Seeing Jesus Without a Vision

[This was shared during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, earlier today.]

Mark 9:2-9
During an episode of the old Murphy Brown sitcom, Murphy asks her coworkers for their thoughts about God. Jim, the anchorman, says that he’s a lifelong churchgoer and that while he has never personally experienced God, he knows that there are people in the church he attends who have. He keeps going, he says, because he wants to be around people like that and because of a belief that if it happened for them, it could happen for him too.

Truth is, few of us ever have the kind of experience of God in all His power and glory that Peter, James, and John had on the mountaintop with Jesus. Jesus’ transfiguration--the transformation of His appearance so that His clothing became whiter than even Clorox could get it—was a dazzling, overwhelming heavenly affirmation of His authority. It fulfilled what Jesus had promised His disciples just six days earlier—and just one verse before the start of today’s Gospel lesson from Mark. Jesus had said, “I can assure you that some of the people standing here will not die before they see God’s kingdom come with power.” [CEV]

Peter, James, and John saw what Jim the anchorman hoped to see: the power and the presence of God. They saw a vision and heard words from heaven that confirmed the rightness of following Jesus, that He is the One Who brings God’s kingdom to our world, He is the One to Whom we should listen day in and day out.

I don’t know about you: But sometimes I think that following Jesus would be a lot easier for me if God would be that direct with me. In fact, if I let myself, I could even resent Peter, James, and John a little.

But, if you are inclined to feel ripped off because the three of them got to see a vision that would sustain their faith and you may not have been given such a gift to sustain your faith, keep in mind that even then only three of Jesus’ disciples saw the Transfiguration. The other nine were down in the lowlands below. Thomas, the disbeliever, wasn’t there. Nor was Andrew, the one who had introduced Peter to Jesus in the first place. And neither was Judas, who would later betray Jesus.

Maybe if Thomas and Judas had seen Jesus up on that mountain, things would have turned out differently. Maybe Thomas wouldn’t have doubted. Maybe Judas wouldn’t have betrayed Jesus. But they weren’t there.

And Andrew, who followed Jesus before the rest of them, would seem to have had more right to a faith-encouraging vision than Peter, James, or John had. But he wasn’t there either.

It seems that God gives visions to the people to whom God chooses to give visions. We have no control over that.

Erling Wold was a Lutheran pastor who, along with his wife Margaret, wrote many inspiring articles and books. One day, Wold was surfing in the Pacific Ocean near his southern California house. A wave knocked him down and smashed him into the sand. His neck was broken. In a book he called, What Do I Have to Do--Break My Neck?, Wold writes (along with his co-author, Margaret) of the moment after impact, when he knew that he was seriously hurt: “Then and there, something very important happened to me. It was not a hallucination. My senses were totally alive. In that moment, there was an inrush of light and [it] filled me as I floated. The light was on my right side, and the light took shape, pulsating with an invitation to come into the light, into the center of the light.” Wold knew that the light was the Light of the world, the risen Jesus. He writes, “I was swept up into an unspeakable exhilaration of glory and I had an intense longing to let go of everything. I welcomed anything. Death. Paralysis. As long as I could be part of that light. I was filled with a light born ecstasy, and my exhilaration continued for what seemed like an eternity.”

Obviously, much pain, healing, and rehabilitation were ahead of Erling Wold at that moment. But from that time on, the risen Jesus Who he had always trusted and believed in became more real and present for him than at any time in his life. I believe that God gave Wold a vision of the risen Jesus so that Wold could have a ministry that sustained and encouraged many people in their faith in the decades that followed. [see here]

Sometimes, I think, visions of God’s kingdom—visions of the glory of Jesus--like that experienced by Peter, James, and John on the Mount of Transfiguration may be as much burden as reassurance, comfort, or inspiration. After Jesus had died and risen and sent the Holy Spirit, what choice did Peter, James, and John have but to spread the Good News about Jesus Christ? Proclaiming the vision they had seen of God’s kingdom would eventually bring suffering and martyrdom to each one of them. The vision sustained them, assuring them that Jesus is more than an Easter God, He's also the God Who comes down into our worlds. But the Transfiguration vision didn’t turn the three disciples' lives into primrose paths. In fact, being true to what the Transfiguration told them about Jesus cost them their earthly lives.

