100 Disciples of Christ congregations in our denomination. It was wonderful fellowship with stimulating presentations. Everything was great except my trip home. I got stuck.

 

      On Thursday afternoon, I got on the airplane, the flight attendant came on the microphone and told us to get set with all of the instructions that anyone who flies are familiar with. Put your seatback  and trays into the upright and locked position. Turn off cell phones and any other electronic devises. Fasten your seat belt. In other words, get set. We were almost ready to go.

 

            The pilot turned on the engine, backed the plane five feet away from the gate and stopped. He came on the radio and said we had a ground delay for 15 minutes due to a snow storm in Chicago. It was the start of five different times of getting set and not going. Eventually we did go all the way to the runaway and sat, first in line, for 2.5 half hours, playing this game of getting set.  Finally, they took us back to the terminal and gave us two options. We could sit there and wait. Or we could get off the plane and attempt to find another way to get home.

 

      The people who got off the plane had a vision for something other than getting ready and getting set. They could imagine a different possibility. Those who stayed on the plane, which was about half the people, spent another four hours getting set and going no where until the flight was canceled.  I know this because I heard that six hundred flights into Chicago were canceled. And I know this because my bag stayed with them.

 

            Jesus isn’t getting ready or getting set any longer. He’s in go mode. Coming down the mountain and starting with Ash Wednesday this week, he’s heading to Jerusalem. It’s time to go.

 

             That time is for us too. Our annual pilgrimage to Easter begins and we make it because we have a vision for something greater. We go each year because we can imagine that the victory Jesus claims is ours as well. It is an important journey and an important way to live.

 

            You are getting ready for the rest of your life, for the next event - good or bad - that will come. Come it will. When it does, you can get set and get stuck, or you can get set and Go. If you’ve got a vision of Jesus transfigured on Mount Tabor, or of Him high and lifted up as a resurrected Savior, it’s a lot easier to Go. That’s what this lesson is about and, like last week, that’s what I’m going to pray for you. Pray with me.

 

            Lord Jesus, in just a few days, you will be in Go mode. You will go to Jerusalem to die for us. You will go to a tomb only to be resurrected to new life. If God can do this for us, there is nothing that you will not do for us. Help us to imagine whatever we need so that we don’t get stuck in “set” but rather, in you we are ready to Go.

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