Gospel Reading Audio - Audio Sermon: The Glow of the Mountain
“That morning, the Master asked us to follow Him up to the top of the mountain to pray. Mt Hermon, which lies well north of the Sea of Galilee and is the tallest mountain in the area, usually covered with snow. (Some have said over the years that we were at Mt Tabor, but it was Mt Hermon.) I thought sarcastically, “Wow! We’re going to take a hard climb up on a mountain to watch Him pray. Again. Oh joy.” But I came along with my brother John and Simon, the one the Master had begun calling Peter, the Rock. We climbed up the mountain, passing along the way little shrines that looked like huts. People must have been making these shrines here on the mountain since the Flood, for there were many of them – wood and stone heaped together, sometimes with bones lying on altars. They smelled of death. We walked up above the clouds that morning, as the hawks and vultures circled far above.
"Near the top, the Master asked us to wait, so we sat down and began to fall asleep in the warm sunshine, tired and sweaty after the climb. He went a few feet further, stood looking toward Heaven and began to pray to His Father. That was when it happened…his face changed and became different, His clothes turned whiter than the snow patches around us, bright and glowing in the sunlight like lightning. Then two men appeared, gloriously, they were Moses and Elijah, and began to speak to Him of his upcoming departure from Jerusalem.
"We had gotten very sleepy when He began praying after our hard climb, but then we woke up in the bright sunshine when we saw Him talking to the two men. As they were about to leave, Simon spoke up – He always began to talk when he was nervous – Simon Peter spoke up and said, ““Master, it’s good for us to be here! Let us make three tabernacles: one for You, one for Moses, and one for Elijah” As usual, Peter didn’t realize what he was saying – that the Master, Moses, and Elijah were all the same and worthy to be worshiped in the same way as the false gods that countless people had built those little shrines and huts for on the mountain road, the ones we’d passed climbing the mountain.
"Well, while Peter was babbling on, a cloud came onto the mountain, it got very dark, and we began to be afraid. Then a Voice came from the cloud which said, “This is My Son, the Chosen One. Listen to Him!”
"When we looked back up, Moses and Elijah were gone. We – especially Peter – were very quiet as we walked back down the mountain. We did not tell anyone what we had seen until after the Master’s Resurrection. But it changed us. We had known that Jesus spoke to God, but something special happened that day when God spoke directly to us about Jesus. “This is My Son, the Chosen One. Listen to Him!” We began to listen much more closely to what He was saying. Just talking about it sends shivers up my spine. We wondered. WHO IS THIS MAN? "
… Exodus 34:29-35; 2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2; Luke 9:28-36
The story of the Transfiguration is a pivotal story in the Gospels. The first three Gospels go into detail and even John refers to it in John 1:14 – “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
Peter wrote about it in 2 Peter 1:16-18: “For we did not follow cleverly devised stories when we told you about the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in power, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. He received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory, saying, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with him on the sacred mountain.” That’s what Peter wrote, years later.
Clearly, the story was important to the disciples. Of course, when we realize just what happened, we begin to understand. The man they followed up the mountain was, as far as they knew, just another rabbi – smart, wise, energetic, even possibly the Messiah, the Savior of Israel – but just a man.
But for the three who watched on the mountaintop that day, Jesus became eternally different – God’s Son, recommended by God Himself to the three, who had been told directly by God to listen to Him – and there was no doubt that God had spoken! Plus, Moses and Elijah, the George Washington and Abraham Lincoln of Jewish history, men who had talked personally with God – these two men who were supposedly long dead or at least taken into Heaven – they had talked with Jesus right in front of the three.
It is like finding out that your Sunday School teacher is not just a godly man or woman – but is God’s Son or Daughter and holds a two-way conversation with God every morning, or, in a more earthly example, discovering that your postman is your favorite former president’s grandson, and they talk about world events every Tuesday and Thursday evening. It changes things. You develop a new respect for your friend, a certain awe. Where you might listen with one ear before, now, you want to hear all the stories. But Jesus wasn't just the grandson of a president - Jesus was Son of the Living God!
For the three disciples, it meant that they now not only respected Jesus, but could begin to worship Him, for if Jesus was truly the Son of God – and when God tells you this directly from a cloud on a mountaintop, you believe it – then Jesus the Son of God should be listened to most carefully and truly worshiped, recognized as worthy to be followed in all things.
And there, we have a disconnect, for most of us really have little idea of what it means to worship someone. Peter definitely was messed up in his idea of worship, when he thought he ought to build three shrines to Jesus, Moses, and Elijah. So what is worship?
To the Jewish rabbis of Jesus’ time, worship was one of the three pillars that holds up the Universe – the other two being the study of scripture and the performance of deeds of loving kindness. Worship was equated in their minds with animal sacrifices at the Temple because that was where God was to be found. You went to the Temple, paid your sacrifice, and God had been satisfied, your world could continue. But soon, the Temple was gone. