I used the following basic structure for both sermons, but the conversations varied a bit and overall had a different feel each time. The sermon is based on the gospel for yesterday Mark 9:2-9.
Enjoy it, and I wonder how the conversation would be different if I had it with you?
Take a moment and think about a “mountain top” experience that you have had. A moment when you felt like you were the king of the world. Or felt extremely close to God. Or were at the top of your game. What was it like coming down from that experience?
What was it like when reality hit? Or the first time something bad happened after that experience. Maybe you can’t think of a mountain top experience, can you then think of a rock bottom experience? When you were in a valley of shadow and death? What was that like? Would you ever choose to be in that experience?
Then why would Jesus, the Son of God, choose to come down to have such similar experiences? Jesus who came to the top of a mountain physically and had THE mountain top experience of all mountain top experiences when he and his clothes changed physically, with Moses and Elijah appearing with him, the two people, who according to scripture, bodies were physically taken to heaven. And then God’s voice comes from a cloud claiming yet again – this is my Son, the beloved! Why after this experience would Jesus choose to come down from it?
He could have stayed up on the mountain and still have been worshiped. He already had crowds following him for healing. He did not need to continue his ministry. And yet he does. And after coming down from the mountain, he does not just go back to what he was doing, which can be depressing enough, but he turns towards the cross. He turns towards persecution from strangers. He turns towards being rejected and betrayed by his closest friends. He turns towards being arrested, beaten, and mocked. Jesus turns towards his death once he comes down. But he does it for us. He does it because in the transfiguration, the full glory of God was revealed. Something that was already in Jesus, him being the Son of God, was already there, and it was being shown through his healings and teachings. But it is not until Jesus turns towards the cross, so that Jesus might die for our sins, that the full Glory of God was truly revealed.
And the full glory of God is in you already. And it comes out at times. Our goal, our hope, as a community of living saints, is to help the full Glory of God that is already inside us, to be revealed in each other and in others in this community. So how is the full Glory of God shining through you?
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