BEING A PARTICIPANT IN THE TRANSFIGURATION

by

Eldridge E. Fleming, Ph.D.

New Hope Presbyterians Church

Rienzi, Mississippi

March 05, 2000

Children's Message:

I discovered something while playing golf the other day and I want to share it with you. I found a new golf partner and the way I found him was a little bit odd. At the club where I play most you have, of course, nine holes. It is a small golf course. You know about golf courses where you hit this little ball down this fairway for three or four hundred yards and up onto the green, and then you hit it into a cup and turn around and come back.

After I had done three holes, I was leaving the clubhouse going back out for the number four hole, and here was this beautiful dog about this high (about 20 inches). He was about this wide across the back (about 8-9 inches), with a honey brown color, something like a setter. He had a long head, about so long. He was well cared for, but had no nametag and no collar.

As I was getting read to tee up my ball, he comes up to where I am and he is friendly and laughing with me. So I hit the ball and it goes a nice distance and I hit it again farther. And the next time I'm just going to hit it up on the green that=s about half as big as this sanctuary with the hole in the middle of it. I want to get the ball into that hole, if you know about golf. Now this is a high green that I=m on the wrong side of and I hit the bank and it bounces back next to some steps. I hit another ball and it does about as bad, so I decided I=d hit the first ball.

Now this dog is kind of walking around watching me, so I hit the ball and it goes rolling up on the green. I climb up to hit that ball and just as I get to the top of the green, the dog picks up the ball and trots off. I won=t be outdone and I=m not going to get upset with the dog, so I go over and put another ball down where he picked that one up from and I play that one out. I go down to the next tee and he drops the ball he=s picked up along the way, so I get that ball and I wipe it off with the towel on my bag. I set it up and hit it and it goes way up close to the next green. In the meantime, he=s gotten into some water and his belly is all wet, and he trots along with me.

We went to the next green and I pitched the ball on the green and it goes on over. Just as I come up on the green I see him. He=s walking around as if he=s checking all over for the ball, but then he scoops down and gets my ball. He keeps on like he=s looking for the ball as he runs on over the hill and way down on the other fairway where some other people are golfing.

I place another ball down and play that one out and go to the next tee. Just as I=m ready to hit the ball, here he comes back. I look at him and he=s got his lips up a little bit so I can see that he has the ball in his mouth. I hit the ball and then I hit a second ball because the first one didn=t do what I wanted it to do. As I=m walking away to get my first ball, there is my other ball lying in the fairway. He had dropped it. So I hit the first ball and it went nicely and I thought, AI want to play that one.@ But I had this other ball lying in the fairway and I start toward it and you guessed it -- he picked up that ball.

So he goes up to where I=m going to play it on the green -- the one I=d hit the second shot of -- so I play that one out and he goes on by. On the way to the green he comes by, looking at me like this with his lips up so I can see the ball in his mouth. He just struts around and I play out.

On the next tee down the hill, he comes jogging by me with the ball still in his mouth. So I hit another ball and we go up to where it is. I know he=s going to drop the one in his mouth because he can=t hold two at once. But he doesn=t, he just goes on up by that ball and I play it out. He=s still lying over there looking at me and finally he gets up and comes down the hill to where I am.

I tee the ball up on the next hole and hit it and it goes up on the green before rolling off the other side. There=s a beautiful body of water there, just a little pond, and it is clear water. He looks like he needs to go in and cool off, and that=s what he does. He still has the ball in his mouth, but that water is so good he has to have a drink. So he lays the ball down while he gets a drink of water. I look up and he=s going gurgle, gurgle -- you know, lapping up some water -- and as he finishes, he looks for his ball. You guessed it, he can=t find his ball because it went to the bottom of the pond when he laid it down. He left my ball in the lake. He looks for a while and finally he comes on out and we play that hole.

I just know he=s going to get this new ball, but he didn=t. So I hit it back -- a good stroke -- and walking just about as far as from here to the back of the sanctuary to the ball, here he comes by me and goes and picks it up. Well, by this time I=ve had enough of him. I yell at him and he goes around and comes back to me. I keep yelling at him and he comes and lies down. I catch him on the head and see my ball in his mouth. I mean, he=s a big dog. So I put my fingers around his jaws like you=re supposed to do with animals and roll his lip in and squeeze. Sure enough, he opens his mouth very nicely like he=s supposed to, but now he=s on the ground with his head up like this. And when I open his mouth, the ball rolls down into his throat.

