Called to Clarity

[This message was shared with the people of Friendship Church during worship celebrations on February 25 and 26. The theme was suggested by the work of the staff at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church, Burnsville, Minnesota.]

Mark 9:1-10

A few days ago, as I was preparing for today’s worship celebration, I told my son, who was working on the Keynote presentation for today, that I was considering using the song, I Can See Clearly Now, written and first performed by Johnny Cliff back in 1972, at the end of the message.

That’s because as our Bible lesson opens, Jesus tells the twelve apostles “there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see that the kingdom of God has come [into this world] with power.” Then, lo and behold, Jesus takes His three closest followers, Peter, James, and John, up on a high mountain with Him and they do see God’s kingdom come to them with power. I could just imagine them singing, "I can see clearly now..."

The only problem with cuing up the song for you today, though, is that while Peter, James, and John did see Jesus transfigured before them, and they did see two figures from the ancient past, Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus, and they did hear the voice of God the Father telling them to pay attention to what Jesus had to say, it would be awhile before they saw clearly. Some things would have to happen before they understood just what they were seeing.

Those of us privileged to be living today have the benefit of being on the Easter side of Jesus’ cross. The result is that you and I can look back at the Transfiguration of Jesus, or as the original Greek of the New Testament puts it, the metamorphosis of Jesus, when the glory of His God-ness shone, and we can see some things clearly that Peter, James, and John couldn’t see at all. I want to talk about three of them with you today.

The first is this: We can’t capture God! We woke up this past Wednesday morning to the news that the Askariya shrine, one of the holiest places in the world for Shiite Muslims, had been bombed. It was apparently the act of Sunni Muslim insurgents. Immediately, thousands of Shias hit the streets calling for revenge. Others took that revenge and since the shrine was bombed, a tit-for-tat war has resulted in more than 90 mosques being attacked. Several Islamic clerics have been killed or kidnapped.

As I read and heard this news, I thought of the members of those Alabama churches whose places of worship were recently destroyed by arsonists’ fires. None of those folks demonstrated or called for revenge. In fact, in all of the press accounts I’ve read, the members of those churches have said one thing repeatedly: We pray that God will forgive the people who did this.

Why did they react in this way? Jesus’ call to forgive as we’ve been forgiven is one reason, to be sure. But there’s another one, I think: These Christians understand that those buildings were just buildings. God doesn’t live in buildings made with hands, King Solomon said at the dedication of the Temple in Jerusalem back during Old Testament days.

This is a truth that Peter didn’t understand on the Mount of Transfiguration. “Teacher,” he said, “let’s build three dwellings, one dedicated to You, another to Moses, and the third to Elijah.” The word Peter uses that’s translated as “dwelling” is skene in the original Greek. It can mean booth, house, tent, tabernacle, or place of worship. Peter wanted to create a place that would somehow capture the glory of God. Then, presumably, people could go to this place and soak up the glory whenever they wanted it. But that simply can’t be done. God’s glory is seen not in buildings or the trappings of religion. It’s seen in the lives of those surrendered to God.

Maybe that’s why, as soon as Peter started babbling about putting up some buildings, God the Father set him straight, pointing Peter to Jesus and saying, “This is My beloved Son, listen to Him.” We can’t capture God. But we can allow ourselves to be captured by Him. We can surrender to God-come-to-earth, Jesus Christ, and experience Him living with us every moment of every day!

Here’s another thing that Peter, James, and John couldn’t see up on the Mount of Transfiguration: We can’t say that we really know Who Jesus is until we submit to the cross. As Jesus and the three apostles were coming down the mountain, He ordered them not to tell anybody about the amazing thing they had just witnessed until after He had risen from the dead.

This past week, I received a note from the grandmother-in-law of a young woman, Kendra, for whom we’ve been praying. She reported that Kendra is now in remission from her cancer and doing well. She said that it’s wonderful to see Kendra holding her baby, living a normal and happy life. While each of us can be grateful that God has answered our prayers for this young woman and her family, unless we or members of our families or close friends have been through similar experiences, we can’t really know the sheer joy and relief that Kendra and her loved ones are feeling these days.

On the mountain, Peter, James, and John saw the glory of the coming of God’s kingdom to the world. But they couldn’t yet fathom how wonderful it would be when that kingdom came into their own lives. That’s because they couldn’t see the terrible price that Jesus would pay so that the kingdom could come to each and every one of us. “The wages of sin is death,” the Bible tells us. Though He was completely sinless, Jesus took those awful wages--our wages--on the cross.

And what the three apostles weren’t yet ready to know that day was that the only way for the free gifts of forgiveness and everlasting life to come to us is if we go to Jesus’ cross and say, “Lord Jesus, crucify everything in Me that isn’t as pure and holy and wonderful and pulsating with life of God as You are. Every ambition, every desire, every impulse, every thought that doesn’t come from You, kill it off, and keep killing those things off, even though it may pain me to part with them, for as long as I’m living. I don’t want anything to prevent Your kingdom from being mine for all eternity!”

There is a final thing that the three apostles couldn’t see clearly, which we can see, if we dare. In his book, Ruthless Trust, Brennan Manning speaks of a man named John Kavanaugh who sought clarity about what to do with his life.

As part of his search, he volunteered to work for three months at "The House of the Dying" in Calcutta, India, a place founded by Mother Teresa. The very first morning he was there, Kavanaugh met Mother Teresa. She asked him, “What can I do for you?” He paused to think and then asked that she pray for him. “What do you want me to pray for?” she wondered. “Pray," he said, "that I have clarity.” Her abrupt response took him aback. “No," she told him, "I will not do that.” When he asked why not, she told him, “Clarity is the last thing you are clinging to and must let go of.” When Mr. Kavanaugh observed that she seemed to have the kind of clarity he wanted, she laughed out loud and told him, “I have never had clarity; what I have always had is trust. So I will pray that you trust God.”

Jesus, Peter, James, and John had a mountaintop experience that was so beautiful they may have wanted to stay there forever. But there was life to be lived. There were crises to be weathered, hardships to be endured, relationships to repair, diseases to heal, tears to dry, abuses to be confronted, wars to be faced, decisions to be made. What they needed and what we need in facing the everyday challenges of life here in the lowlands, away from the mountaintop, isn’t clarity. What we need is trust, trust in the God Who has proven the infinity of His love for us through the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The third thing that we can see that the apostles couldn’t see that day is this: This side of heaven, God isn’t going to show us the future. Nor will He give us a time on earth free of problems. But if we will trust Him, He’ll guide us and empower us.

God will give us lives which at their end, will be worthy of those words which I’ve already told you many times I long to hear from our Lord more than any others. They're words of which I know I will be completely unworthy if I'm forced to stand before God alone in my sins. But, I dare to believe that I will hear Him say them if I trust in Christ: “Well done, good and faithful servant!”

Johnny Cliff sang that he could see clearly now the rain was gone, along with all pain and bad feelings. In Christ, we can see those things will be true for us too...in eternity.

For now, though, there are three other things we can see clearly:

• that we can’t capture God, but we can be captured by Him;
• that we can only know Jesus when we submit to the crucifixion of our sinful selves; and
• that in this life, few things will be clear, but our call will always remain the same, to trust the Savior Who died and rose for us.

As we prepare for the spiritual renewal of the Lenten season, I hope that we will keep seeing these things clearly and so, be ready to truly live life, whether our living takes us to the mountaintops or to the valleys or to that place beyond this world where all who follow Jesus will gaze into His glory for all eternity.

[The true story about Mother Teresa is in a message prepared for this weekend by Pastor Paul Gauche.]