(Most of this sermon is available on video at http://youtu.be/ESxzZDBPPlc .)
As many of you know, we still have a house and property in Ohio, just north of Marietta on the Muskingum River. On those 2 and a quarter acres, a decade ago I planted about 80 fruit trees, mostly apple, but also with apricot, almond, pear, peaches, nectarines, cherries, plums, persimmons, and even a lonely prune tree. And in past years, this time of the year is when people who own orchards begin to spray. For if we do not spray, we do not have fruit.
The first spray, the spray that we make this time of the year is called “dormant oil”. Dormant oil is very simple – we simply take a form of vegetable oil and spray a dilute form of it over the trees. This oil then coats all of the egg cases of the damaging insects and the cocoons of all the moths and butterflies that would result in caterpillars and more eggs laid to turn into more caterpillars which would eat the leaves and flowers and fruit that was trying to grow, and that would infect the fruit with different diseases and rots. So we spray the trees with the oil so the eggs and the cocoons will suffocate. It is simple, environmentally friendly, and does little more than put a gallon of thinly spread vegetable oil over the orchard.
But it is amazing, isn’t it, those cocoons where the last surviving caterpillars of fall hibernate and slowly change over the winter. The biologists called it a “meta-morphesis”, which is from two Greek words that mean “ beyond” and “change”. So a metamorphosis is a “change beyond” the normal change. A morphosis is a normal change, like a puppy becoming a dog. But a metamorphosis goes beyond a normal change and turns a caterpillar into a butterfly.
Recent research has shown us what happens. We’ve all seen how the caterpillar forms a cocoon, a tough fibrous outer shell that protects the caterpillar from the cold, the snow, the rain, and most predators. The cocoon forms a snuggly little place where the caterpillar will be safe during the next few weeks or months. But it also forms a prison for the developing butterfly. If the butterfly cannot one day break through the cocoon, the butterfly will never fly.
Scientists have found out even more details about how the caterpillar changes in the cocoon. Most caterpillars are born with the normal digestive organs, a brain, etc. But caterpillars are also born with small organs called “imaginal discs”. Imaginal discs – from the same root as the word “imagine”.
These imaginal discs do very little in most caterpillars. But when the caterpillar is ready to make it’s cocoon, the tough outer coating that will protect it during the metamorphosis, some changes happen inside the caterpillar.
First of all, the caterpillar almost completely digests itself. It turns the inside of the caterpillar into a gooey substance that has no structure. It is just digested caterpillar. It has literally eaten itself. If you open the cocoon at this point, the goo just oozes out and the creature will die.
But the imaginal discs are NOT digested. Those little organs survive the digesting process and they begin to grow. Some turn into a new brain, some turn into wings, some turn into digestive organs, some turn into muscles, some turn into eyes. The use the gooey stuff as their food and use the old digested caterpillar goo to build the new creature.
Then, one day, when everything has been put back together the right way, the cocoon bursts open and a beautiful butterfly crawls out, sits for a few minutes in the sun, and then flies away!
In our Gospel reading today, Jesus has been doing his ministry in the lands north of Galilee, the area near Caesarea Phillipi. One day, he takes his core group of disciples – Peter, James, and John, up onto a high mountain – many people think it was Mount Hermon, which is a large mountain which is on the Lebanon-Syria border. The snow from Mount Hermon supplies the Sea of Galilee with water, which then becomes the Jordan River which flows into the Dead Sea. It is the northern part of what today we call the Golan Heights. Here on top of Mount Hermon, there were small temples which had been set up to Baal, to Greek and Roman gods and goddesses, and to other gods and goddesses. There was a long history of setting up temples and shelters for various deities and demi-gods here.
When the small party reaches the top of the mountain, something extraordinary happens. Jesus changes His appearance. He is no longer a tired man who has just climbed several thousand feet – the peak is over nine thousand feet above sea level. No, Jesus suddenly is wearing dazzling white clothing – “whiter than anyone can bleach them”. He has changed – His divinity is showing through.
Elijah and Moses are talking with Him. Elijah, who was taken to Heaven in a whirlwind after a chariot of fire and horses of fire appeared is there. Moses, whose body was never found, is there. As far as anyone can tell from the Old Testament scriptures, these two men never died, but were taken to Heaven while alive. And Peter, James, and John are watching all this happen. What would you do? What would you think? What would you say?
It’s all too much for Peter. Peter, the man of action, simply cannot contain himself and watch. 5 Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.”
Peter wanted to honor Jesus. He wanted to put him “up there” with Moses and Elijah, two of the greatest prophets in Jewish history. But Peter wasn’t quite there. Peter didn’t quite grasp who Jesus was. Peter thought that he would do like so many other people had done and build a shrine on Mount Hermon. And Peter was about to go down in history as the first man whom God had told to “shut up”!
