Long before the movie Avatar had blue people flying around on dragon-like animals or Star Trek went “Where no man has gone before", an English novelist named H. G. Wells captured the imagination of the world with his view of science fiction. He wrote about what it would be like to travel in a Time Machine or to walk around invisible or to be the first man to walk on the moon.  Surviving World War I, he wrote about the War of the Worlds which was made into a blockbuster hit just a few years ago with Tom Cruise playing the lead role. Most are more familiar with this movie or comic books of the Invisible Man than his actually writing.

Lost to most of us, in the passing of time, is a wonderful short story by Wells called, “The Country of the Blind.” It was written over 100 years ago, first published in 1904. But it has a lasting truth, one which speaks to the fifth Peter Principle in our series of sermons on Peter and discipleship.

The setting for “The Country of the Blind” is an inaccessible, luxurious valley in Ecuador where, due to a strange disease, everyone is blind. After 15 generations of this blindness there was no recollection of sight or color or the outside world at all. Finally a man from the outside—a man who could see—literally fell into their midst. He had fallen off a high cliff and survived, only to stumble into this valley of people who could not see. When he realized that everyone else was blind, he remembered the old adage: "In the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is king."

The man tried to do his best to tell them what it was like to have vision, to describe what he saw.  They never believed him. They thought he was crazy. The man fell in love with a girl and the girl's father went to talk to a doctor about him. The doctor said that in order to cure him, he needed to surgically remove the irritant bodies that were making him crazy, namely, remove his eyes. Then, the doctor says, he will be sane!  

So the father goes to the man and says that in order to marry his daughter, he would have to submit himself to the surgery, to voluntarily become blind. The man was deeply in love so he felt he needed to submit to the surgery. It was his intention to go to a lonely place in the meadows where there were beautiful white narcissus and remain an hour before sacrificing his sight. But as he walked into the meadow, he lifted his eyes up to the hills where the brilliant light of morning was shining down from the mountaintop and realized that he could not live is life without vision. He had to leave the valley of the blind. [1]

You cannot live your life without vision and in order to have vision, you have to leave the valley of the blind, climb a mountain and see. This is the fifth Peter Principle.  Discipleship requires a clear vision of where God is leading you.

It is hard to see when you are in a valley. You’ve experienced this in your life. Sometimes it is because the valley that you are in is so beautiful that you can’t imagine seeing anything more lovely. The valley of newborns is a frequent experience in our congregation. There is nothing more wonderful than first holding an infant, seeing God’s creation, embracing new life. Every new parent is blinded by the beauty of their baby. They really have difficulty seeing anything else. “She is the most beautiful baby ever created.”  “Have you ever seen a more beautiful boy?” Parents are blinded by the valley of a newborn.   A valley of blindness can come when life is so good, seemingly so easy that we can’t see what’s ahead.  It can come in a new relationship, in a new job, in personal achievement that is so wonderful that you can’t see beyond it.

There are dark valleys and blindness lives there too. There is the valley of the shadow of death when our bodies betray us and we are blinded to the possibility of life. There is the valley of grief which takes away our vision of a future with loved ones. There are valleys of sin when our personal failure is so great, we cannot see beyond our own shame.

You may be in one of these valleys today and it may be a joyful place or it may be very painful.  There may even be a few who are in both places which is the predicament that we find Peter in. He is in the valley of achievement and the valley of failure and in both places, he is blind. He needs a vision to regain his sight and give his life direction.

Our lesson begins “six days” later. For those of you who were in worship last weekend, it is seven days later but for the sake of Peter, we’ll pretend it is six days later. Six days ago, Peter had a moment of personal accomplishment that marked his life followed by a moment of shame which also shaped his identity.  It comes before a sheer cliff, a rock in Caesarea Philippi, twenty-five miles north of the Sea of Galilee. Before this “rock” Peter is the first disciple to profess his faith in Jesus saying, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” (Matthew 16:16). Jesus blesses Peter and declares that he will build the church on him. In that moment, he is in a valley of achievement.

But even before he can enjoy the success, Jesus tells the disciples that he must go to Jerusalem, be arrested, nailed to a cross and die.  Peter, always quick to mouth off and speak his heart exclaims, ‘“God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.’  But he turned and said to Peter, ‘Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me;’” (Matthew 16:22b-23a).  Suddenly, he finds himself blinded by his personal failure. It is a painful place, caught between the valley of achievement and failure, blinded by both, in need of a vision to lift out of his blindness.  It comes six days later.

Six days later, Jesus took Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain. (Matthew 17: 1).  For centuries, which mountain Jesus and his disciples climbed was debated between Mount Tabor and Mount Hermon. There is good reason to consider both.   Mount Hermon is north of Caesarea Philippi which fits with the narrative of Matthew story.  If so, it is the highest mountain in Israel, 9200 feet about sea level.  The alternative position is Mount Tabor, south and west of the Sea of Galilee. It is some distance away from the valley of achievement and valley of failure that Peter finds himself in. But one could make Mount Tabor with six days of easy walking and it’s near Nazareth.  In the fourth century, Jerome declared that Mount Tabor is the site and over the centuries a number of churches of the Transfiguration have been built on the site.  Tabor is an easier climb. It rises 1800 feet about the Jezeel valley and in biblical times down through the ages, it has been strategically important. It is also closer to Jerusalem and after this mountaintop experience, the period of the Galilean ministry ends and Jesus turns his face to Jerusalem, to his destiny on a cross.