So now I have to turn his head and when I do, the ball comes rolling out down on the ground. I fuss at him and he gets up and heads out to the parking lot like he=s leaving me. I think, AGood! Now I=m going to finish my game.@ I pitched that ball over the hill and down right close to the green. I chip it and it is on the green about six feet from the pin. I=m walking toward it -- and all of a sudden, here he comes. He goes around me and gets my ball and takes off with it.

I put another ball down where that one was and play that one out. That=s the last hole so I=m going to try to find my ball. I get over to where he=s lying in the shade and he=s looking at me and panting away with his tongue hanging out. No ball. But about six feet behind him, there it is. There=s the ball.

I had to have a name for this animal.

So I think, AAh hah! That=s what I=ll do with this one.@ When he gets my ball on the second hole, I say some a verse of scripture to him but he doesn=t pay any attention. He isn=t trained in Bible readings at all. That doesn=t work with him. But I have a name for him; I just call him Barnabas, because that is a good name. So if you hear me talk about Barnabas the dog, just remember that he=s my new golfing partner and he=ll be there -- I understand -- when I go back. He=s never played with me before, but he surely did last Wednesday.

That=s my story about my golfing. And he reminds me of the dog in the novel that responded to scriptures. You might try that. I hope you had a good week. Let us pray.

Father, we thank you for the blessing of life and the funny experiences we have along the way. It is nice to be able to laugh. Thank you, in Jesus= name. Amen.

The Scripture Reading:

Our Old Testament reading is II Kings 2:1-12. The experiences of Elijah are those that always capture our imagination and our thinking, and today is the experience of Elijah ascending into heaven. I made a comment last week or so about Elisha being tougher than Elijah and you=ll see in a moment why he was able to do that on some occasions. But Elijah also fits in with out Scripture reading this morning from Mark, so this is a fitting combination of readings for today. Now if you read the next verse or so, you=ll find that a very interesting thing occurs.

Our New Testament reading comes from II Corinthians 4:3-6. It is a rather short passage, but one that is very meaningful. Paul is making his argument to the Corinthians.

The gospel reading is from Mark 9:2-9. If you can and would, will you stand with me as we hear the gospel?

The word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God.

The Sermon:

The occasion of the Transfiguration is one that we review every year in our lectionary. It is one of those days that is very important and counted as important by the church. It has been for centuries, and we come back to review it year after year. It is sort of like the Christmas story. It is like the Passover. It is like Easter. It is one of those days that we keep as special. The Passover, the Transfiguration, Easter, Palm Sunday are special days in the church=s life. There are several things we need to pay attention to and I hope that we will be able to watch as we go through this today, and I will be as brief as I can be with it.

The thing that I want us to do is raise the question as to what is the purpose of this experience, AWhat was the purpose of this experience in the New Testament church?@ And the second question is, AIs it possible to have such an experience for yourself?@ And third, AWhat would you do with it if you had such an experience?@ How would you interpret it? What would you do with it?

Let us look, then, for a moment at the historical basis for this whole experience. Paul Minear is the writer of the Laymen=s Bible Commentary on the Book of Mark. Minear points out that God had revealed Jesus= vocation to him in the Baptism. He revealed Jesus=s vocation to the disciples on the way between Caesarea Philippi and Jerusalem. Peter, you remember, had confessed that Jesus was the Messiah, although only half understanding what he really had said. Now God gives His own testimony to Jesus in this experience of the Transfiguration.

It was a manifestation, then, of the heavenly glory which God had given to him. In the nature of the case of a disclosure of such heavenly glory, it must be described in terms unusual in human experience. Human discourse sort of evades us when it comes time to explain such a thing as this. First of all, Mark tells us that Jesus took these three disciples with him and went to a very high mountain, the highest one in the region. Mt. Gerizim is a very high place compared to the rest of the places around there and out on this plain around it is rather flat, but here is this mountain just out of no where. It goes up, up, up -- and supposedly that is the mountain of Transfiguration. It is very high.