7 Then a cloud appeared and covered them, and a voice came from the cloud:“This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!”
Imagine the embarrassment for Peter when God tells him, in essence – “Don’t insult Jesus by comparing Him to Moses and Elijah – This is my SON. Now shut up and “Listen to Him!”
I suspect that there was a new respect for their rabbi that day as the three disciples came down off the mountain.
On the mountain, Jesus was transfigured. His appearance changed – and He changed. For just a few minutes, the disciples saw the beautiful God-man that was locked inside the human body. For just a few minutes, the disciples had a glimpse of Who they were walking beside and talking with every day. For just a few minutes, the disciples were shaken to the depths of their hearts by their encounters with God the Father and God the Son.
In the beginning of the Lord of the Rings books and movie, the kindly wizard Gandolf comes to Hobbiton, a quiet village where he is known as the gentle old, perhaps slightly doty man who can make fireworks. But later on in the first book, in the first movie, there is an episode where this kindly old wizard is face to face with a great evil demon. Suddenly, we find out the hidden power and strength in the old man. Suddenly, we find out that this man who was simply known for making fireworks can also stand up to the greatest evil the party has encountered and say, like a prophet of old: “You shall not pass”. And suddenly, we see that hidden within the wrinkled human body is a tremendous power for good.
Peter and the other disciples also had looked at Jesus and said to themselves, “He’s a lot like me.” They thought he was a really good teacher, a man who knew a great deal about scripture, and who somehow could perform healing miracles. But they had not realized the depth of the difference between them. They, who had looked up their entire lives to the stories of Moses at the Red Sea and Elijah fighting the battle of the gods on top of Mount Carmel, they had been excited to put Jesus into that same class of man, sort of like we might take a particularly good politician and say that he is like John F Kennedy or Abraham Lincoln.
But God the Father would have none of this. Just for a few moments, the divine nature of Jesus came forth and he shone with the pure white crisp brilliance of Heaven. Just once, God the Father spoke to Peter and told Peter in no uncertain words that Jesus was far more than Moses, far more than Elijah, far more than any mere human who had ever walked on the planet. And just for once, we see part of what led Peter and the others to spend the rest of their lives telling people about Jesus Christ, the Son of God. The transfiguration was the defining moment in the relationship of Jesus to those three disciples. It was the moment when they realized that they had been walking around with God Himself every day – and that shocked them to the very core of their hearts.
For you see, Peter, James, and John were also transformed that day. Except for a brief vacation after the Resurrection, these three fishermen no longer fished on the Sea of Galilee. Peter traveled to Babylon and Rome spreading the Gospel of Christ. John traveled to western Turkey and led the growing church in Ephesus until his exile on the island of Patmos in the Aegean Sea. James was killed in Jerusalem by King Herod. They all lived – and died – spreading the Good News of Christ.
The effect upon the disciples reminds me of the day when Saundra and I had spent an hour after church explaining to two of our dear International Students from China who Jesus was. I mentioned that we had writings that indicated that over 500 people had witnessed the resurrected Christ, and one of the girls looked up in shock and said, “So, it is TRUE?!?” You could almost see her world spin around as she realized that what she had believed for her entire life was shaken by this new fact.
And what about us?
The Transfiguration changed Jesus by showing His divine nature. Much as a caterpillar turns into a butterfly, Jesus showed the three disciples what was inside His human skin. And later, when He arose from the dead, He was changed again. He walked about in a new, glorified body, new to the world, changed enough that His disciples and followers did not recognize Him at first.
And we, too, are to be changed by the Transfiguration. We are to be transformed. When we recognize that Jesus truly is God’s Son and to be listened to, we are transformed. Inside us, God has put the seeds of imagination, those soul-seeds that allow us to be transformed as we hear the Word of Christ, the Word of God, the gentle voice of the Holy Spirit.
Yet, just like the caterpillar, we must let our old self die away and be consumed. Consumed, yet not forgotten, for it is out of our recognition and repudiation of our sin, our desire to change from our sin nature into something desired by God, that we can grow into a beautiful person, led by our imagination and the transforming acts of the Holy Spirit of God.
When we live in the world, the world beats us up. Eventually, it is easy to retreat into a cocoon, to hide from the world under our bed, to curl up at home and stay away from those things that might hurt us. Our spirit melts down, we move less and less, and finally, our spirit becomes a messy, human goo that is vulnerable and may never come out of the cocoon in which we’ve placed ourselves. We may withdraw from the world, never to return.
But if we take this time to read the Word of God, to pray to our Creator, to listen to the Holy Spirit, something miraculous can happen. If we take time to contemplate the life, teachings, and sacrifice of Jesus Christ, then something wonderful can happen to us. If we invite the Holy Spirit to take over from our old self-spirit, a new Spirit will begin to come together within us as the thoughts and imaginations and dreams that the Holy Spirit gives us grow together in our mind. This is the transformation that Anita’s new Wednesday evening class hopes to generate. I hope you’ll consider coming to the transformation time at 6:30 each Wednesday.
