An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman are sitting in a bar watching the evening news when a report comes on about a man threatening to jump from the 20th floor of a building. The Englishman turns round and says, “I'll bet you £50 he doesn't jump.” The Scotsman feels his wallet and says, “Och, no I don’t think so.” The Irishman says, “£50 is a lot of Guinness - you’re on.” A few minutes later, the man on the ledge jumps, so the Irishman hands the Englishman £50. The Englishman looks a bit embarrassed and says, “Actually, I can't take this money, I’ll be quite honest with you. I actually saw him do it earlier on the mid-day news.” “Me, too,” said the Irishman. “But I never thought he'd be mad enough to do it again!”
Or alternatively, an Israelite, an Israelite and an Israelite (Peter, James and John) go up a great height with Jesus. Not a 20 storey building but what Mark 9.2 describes as a “high mountain.”
Jesus quite deliberately took these particular men along, and he singled them out on at least two other occasions. Jesus chose 12, but he mentored 3 and invested more in them than in the others. Only these three were allowed into the room with Jesus when Jairus’ daughter was incredibly raised from the dead. Only these three were taken to the heart of the garden of Gethsemane, at the culmination of Christ’s passion, the night before he died. And only these three were present with Him here to witness this glorious and breathtaking event we call the transfiguration.
If you think you’re not all you could be as a follower of Jesus take heart from these men. Because on two out of these three special and unique occasions, that they were given such a rare privilege of sharing, they fell asleep! Can you believe that? So if you should doze off during this sermon I shall assume that you are having a momentous encounter with the Lord and that these are but the first signs of revival! But doesn’t it encourage you that Jesus chose three lethargic slackers to be his inner circle? The Lord only chooses the unworthy, the unfit and the unlikely - otherwise none of us would be here, your preacher included.
But even if Peter did fall asleep with his mates, what happened when he woke up was so remarkable that it never left him. Consider this: of all the extraordinary things that happened during the three and a half years he walked around with Jesus, (walking on water, feeding the 5,000, the raising of Lazarus, water into wine and many more) this event, the transfiguration, is the only one Peter specifically recalled in his letters 30 or 40 years later. If you’ll excuse the pun, for Peter, this was the high light of Jesus’ ministry.
This is how he described what he remembered: “We saw it with our own eyes: Jesus resplendent with light from God the Father as the voice of Majestic Glory spoke: ‘This is my Son, marked by my love, focus of all my delight.’ We were there on the holy mountain with him. We heard the voice out of heaven with our very own ears.” We saw it. We were there. We heard it.
Mountain-Top Experiences
In our evening services recently we’ve been thinking about encounters with God. Some of us would be able to talk about unique moments of grace and spiritual revelation that have left their mark on us. There have been times in my life when God has been so close it has almost been too much. Remarkable and sudden healing miracles that have left me marvelling. Or prophecies from sources who couldn’t possibly have known the significance of what they were saying, so accurate that my heart started racing and my palms began to sweat. Or times of joy and delight in praise and worship, where my whole being has been flooded with a sense of exhilaration. The day I was converted, tears welled up in my eyes and I sobbed uncontrollably for hours. Tears of joy, tears of sorrow for the wasted years, tears of relief.
Perhaps you too have had one of these top-of-the-world experiences; when you received healing from God, or when a child you have prayed hard for was born to you, when you were converted; maybe you went to New Wine or somewhere special like that. Many people have encounters with the Lord during an Alpha course or in prayer ministry. You may have had a fantastic spiritual experience here at All Saints’. Some of you have, I know. Maybe as you just sat quietly in prayer with the Lord, or perhaps you can point to a single event in your life when God brought you to the mountaintop and you felt he was so close that you could just reach out and touch him. I want to say three things about experiences like these.
1) Spiritual Highs Are Good
The first thing is this: spiritual highs are good and valuable. You can see how stirred Peter was by the experience he had on this mountaintop in v33. “Master, it is good for us to be here!” He’s saying, “Wow! This is brilliant. This is what it is all about!”