He takes Peter, James and John with him. There is significance in the three. Jewish law requires three witnesses to verify truth. Jesus has his three to attest to what happens on the mountain. There is significance in their position. Peter, James and John will be the disciples who go deeper into the Garden of Gethsemane with him. James will be second only to Peter in building the church and will take the gospel to Spain. He will also be the first disciple martyred, beheaded in Jerusalem by Herod Agrippa on Easter, 44 AD. John is considered the beloved disciple, the one closest to Jesus. He will visit the open tomb with Peter. He is the last to die, living to be nearly 100. Scripture tells us Jesus asked John to take care of his mother.  They join Peter, who desperately needs a vision. On the holy mountain, he gets it.

On top of the mountain, there is a vision. We have wonderful vistas on mountaintop. They are inspiring. But this was a vision from God. “Jesus was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white.” (Matthew 17: 2).  The Greek word used is “metamorphosis”, like a cocoon transfigured into a butterfly or a flower bulb is transfigured into a lovely spring daffodil. It was the moment that Peter needed and he recognized it for what it was, a vision from God because “Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him.” (Matthew 17:3).

In the Bible, God provides vision of who God is on a mountaintop. On top of Mount Sinai, God revealed Himself to Moses in a cloud and thunder and lightning and gave him the Ten Commandments.  When Moses came down from the mountain, his face was shining like the sun.  Elijah, blinded by his battle with Jezebel and the priests of  Baal, climbs Mount Horeb, crawls into a cave, and hears a “still small voice” and his blindness was lifted.  Peter knows these stories. He knows that this is vision time.

Always in character, Peter mouths off. That’s what he did last week which leads him to both the valley of achievement and the valley of failure. He says, “I’ve an idea Jesus. Let’s make this vision last a little longer. I’ll build three huts, one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah” Before Jesus could respond or Peter could start building the huts, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!” (Matthew 17: 5b)

Suddenly, it was all gone and there was only Jesus. He touched the disciples, told them not to be afraid and then led them down the mountain.  And “As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus ordered them, ‘Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.’” (Matthew 17:9).

Don’t talk about this vision until it makes sense. Don’t tell the vision until you process it. Don’t tell the vision until you understand what is going to happen to me.  It was the same instruction that he gave Peter and the disciples six days earlier. Don’t go mouthing off about me being the Messiah because you don’t really understand. This is a vision from God for you to live by, to guide you, to give your life direction but it will take time to unfold.

Visions are that way. They point to the future. The reality is that most of the time, we live in the valley and in the valley, we get so caught up in our own world, our own concerns, our own joys that lots of time we have difficulty seeing. It’s not that we don’t want to see. It’s that the circumstances of our lives make it difficult to see. Let me give you an example that might make sense to you.

A few years ago, we had the privilege of visiting the Sistine chapel, a place that I wanted to see my entire life. On the ceiling of the Sistine chapel is Michelangelo’s famous picture of Adam reaching out and God reaching down to touch fingers. There is of course that tiny gap which never gets spanned because the great masterpiece is locked in time. But it seems as if Michelangelo’s message is that God is that close, so much closer than we think, always there, in every moment, reaching out to touch us. Beneath this great spiritual vision was a crowded chapel of tourists, pushing and shoving, trying to stay as long as possible, some even trying to sneak a picture.  Security guards were almost yelling, “Shush, shush, no pictures, no pictures.”  It was as if the nave floor of the Sistine chapel was a valley of blindness and people were blind to the vision above us.

It is easy to say that God is always with us, reaching out to touch us but it is much harder to experience it. The reality is we live in the valley of blindness. Like Peter, sometimes it is because of our success; other times, it is because of our failures. We live our lives with hopes and dreams and imagination about tomorrow but we seldom have a clear picture.

Visions are those rare moments in life when you clearly see the truth about God’s  direction for your life.  Discipleship requires a clear vision of where God is leading you. It’s the fifth principle of Peter’s life and it was essential to the next weeks of facing the controversy with the scribes and Pharisees, the fickle crowds of Holy Week, the betrayal in the midst, his personal inability to stand by Jesus and the death of his Savior on the cross. Through this difficult time, he had a vision and the vision could sustain him in the belief that God had something greater in store. He never forgot that moment on the mountain and the light on Jesus’ face. It got him to Easter and beyond.  Years later at the end of his life, Peter would write, “We ourselves heard this voice come from heaven, while we were with him on the holy mountain so…you will do well to be attentive to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.” (1 Peter 1:18a, 19).

“Do well to be attentive to this.” Are you attentive?  Do you put yourself in places where just for a moment, there is a vision of something greater, something God centered, something that you can live your life by? Sometimes, it take climbing a mountain to see God’s vision for your life. Other times, it is a matter of being attentive in worship or to a sunrise or a spring flower. You have to be attentive or you’ll simply live in a valley of blindness. Where is the lamp shining in the dark for you? Where do you see the light coming down from the mountain in your valley of blindness? Are you attentive to finding a mountaintop experience where you discover, at least for a moment, a vision of something greater than your life?

You cannot live your life without vision and in order to have vision, you have to leave the valley of the blind, climb a mountain and see. This is the fifth Peter Principle. Discipleship requires a clear vision of where God is leading you.  Moving from this day, the vision before Jesus is a cross in Jerusalem. It’s what he lived for; hopefully, the same can be said for you.