Luke 9:28-36
“Experiencing the Holy”
By: Kenneth Emerson Sauer
Pastor of Parkview United Methodist Church,
Newport News, VA
www.parkview-umc.org.
One exciting thing I’ve learned from the time I’ve been spending at the Hospice Unit and the Spinal Cord Injury Unit at the Veteran’s Hospital over the past several months is how much the doctors, nurses, and psychologists appreciate the importance of the job of Chaplains in the recovery and well-being of patients.
They tell me, “There is only so far we can go with medical science and drugs. A patient cannot be made fully whole until he or she experiences peace with God.”
And in order to experience peace with God we must have a Holy experience with Him.
In our Gospel Lesson for today we are told of a Holy experience.
Where a wonderful encounter between the divine and the human takes place.
Jesus took Peter, John and James with Him onto a mountain to pray.
But it seems that Jesus was the Only One Who was doing any praying.
In verse 32 we read that “Peter and his companions were very sleepy.”
So while Jesus is praying “the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became as bright as a flash of lightening…”
Then Moses and Elijah appear and start talking with Jesus.
Verse 31 tells us what they were talking about.
“They spoke about his departure, which he was about to bring to fulfillment at Jerusalem.”
Moses and Elijah were talking with Jesus about His upcoming arrest and bloody crucifixion.
And, in a sense, I think they were giving Jesus a ‘pep talk’.
Remember, that Jesus…while on earth…was both fully human and fully divine.
His human side feared the humiliation and the pain that He was going to soon endure.
His divine side feared something even worse.
This was the first time that God the Father and God the Son were going to experience separation from each other.
Because in order for you and I to be given the greatest of all gifts—the opportunity to be reconciled to God…
…Jesus Christ, a man who had been tempted in every way we are—but was without sin—had to become sin for us.
Jesus had to experience the separation from God which is the result of our sin.
What did Jesus cry out in agony from the Cross?
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
At that very moment God the Son experienced His first and only separation from God the Father—which is what we deserve—which is hell.
But because Jesus was without sin, death and hell had no hold on Him, no power over Him and He rose from the dead.
And through faith in Jesus Christ, we too, can have power over sin, death, and hell!
That’s how much God loves us!
That’s how far God is willing to go in order to save us!
If we think it was an easy task for Jesus to “bring fulfillment at Jerusalem” we are terribly mistaken.
Let’s take a look at what Jesus was going through before He was arrested.
Let’s look at Matthew Chapter 26:38-39, and 42.
So, on the Mount of Transfiguration Moses and Elijah gave Jesus a ‘pep talk’.
And while all this was already going on…Peter, John and James hadn’t noticed a thing…
…because they “were very sleepy.”
We find this in verse 32.
And I want us to focus on verse 32 this morning.
“Peter and his companions were very sleepy, but when they became fully awake, they saw his glory and the two men standing with Him.”
We don’t know how long this brilliant transfiguration and conversation had been taking place—we don’t know how long this Holy experience had been taking place before Peter, John and James even realized that anything was going on at all.
But, by the grace of God, they woke up!
They had been sleepy, they had been in a state of dullness or in a stupor, but when they “became fully awake” is when they realized the glory of Jesus and that Moses and Elijah were talking with Him!
The point is this: our realization of the glory of God comes to us when we are most “fully awake” or when we have a heightened moment of consciousness.
One of the true geniuses of human history is Pascal—the seventeenth century French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist.
During his brief 39 years on this earth, he made scientific discoveries which are the basis for a great amount of our most significant and contemporary knowledge.
But with all his ability in logic and all his commitment to tough-minded scholarship, Pascal found the greatest assurance in his experience with the Holy.
On the evening of Monday, November 23, 1654, he felt the reality of Jesus Christ in such intensity that he wrote:
God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob.
Not of the Philosophers and Scientists.
Certainty, Certainty, Feeling, Joy, Peace.
God of Jesus Christ.
He copied on parchment the full witness of his experience and sewed it into the lining of his coat, where it was found by his servant after his death nearly eight years later.
For Pascal the greatest reality was not what he had discovered in laboratory experiments, but what he found in his communion with God, through Jesus Christ. And it was at such a time that he was “fully awake.”
One day this past week, as I entered the Hospice Unit of the VA Hospital, I wasn’t feeling very awake.
I was having one of those days when I was just going through the motions…not fully experiencing the presence of God.
I got into a conversation with one of the patients, and at the beginning I felt very…well… ‘unspiritual’…kind of disconnected… kind of dead.
As he was speaking, I desperately said a quick, silent prayer.
I prayed something like: “Holy Spirit, please fill me with Your presence so that I can better minister to this man.”
I wasn’t conscious of it, but I became “fully awake”, and engaged in the conversation, enthusiastic, and filled with excitement and joy.
I went from room to room, filled with the Spirit, energized, and in the mood to minister and witness.
As I was leaving the Hospice Unit I realized how filled and happy I felt…
…and then it dawned on me…
…I remembered what I had been feeling like before I entered the Hospice Unit.
I remembered what I had been feeling like during that first conversation.
And I thought, what in the world changed…why do I feel so good right now?
Then I remembered that quick little silent prayer I had prayed.
And I realized that it was at that moment that I had become “fully awake.”
Like Peter, John and James the holiness of God, the glory of God is all around us…but so often we are too dull, too sleepy to realize it…to experience it.
Why is this?
And are there ways that we can help ourselves experience the holiness of God on a more consistent basis?
Spiritually, as well as physically, we are what we eat.
Our modern day society feeds us a constant diet of junk food…
We have to put forth the special effort to find healthy food that will nourish the deepest hungers of our lives.
We will never be made whole until we experience the peace and joy of a relationship with God through Jesus Christ!
And we will never be the Christians that God has created us in Christ Jesus to be unless we are awake to see His magnificent glory all around us—at all times!
Part of the secret is frequent and consistent Sunday school and worship attendance.
And this is no commercial; it’s simply a statement of the facts of life.
We are bombarded all week long by voices that dull our sensitivity to God and to the eternal; so we need desperately to take advantage of this special time each week when we can concentrate on hearing God’s voice.
But Sunday worship is not enough.
We also have to establish some patterns of daily renewal.
We need the lift, day after day, which comes through reading the Bible and prayer.
We also need the special strength that comes through those friends we have at church with whom we can share both our faith and our struggles.
We need other believers who are willing to ‘talk faith’ with us both in one on one conversations and also corporately…like in the weekly Bible study.
Our brothers and sisters in the faith can do something for us that sometimes even the most inspirational book can’t do.
And in all our searching, let us remember that God is on our side in this quest.
We were built for faith.
It’s our native air; and we function the best when we breathe it in with great big breaths.
We were created to be in constant communion with God, and Jesus Christ has made what we were created to do and be a definite achievable reality.
We all need to be shaken fully awake, so that we can see the glory of God.
And this kind of gladness, this joy, this peace, this wholeness of life is what God our Father desires for us.
So let’s seek God in holy expectation.
We may not have an experience on a mount of transfiguration with Moses, Elijah, and Jesus.
But on our own little mountain, at home, in our cars, at work, we can be with our Lord.
And as we experience this, we will find ourselves just as blessed as Peter, John and James were, so long ago, when they were “fully awake” to God’s glory.
Let us Pray: O God, Grant that we may be fully awake to Your glory, and may be strengthened and changed into the likeness of Your Son from glory to glory; through Jesus Christ we pray. Amen.