It must have been spectacular to behold. Jesus’ whole appearance changes before their eyes. He looks as if he is ablaze; his clothes are like lightning. He is gloriously and dazzlingly transfigured before them. They catch a vision of his supremacy and incomparable greatness. Then Moses and Elijah, two “signs and wonders” prophets, appear. They all enter a cloud of the glory of God. There is an audible voice from heaven. And then it all comes to an end and they find Jesus alone, his appearance just as it had been before. Whoa…!
But some people are very wary of anything experiential. They say, “Let’s not get carried away with all these feelings and emotions; it’s your mind that matters. All we need is the word of God,” they say. Are they right? Our minds do matter but, looking through the Bible, it seems to me that sometimes God just wants to blow our minds. If you and I were to do an exercise where we took all the mind-blowing bits out of the Bible, we’d be left with little more than the cover, the index and the maps at the back.
Don’t spend all your life going after unusual experiences with God. You will be disappointed. Don’t live for the sensational. You’ll just become a spiritual junkie. Don’t think God doesn’t love you if you haven’t had an encounter with the Lord for a long time. He definitely does love you (and if you need any proof that he does, look at the cross). But I want to say don’t despise or close your heart to encountering God’s awesome presence and power.
2) Spiritual Highs Never Last
Here’s the second thing, and I say it to those of you who might be up on cloud nine with the Lord at the moment. Perhaps you’re a new Christian or you’re in the middle of enjoying the highest and most spiritual of all spiritual highs. Well, thus saith the Lord, “it’s not gonna last forever.”
Visions of God’s glory are wonderful. Spiritual highs are great. Who wouldn’t want to hold on to the elation at all costs? You would want this amazing transfiguration to go on wouldn’t you? Peter did (v33). “Let us put up three shelters” he says, “one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.”
He’s saying, “How do you fancy a nice cabin on the mountain and a room with a view Lord?” It’s saying that Peter didn’t want to come back down to earth. He didn’t want this breathtaking event to end. He wanted to stay up there in his winter chalet and soak it all in week after week. Stay up there in his mountain retreat with his famous neighbours, Jesus, Moses and Elijah.
But the reality, my dear friends, is that no one builds a house on a mountain top. Life just isn’t lived out up high on the peaks. It’s lived in the valleys below. When Peter, James and John come down with Jesus from the mountain in v37, they find people in pain and in need. They come back down with a bump to the painful reality of everyday life.
It’s MMS: Monday Morning Syndrome. Just like before, people are possessed by demons (v39). Just like before, the disciples are out of their depths about what to do about it (v40). Just like before, not one among the twelve has the faintest idea about what Jesus is saying (v45). What a let-down! But what would have happened if Peter, James and John had stayed up in their cabins with Jesus, Elijah and Moses? The boy would still have been possessed. His family would have still been beside themselves with anguish about him. And (v43) nobody would have been amazed by the greatness of God.
Spiritual highs don’t last – they can’t last and we have to move on when life moves on.
3) Spiritual Highs Prepare Us for Spiritual Lows
Which leads me to the third thing I want to say this morning: spiritual highs prepare you and train you for spiritual lows. The mountaintop experiences God gives you are all about equipping you for life in the pits.
In our Growing Leaders course last week we were thinking about the vision of Martin Luther King. On 3rd April 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee, King preached one of his most famous sermons. In that powerful and history-making address, King said that he feared nothing. “We’ve got some difficult days ahead,” he said. “But it really doesn’t matter with me now, because I’ve been to the mountaintop... And I’ve looked over, and I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you... But 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.”
The very next morning, Martin Luther King was shot dead. But on the night he said, “I see the Promised Land” King was ready to face his destiny. He was ready to stare darkness in the face with no fear at all. Why? Because he had been to the mountaintop with the Lord. He was ready for the worst because he had been to the mountaintop with the Lord. Mountain top experiences give us the grace we need to be ready to walk into the darkest of valleys. They equip us to face the future in certain hope and assurance that God is there with us, whatever happens.