Jesus was a mountain climber. Do you ever think of that? He climbed to the top of this mountain. He took his friends with him. He took his disciples with him to the top of the mountain. Now when you are way up high -- if you=ve been on top of a mountain -- you know that when you look down you have a different perspective on things below. You see things differently than you do when you are down where they are. It is a very exhilarating experience for a lot of people, but some of us sort of get white-knuckled and hang on because we=re afraid we=ll fall off or roll down. You do, however, have a sense of a viewing of the earth that is different.

Yesterday in bringing our plane up to Corinth so we would have it immediately after today=s service to go to my brother=s birthday and retirement party, I brought my youngest son along with me. He was white-knuckled, as his last flying experience with me was ten or fifteen years ago or more. But he said to his wife when we landed and they were able to reunite again, he said to her, AI never knew there was so much open land in this country.@ He lives in Columbus and of course, every day when he leaves his house he is out in the edge of the country, but he=s in traffic. There are houses everywhere and you get the image, if you live like that, that that=s how the whole earth is populated. But from that viewpoint of three or so thousand feet up, you can see a long way and it is a whole different perspective than when you are down in the trenches, so to speak. From the mountaintop you can see a different view of the world around you.

There is another reason for a very high mountain and that is that in the lore of those days it was believed that when you got higher up, you got closer to heaven. The very high mountain meant that this is very close to heaven. It was for this reason that the people built the tower called the Tower of Babel; they were going to build their way to get into heaven. So Jesus took his disciples up a very high mountain and without any introduction or preparation it seems, just all of a sudden he was transfigured. That means he was changed. His figure changed. His appearance changed. He was totally different than he had been before. Peter, James and John standing -- I can imagine -- with their mouths open, and all of a sudden Jesus= body form begins to radiate and it is a whiteness. It is pure white. Mark tells us that the color was so white that there was no way anyone on earth could bleach any material that would be so white.

I=ve described to you before that almost translucent feeling you have when you are climbing from a darkened earth-bound place with an airplane, climbing through the dark clouds. And just before you break out up into the sunshine, there is a white light-like effect. How do you describe it? It is eerie almost. So these disciples are watching Jesus as he changes and his raiments become white. Minear says that this is a reminder that there is purity in heaven and that which is pure is totally translucent white. Jesus changes; his appearance changes.

But that is not all that changes, for just a brief moment of time, there is this window into heaven=s reality from the actuality of the earth. There is this change and they not only see Jesus in this new array of glory, but they see also Moses and Elijah. They are conversing with one another. The three of them are carrying on a conversation and the conversation=s subject is his going to Jerusalem and his crucifixion and his resurrection. The subject is his courage to go through it so that he would join them again. In this great trilogy to God, Moses and Elijah are with Jesus and they are talking with one another.

From this kind of experience, then, Peter and James and John were just standing there flabbergasted, and this cloud comes over and all the brightness is there. Out of that cloud comes this voice, AThis is my son, my beloved. Listen to him.@ It is a command and they will never forget it. And as they are thinking, Peter makes some comment about building some places to memorialize and keep this going, and it all goes away. He is left with nothing but Jesus. So they look around. Only Jesus is there. When that cloud, that fog, that whatever it was that enveloped them and they heard the voice, whenever that was goes away and there is just Jesus there with them. No one else. But burning in their minds and in their hearts are these words reverberating through the chambers of their thinking, AListen to him.@

Without saying much, they start to come back down. They start their trek back down the mountain and Jesus says to them, AWait a minute, don=t talk about this until after the resurrection.@ I can imagine they are in a daze. They don=t understand what he is really talking about. Resurrection? Jerusalem? Cross? He=s talking funny. He=s talking weird. We=ve seen Moses and Elijah and he talks with them.