As our old self-spirit melts down and becomes human goo, our new spirit, guided by the Holy Spirit can grow and become something wonderful, something beautiful, something that can fly far above what our old caterpillar-self could ever hope to venture to, bound down as it was by the weight of sin and self-destruction.
Use your imagination, guided by the Holy Spirit. We are told that we are to become Christ-like in all ways we can. When we die, we will receive at our Resurrection a glorified body just as Christ was. But before we die, how will we be transformed? How can we who have darkness in our lives become brightly shining like Jesus was at the transfiguration?
As Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 4:
6 … God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory…
Take the story of the Transfiguration inside yourself. Let it do its work, digesting your old view of Jesus as a wise teacher, destroying your old view that this world around us is what counts, eliminating the limitations on your old view that keep you tied down to what ordinary men and women can do.
Perhaps you have been walking around in this world for years since you came to know Jesus. Perhaps it has been decades since your baptism and you, like a caterpillar, have been walking around, eating the leaves of the Word of God for many years. Perhaps you have been earth-bound, held down by your awareness that you are just a caterpillar, and that caterpillars never fly.
But instead, like the caterpillar’s imaginal discs, let the seeds of imagination, guided by the Holy Spirit, remake you into something beautiful. The Holy Spirit, which is now in your heart, will make the light of the knowledge of God’s glory shine from your heart into your new life.
Consider what heights you can soar to if you are lifted up by Holy God, the Creator of the Universe. Consider the evil that you and God together can destroy. Consider the good that you and God together can do. Consider a complete metamorphoses that can happen if you will let your imagination follow the leading of God’s Word, Christ’s sacrifice, and the Holy Spirit’s gentle voice.
The Spirit may be speaking to you now. What are you to do? Is there a barrier in your way? Could you ask God to remove it? The butterfly must first make its way through the tough protective coating that surrounds the cocoon before it can fly. Remember, the cocoon is safe and protective for the caterpillar – but if the butterfly does not break out of the cocoon it will die. Ask God for help breaking through your cocoon.
· Is your cocoon made of safe, long-established habits? Ask God to cut through your old habits. Hold onto the Creator as you become a new creation.
· Is your cocoon the cocoon of feeling like you don’t know the answers? Ask God to give you the education and knowledge you need, and the answers you need. God knows all things and can show you all things.
· Is your cocoon the cocoon of thinking you are too old? Ask God to show you how to be young again in your spirit. After all, you have tens of thousands of years still to live, my eternal friend. Begin again today.
· Is your cocoon the cocoon of thinking that you are too young or too small to make a difference? Ask God to make a way for you. Ask God to use God’s ultimate, Universe-building power to make a difference and change the world through you.
· Is your cocoon the cocoon of can’t, shouldn’t, don’t wanna? Ask God to show you how to break past those old cords that mind you down. Ask God to DO, and ask God to bring you along in the journey.
What is your cocoon called? What do you need God’s help breaking free of?
In Romans, Paul also wrote: “If God is for us, who can be against us?”
It is time to break out of your cocoon, your place of safety, your prison of protection, your binding that holds you in one place. It is time to fly with the Holy Spirit of God. Stop looking at the world through caterpillar eyes and look through the eyes given to you by God, the God that wants you to fly!
If you are ready to drop behind the things that have held you back, whether it be what someone once told you, or what someone once did to you, or what you have limited yourself to – Come forward to the altar during our song today. Do not let your exceptions define you, do not lot those exceptions hold you back. Too often we have dreamed great and wonderful dreams that will honor God and we let the human perceptions stop us. YOU KNOW those exceptions – we’d like to do something wonderful and would – except for our finance, or except for our lack of skills, or except for our lack of knowledge.
As my son Andrew said last week, we are not called to be people of exceptions, but we are called to be an exceptional people.
Consider the caterpillar. We all begin life that way, bound to the earth around us. But Christians are not to be caterpillars. After we encounter Christ, we are to be butterflies. What could you look like to God? Look at this video for some ideas. (Skip ahead to the 0.55 point.)
We are to be butterflies, transformed into a new creation, flying toward God’s Son, free to do what is right and good and wholesome for us – and for everyone we meet. This is the essential difference between us and the world. We have the transfiguring power of God speaking to us daily through God’s Word and the Holy Spirit. Listen and be changed!
Break free today. Come to the altar during our song. Speak to God and ask for the Holy Spirit to guide you as you throw off your cocoon. Talk with the Creator who made you and ask Him how to become a butterfly. Kneel before the One who loves you and died so that you could be free from your bonds. Come to the altar during our song.
Consider the words of the Hymn of Promise https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vljO26OhOXQ .
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