Amongst my lowest lows I can recall how I once agonized with self-doubt for months when a girlfriend I once loved walked away from our relationship and never spoke to me again. I’ve cried bitter tears over four miscarriages, saying goodbye to the children we never knew and never had a chance to name. There is still an echo of that pain we felt when I talk about it now, over fifteen years later. I’ve teetered on the edge of a nervous breakdown for a year when I was betrayed by a trusted colleague…
Isaiah 45.15 says, “Truly you are a God who hides himself, O God and Saviour of Israel.” He does. Sometimes the Lord inexplicably withdraws, just like Jesus’ fading behind the cloud of glory, (v36) which suddenly appeared on the Mount of Transfiguration. Then, a bit later, they look round and Elijah and Moses have disappeared. Jesus is there on his own, looking just as he did before. It’s all over. Do you know what it is like when you just can’t get through to the Lord like you once could?
Those three things (the miscarriages, getting spectacularly dumped by a young woman I loved and being betrayed by a trusted colleague) are as low as my life has ever been. Where was God? At the time it felt like he was hiding, just like Isaiah said. How did I cope in those shadowy valleys, seemingly on my own? I got through because I had been to the mountaintop with God before. His grace, so evident in the times of blessing and fruitfulness, was (and is) sufficient to get me (and you) through the very worst that life can when it all goes wrong.
When you are in the foothills of joblessness, or in the plain of loneliness, or in the lowlands of illness, or in the vale of depression, look back at the mountaintop and hang on to the revelation of God’s love for you, of his faithfulness towards you, of his never-ending favour upon you. Cherish your recollections of God’s nearness.
4) Let’s Go!
So Peter’s longing to stay on the mountain is understandable enough but it is foolish and ill advised. If Jesus had stayed up there, he would never have gone to Jerusalem to suffer, die and rise again.
One last point: Have you ever noticed that Jesus was always saying “Let’s go!”? In Mark 1:38 he says, “Let us go somewhere else-to the nearby villages so I can preach there also. That is why I have come.” Let’s go. In John 11:15, when he heard news that his friend Lazarus had died, Jesus said to his disciples, “Let us go to him.” In the same chapter, knowing that the authorities in Judea had attempted to stone him, Jesus said to his disciples’ absolute dismay: “Let us go back to Judea” (John 11:7-8). Let’s go. Even when he knew he was to be handed over to death, in Mark 14:42, he said, “Let us go,” as he rose to meet Judas his betrayer. Let’s go. The only time Jesus did not say, “Let us go,” as a collective exhortation to the twelve, he said, “Let us leave.” (John 14:31) which amounts to the same thing.
But Peter here has a different agenda. Matthew, Mark and Luke all state that Peter said, “Let’s stay! Let us put up three shelters. Let’s stay in this comfort zone. I like it here, Lord.”
Christians do the same thing. Sometimes they dress it up in spiritual language and say, “Let’s consolidate,” (a word you won’t find in your Bibles incidentally. I’ve checked). “Let’s consolidate,” we say, meaning “Let’s play safe.” If someone asks me, “Why do you go to church on a Sunday?” or “why do you go to Christian conferences?” I might reply: “It feeds my spirit, I need to be refreshed. It is time out to build up my faith and recharge my batteries.” That’s O.K. In fact it’s very important. But look! After one day Jesus is already on his way down the mountain again. Let’s go.
Ending
So I want to challenge you this morning with the message of this reading. Do you ever feel that you are effectively in retirement mode? Treading water? Going through the motions?
Well, God is on the move. So if you stay still, he’s already gone. You put up a shelter to try and capture the magic of the moment and you’ll find that Jesus has already headed down the mountain to get on with releasing people from the powers of darkness. “Come on,” says Jesus, “let’s go! Are you coming with me or are you going to stick around up here on your own?”
What is God calling you to? These are only suggestions. It might be something else entirely. The only thing that matters is this: Jesus is heading down to where the needs are and where the action is. That’s where I want to be. I hope that’s where you want to be too.
Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 31st January 2010
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