Many of you remember the speech given by Martin Luther King, Jr. in Memphis just before he went to the hotel where he was killed. Reverend King, whose work for civil rights flowed from his commitment as a follower of Jesus Christ, seemed to have a premonition of his impending death, conveyed in that speech through words that spoke of a vision. “I’ve been to the mountaintop,” he said, “…and I’ve seen the promised land…. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. And I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.” For King, the vision of the risen Jesus’ kingdom he seemed to experience not only affirmed his faith, but burdened him.

And yet, each of us as we move through our days and face the challenges of daily living—doing our work, paying our taxes, stewing about our kids, facing economic uncertainties—each of us would like to know that God has our back, that the risen Jesus is here for us and with us.

Last year, I shared with you five ways I have learned to see Jesus. On the theory that, even though you may have been fascinated when I shared these five ways of seeing Jesus with you back in January of 2008, you may have forgotten one or two of them, I’m going to quickly share the list with you again now.

This list of five ways to see Jesus isn’t new with me. They come from a wonderful book called Why I Am a Christian, written by the late Lutheran theologian and pastor Ole Hallesby. He wrote this list for people who want to believe, but like Peter, James, and John, and maybe sometimes you or me, find it hard to believe.

If you want to believe, Hallesby says, do these things. First: Read the New Testament. The New Testament is the cradle in which the baby Jesus can be found, the place of His cross can be experienced, and His empty tomb can be seen.

Second: Pray. I was going through a discouraging day recently. Nothing seemed to be going right and every time I turned around, I got bad news of one sort or another. It wasn’t a terrible day, just a down day. In desperation, I stopped what I was doing and prayed. The bad news didn’t disappear. But as I prayed in Jesus’ Name, the God we know in Jesus, assured me of His presence and His love. Too often we try to face life with our own brains or brawn. But if we ask for Him to help us, though we can’t see Him, Jesus will show up.

Third: We ask God to show us the ways we’ve displeased Him. We submit to a spiritual examination by God and we confess the sins God makes known to us. Our sins, the things we do that hurt God or hurt others, can become walls between God and us. When we ask God to show us the walls we’ve erected against His grace, they can be dismantled and we get a clear internal view of Jesus.

Fourth: Receive Holy Communion every time it’s offered. “This is my body; this is my blood,” Jesus says of the bread and the wine. In Communion, Jesus comes to us and enters us. He is as present to us then as He was to Peter, James, and John.

Finally: Spend time in fellowship with God’s people. Of course, this means being in worship with God’s people when we’re able to do so. But we can fellowship with other believers at other times and, in fact, we really need to fellowship with them at other times. In the past week or so, I was visiting one of our shut-ins who I told, “I’m inspired every time I visit you.” She was taken aback by that comment. “Really?” she asked. “Absolutely!” The fellowship of believers assures us that God’s kingdom isn’t some far-off thing, but that it comes right down to us the way it came to the Mount of Transfiguration. In the movie, The Color Purple, one character battered by life, tells another, “When you walked into the room, I knew there was a God.” The fellowship of believers can give us that same assurance.

You and I may never be blessed or burdened by the kind of vision of God’s Kingdom and of Jesus’ glory that three of Jesus’ disciples saw on the mount of Transfiguration. But when we read the New Testament, pray in Jesus’ Name, submit to spiritual examination and correction by God, receive Jesus’ body and blood, and spend time in fellowship with other believers, we too can see Jesus. We can know that Jesus is with us now. We can experience His strength in the midst of our weakness. We can be assured that there is a Lord that gives eternity to all who follow Him. And when we experience Jesus in these ways, we can face anything in life or death and beyond. Amen