We can be close to something, and yet miss it. We can be almost on target, almost where we want to .be, and yet, if we’re not exactly where we ought to be, we miss it. So near and yet so far.
A couple of years ago, when my wife and I were touring England, we were in Victoria Station, one of the great rail stations in central London. Each of us had errands to perform, and so we agreed to meet "at the doors" at a certain time. Time was of the essence, because we had to catch a train to get out to where Margaret’s cousin lives. So we parted, each of us keeping in mind the agreement to meet "at the doors" well before departure time.
When I was finished with my errands I went to the doors and went right on out to the curbside to wait. There at the doors I waited and waited and waited some more, but no Margaret. Not a sign, not a clue. I walked back and forth across the front of the station. I took strategic poses at locations where I thought I could see everyone coming out. I fended off a couple of talkative beggars who wanted to tell me their life stories and to relieve me of some of that funny-looking English money I was carrying around. But still no Margaret at the doors.
Finally, watching the clock inch ever closer to train time, I got frantic and went back inside the station to see if I could find her. Panic attack!
Guess who I found at the doors, inside? At the doors, foaming at the mouth? Guess who ran to the train, spouting accusations and breathing threats of fire and slaughter! "At the doors", it turns out, meant "inside the doors", not "outside the doors"! So near and yet so far.
We can be close to something, and yet miss it. We can be almost on target, almost where we want to be, and yet, if we’re not exactly where we ought be, we miss it. So near and yet so far. A miss is as good as a mile.
This week Ed McMahon – remember him? He may not be on late night TV any more, but he sure is turning out those magazine mailings – this week Ed McMahon wrote us and told us that we were now among the finalists in the publishers’ ten million dollar prize giveaway! According to the mailing, three other people had already received their ten million, and now it is, or just might be, our turn. Ten million big ones, with my name on them!
Pray hard, Takoma! The tithe off of that would renovate this building in a minute!
But you know what? I have this sneaking suspicion that this is another one of those “so hear and yet so far” experiences, that in the end, though we may have been on Ed’s alleged finalist list, we won’t win the prize. We won’t get ten million or one million or even one hundred. We may have been on the finalist list, but what we’ll get is a full garbage can and a spent postage stamp! So near and yet so far.
We can be very close to something, and yet miss it. We can be almost on target, almost where we want to be, and yet, if we’re not exactly where we ought to be, we miss it. So near and yet so far.
Did you know that we can be so very close to Christ and yet so very far from Him? Did you know that we can be very close, just a hair’s breadth away from Christ, and yet we can miss Him? And a miss is, in fact, as good as a mile. To miss all that Christ really wants for us, though we come close, is a spiritual tragedy. So near to Christ, so near to all that He is and all that He wants, so near to His glory, and yet, if we miss Him, we miss Him. So near and yet so far. So far away.
On the mount of Transfiguration, Peter came so close to Christ. And yet Peter also just about missed Hi. He just about missed Him. So near and yet so far was Peter from all that God intended him to experience in Christ.
First, to set the scene. Only eight days before this event, Peter had caught a glimpse of who Jesus really is. He had allowed his mind to admit it and had permitted his mouth to speak his conclusions: "You are the Christ of God.” Peter was beginning to see that in this teacher, with whom he had walked the pathways of Galilee, there was the very presence of God.
Jesus’ response to Peter had been to speak about suffering, about His own suffering and about how those who follow Him must also suffer. Jesus had taken Peter’s conclusion and had gone another step with it: "Yes, I am the Christ of God; but that means that I must undergo suffering, and be rejected … and be killed. And it also means that ’if any want to be my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and fellow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it.’" All this Peter had heard as a response to his announcement about who Jesus was.
Now this experience we call Transfiguration. Transfiguration means simply that up on this mountain, suddenly Peter saw Jesus’ appearance changed: his face shining with light, his clothes dazzling in brightness, his companions the ancient patriarchs Moses and Elijah, an incredible experience. An unbelievable experience. The majesty, the wonder, the glory of Christ. Peter was now as near to heaven as mortal man can get. He was in the presence of ultimate things! He was so near to God’s presence, so near to God’s action, so near to God’s revelation. So near and yet, I have to tell you, also so far.
The text says that sleepy Peter said, “Lord, let’s build three dwellings here; let’s make three shrines, one for Moses, one for Elijah, one for you. Let’s just camp right here and call this a holy place.
The reply? The response? From the heavens themselves a great voice, “This is my Son, my chosen; listen to him". Listen to him! Peter, you’re not on target. You’re so near to Christ, and yet you are so far from understanding Him. Listen to Him. You are so near and yet so far off the mark.
Why? Why was Peter off the mark? How can we be close to Christ and yet so far from Him? How can we be so nearly right and yet so wildly wrong? There are two ways to go wrong.
I
First, Peter was off the mark because he was half asleep. So near to Christ and yet so far from Him, because he was half asleep. His senses were dulled. His mind was preoccupied with his own needs. And he just wasn’t alert to all that God was about.
The text tells us that Peter and his companions were weighed down with sleep, tired, maybe even bored, yawning themselves into oblivion. But they did manage to stay awake for a while; they managed to stay awake long enough to see the glory of Christ, but not long enough to remember that before glory there is sacrifice. Awake enough to see the good stuff, but not alert enough to remember the tough stuff. And the voice of God cried out to them, "This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to Him!" You’re not hearing him!
May I suggest that you and I are guilty of hearing only half a gospel? We are guilty of being alert to only half the truth. We see the Christ who is there when we need Him. We see the Christ who is comfort and help when we want Him. But we are asleep to the Christ who calls us to be responsible, we are deaf to the Christ who summons us to be redemptive.
You see, only a few days earlier, Peter had heard this Christ speak of sacrifice, how He would have to go to a cross and give Himself. And Peter had heard also that those who would follow Christ must also be prepared to sacrifice. “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.” Only a few days earlier this theme had been spoken, loud and clear.
But now old Peter is half asleep. He isn’t thinking clearly. He is living in a dream world. And words like sacrifice and self-denial are screened out.
I’m saying that we too are only half awake. We are thus so near to Christ, yet so far. We are in the warm embrace of the church, close to Christ; but we have not yet taken seriously the need to reach out to others. We have heard only half of the gospel.
We are glad when we need them if a deacon or a minister or fellow believer shows up to help. It’s good news. Then why is it that when some new ministry is being proposed, I am told either that we cannot afford it or that our people will not show up to do it? Why is that? We have been asleep to half of the truth.
Oh, my friends, we need to wake up! Be aware, be alert! Let’s turn our imaginations loose. The kind of imagination that led a church, described in yesterday’s newspaper, to organize an AIDS ministry. The sort of alertness that led a synagogue to organize a burial society in order to reduce the costs of funerals. Awake to the issues in young marriages, awake enough to want to strengthen them! Just turn loose the imagination to all that Christ is, all that Christ wants to do!
Yes, we’ve come a long way as a church. We’re accomplished some important things over the past few years. But, I tell you, we have yet to see what God can do with believers fully awake. We have yet to experience what Christ can accomplish with Christians who will stay awake to what their world needs ... not just what we need, not just what we want, not just our own comfort. And it will not be until we turn loose our imaginations and hear the whole gospel that we can become a great church, not just an okay church, but a great church.
We are so near to Christ. We’ve come so far. And yet we are so far away from Him if we are not awake to His vision of redemption. The voice of God rings very clearly in my ear, "This is my Son, the Chosen; listen to Him". Listen to Him, for he says that His mission is to bind up the brokenhearted, to set at liberty those who are captive, and to bring good news to the poor.
Listen to Him, for He calls us to redemptive sacrifice. We are so near to Christ, but without commitment to His redemptive mission, we are so far off the mark. So near and yet so far.
II
There’s something else, too. Notice now that Peter was also off the mark because he got stuck in the past instead of moving forward to the future.
Stuck in the past. He wanted to create memorials rather than move on to face God’s future. So near to Christ and to His glory, and yet so far, and a miss is as good as a mile, because Peter could think only of monuments to a glorious past rather than commitment to an even greater future.
"Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings -- one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” Lord, Moses gave us the Law; that was a great time for us. And Elijah routed the idolaters; that was a great moment in our history. Can’t we just build some memorials to those great moments of the past? Can’t we just put you in that box too?
But the transfigured Christ, the Christ of glory, you see, is not God’s monument to the past. He is God’s pull toward the future. The glorified Christ is not a picture of what we used to be; He is a sign of what we can become. He is not a monument to the past. He is God’s pull toward the future.
Oh, men and women, we are so near to Christ and yet so far away. We have seen what He has done in the past, we have experienced His grace ourselves. Our history has in it some great moments. And we’d like to freeze-frame those moments, we’d like to preserve them, we’d like to make monuments out of them.
But we dare not. We dare not. To be near to Christ is to be open to the future, not stuck in the past.
Tell the truth now, don’t some of you my age and older long for the sixties? Some of us wish it were still the sixties, don’t we? I am talking about the nineteen sixties by the way!
Oh, in the sixties there was such a high moral tone to everything! There was such a feeling of crusading, such a period of fervor and of danger and of excitement. In the sixties we could march for civil rights, and it felt good to be on the side of justice. In the sixties we could participate in civil disobedience, and it felt wonderful and right to be taking risks for truth. We knew we were making a difference.
But, folks, give it up. Now it’s the nineties. It’s different. The agenda for justice is different. The approach to racial reconciliation is different. The tasks we have to address are more subtle, more complicated.
It’s no longer who will be seated at the lunch counter; now it is who will dismiss affirmative action as bean counters.
It’s no longer voting rights; but it is those who cynically drain the public treasury and violate the public trust.
It’s no longer civil disobedience; now it is a general lawlessness and a lack of respect for life.
I’m saying, in this month, in which our theme is “Tomorrow … From a Distance” that there are plenty of today and tomorrow issues to which God calls us. The question is whether we are just going to build monuments to the past and wish we were back in the sixties, or whether we are going to understand that the call of God is always to tomorrow, always, always to the future.
“Master, let’s build shrines here, safe monuments, monuments to Moses, to Elijah, to Dr. King, to Malcolm, to all the leaders of the past.” But the voice from heaven says, “Today, tomorrow, this is my son, my chosen. Listen to Him.” He is the pull of tomorrow. You are near Him, and yet so far from what He is about, if you get stuck in the past.
Conclusion
It was Lincoln who said in his day that the dogmas of the quiet past were inadequate for the stormy present. And today the good old days are over. The era of self-indulgence is over. The dream of a chicken in every pot became the greed of beefsteak every night. And the drive for a BA or an MD for every youth became every yuppie driving a BMW. That’s over, and good riddance to it.
The theme for the nineties is the theme of sacrifice. President Clinton had planned to speak of sacrifice in his State of the Union address, but they watered him down to the word “contribution.” Every American is to make a contribution rather than every American is to make a sacrifice. I’m sorry they got to him. I wish he had stayed with the word “sacrifice.” We need to hear the theme of sacrifice. We need to face the matter of self-denial.
Today I call you to a whole gospel. I call you to a gospel of awareness. I call you to be alert to all that Christ wants to do through us. Don’t be asleep. Don’t limit your imagination. Don’t let all our energy, all our resources, all our property lie idle because we cannot imagine our way to God’s future! We’re so near; and yet so far, unless we wake up and get excited about mission.
And I call you to a gospel of sacrifice. Without apology I call you to a Christ whose giving of Himself on that Cross challenges us to give of ourselves. Today’s needs, tomorrow’s issues. Nostalgia is a disease for which the only cure is a strong dose of reality. If we get stuck in the past, we will be so near to Christ of glory, yet so far, so very far, unless we embrace tomorrow.
Our theme song has it. "From a distance we all have enough, and no one is in need. There are no guns, no bombs, no disease, no hungry mouths to feed. From a distance we are instruments marching in a common band, playing songs of hope, playing songs of peace, they’re the songs of every man. God is watching us, God is watching us, God is watching us from a distance."
Today, we are so near and yet so far. But tomorrow … well, God is watching us from a distance.