That is the background for our thinking. Jesus took those disciples, gave them this experience, and told them not to mention it until after the resurrection. They raise questions about why Moses and Elijah and of course, you know the answer to that already. Moses was the representative of the Law, the one who gave the Law, who created the Law and sets the whole of Israel into an organized pattern. He gave them that which they needed in the way of how to control themselves and rule themselves and be productive and so on. The lawgiver was Moses. And the great one who would speak God=s message to the people was Elijah, the prophet. He represented the prophets. It was promised in the Old Testament that Elijah would come again because you see, in the story we read from Second Kings, Elijah was transferred to heaven. He was carried up by a whirlwind into heaven.

Think about the folks that we know from the Old Testament. As we read them we know that Enoch walked with God and was not because the Lord took him. And we know that Elijah feared the Lord and followed his word, even facing the powerful government of Ahab and Jezebel. He did that faithfully and he didn=t taste death, he was carried away by a whirlwind into heaven. We know of those experiences translating, as it were, from this life to the next of Moses, the great lawgiver, and the prophet Elijah. And Elijah said, AWe=ll come again.@ Jesus said, ANot since Elijah have you seen anyone as great as John the Baptist.@ And in this passage he says to his disciples, AYes, Elijah is going to come again. In fact, he has already come, and so the son of Man is here now to finish his job.@

Now my question was, AWhat is the purpose of this experience being kept in the book?@ It is that we might see and understand more about who Jesus is. Yes, it is that and it is that showing us that even in his daily goings and comings, he was in contact with the Father and the Father was watching and speaking to those who would listen around. It is that, and that kind of communication would keep him focused on his mission. Yes, indeed. But there is something else subtle in this and that is that ordinary folks like Peter and James and John may have that view of the heaven place as well. We know that through history there have been others who have had glimpses of heaven. They=ve seen the Lord in different points of experience of their lives.

So is it possible for us to have such an experience as that? Not if we go looking for it deliberately, but being prepared for it -- yes -- it seems to me that it is possible that we could have that kind of experience. We have people who tell us from time to time about having similar experiences -- not necessarily like this with Jesus, but with some heavenly being. Now if you have that kind of experience, his question was, AWhat would you do with it?@ What would you do with that experience? How would you be a participant in that kind of transfiguration? How would you tell someone?

The people that I have know who have had similar experiences to this have found that it is so hard for others to believe it and they would gradually get to the point where they would never mention it at all. They lose faith in people that supposedly have faith. So why then is the whole idea or concept of the Transfiguration kept? Again it was to let us see what God is doing and what heavenly glory is like. So if we have those experiences, then we need to share them and share them again.

What are the results then, for the church? What are the results of the Transfiguration story itself in the scriptures? It gives us an understanding of Jesus= role, but it also gives us hope. It helps us understand how it is that the disciples have such a hard time believing that Jesus was going to die.

Why should we practice or pass this on? It gives us courage, it seems to me, to accept great things from God through His son. That is one of the things. It also gives a view of the glorified in advance, and hope keeps us alive. No question about it.

We=ve heard many stories in the past of all the experiences that people have gone through, and through this week I have received a couple of email messages that were moving. Some of you are familiar with Derrick Thomas, a thirty-three year old linebacker for the Kansas City Chiefs. Derrick and two friends were driving from Kansas City to the International airport on January 27, I believe. They were driving along and some way or the other, they lost control of their car. He and a friend didn=t have seat belts on and were thrown from the car. The other person in the car had a seat belt on and he was treated and released from the hospital. Derrick=s chest was crushed by the car and he was paralyzed from his waist down. He died a couple of weeks later from massive blood clots. His other friend was killed instantly at the site because he didn=t have a seat belt on.

We read that kind of thing about a person who is famous and holds a record for the most sacks in one game and all of that. He was ready for his twelfth year, but he won=t get there. When his life was reviewed by some friends, they told stories about what he did. One of the stories is about what he had done as a boy growing up in Miami. By the time he was a teenager, he was arrested a couple of times for burglary and things of this nature, but somehow or other, he got put on the right track. He went to Alabama and played football, and went from Alabama to the Chiefs. But he never forgot where he came from. He founded a foundation called Third and Long. You football fans know what Athird and long@ means. He founded that because he wanted to help kids -- with their education and help them with their needs.

One mother told a story of her son who had AIDS. As he was nearing the end, he and Derrick had developed some kind of relationship and Derrick visited him on several occasions. On the week when he was about to die, she said they didn=t know how he held on. He was convulsing with a high fever and a lot of other things, but Derrick came on Tuesday to see him. Within forty-eight hours, her son had died. And as Derrick was remembered, she was telling that this was the kind of thing he did to help others. Hope. He gave hope to those who needed it.

I want to close with a different story. I want to share both of them with you and then we will close and we will be on our way.

There was a new pastor and his wife assigned to a church in Brooklyn. The church was very run down. The roof was leaking, it had bad floors, the pews needed repair, walls were in need of plaster -- it was just run down. So he and his wife got there in October and set a goal of reopening the church that had been closed and they wanted to do it by Christmas Eve. They worked hard. They did untold amount of hours of work. Finally on the eighteenth of December, they were ahead of schedule and were just about finished.

Then on the nineteenth, it started raining. Driving rainstorms lasted two days. After the two days, on the twenty-first, the pastor went back to his church. As he opened the door and went in, his heart sank. He saw near the chancel area, about a six by eight foot section of plaster. The water had leaked through the roof and the plaster had come off the wall. He cleaned it up and as he headed out the door, he decided they would just have to postpone the Christmas Eve service. No way could they get it fixed.

But as he was walking down the street, he noticed a local business was having a kind of flea-market sale for some charity. Out of courtesy he stopped in just to show his respect as a clergyman. One of the items that was for sale was a beautiful hand-made ivory colored crocheted tablecloth with exquisite work, fine colors, and a cross was embroidered right in the center. It was just the right size to cover up the hole in the front wall of the church. He bought it and headed back to the church.

By this time, it was starting to snow. An older woman running from the opposite side of the street came across to catch the bus, but she missed it. The pastor invited her to wait in the warm church for the next bus that was coming forty-five minutes later. She sat in a pew and paid no attention to the pastor while he got a ladder and hangers to put up the tablecloth as a wall tapestry. It was just the right size to cover the hole. Then he noticed the woman was walking down the center aisle. He face was like a white sheet. APastor,@ she asked, Awhere did you get that tablecloth?@ The pastor explained.

The woman asked him to check the lower right corner to see if the initials AEBG@ were crocheted into it. They were. These were the initials of the woman and she had made this tablecloth thirty-five years before in Austria. The woman could hardly believe it as the pastor told how he had just gotten the tablecloth. The woman explained that before the war, she and her husband were well-to-do people in Austria. When the Nazis came, she was forced to leave. Her husband was going to follow her the next week. She was captured and sent to a prison and never saw her husband or her home again.

The pastor wanted to give her the cloth, but she would take it. She made him keep it for the church. So he insisted on driving her home, feeling that was the least he could do. She lived on the other side of Staten Island and was only in Brooklyn for that day just to do a house cleaning job.

What a wonderful service they had on Christmas Eve. The church was almost full, the music and the spirit were great, and at the end of the service, the pastor and his wife greeted everyone at the door. Many said they would return and that was what the pastor and his wife had worked for. One older man whom the pastor recognized from the neighborhood, continued to sit in one of the pews and stare. The pastor wondered why he wasn=t leaving. The man asked him where he got that tablecloth on the front wall. He said it was identical to one his wife had made many years before in Austria, before the war. How could there be two tablecloths that much alike?

He told the pastor how the Nazis came and how he forced his wife to flee for her safety, of how he was supposed to follow her but was arrested and put into a concentration camp. He never saw his wife or his home again for all the thirty-five years at that point since the war.

The pastor asked if he would allow him to take him for a ride. They drove to Staten Island, to the same house where the pastor had taken the woman three days earlier. He helped the man climb the three flights of stairs to the woman=s apartment, knocked on the door and the pastor said he saw the greatest Christmas reunion he had ever imagined. It is a true story, submitted by Pastor Rob Reed of that church.

Now I don=t know what gives us hope. I don=t know how the Transfiguration affects you, but somehow or other, it makes me keep on hoping for right things to fall into place. And even though we don=t understand what Jesus means by all he says sometimes, we at least have some hope. As we are transfigured and see the transfiguration, we can sometimes be found transformed into new people who do new and better things. May it be so with us. May we do that which is good. Amen.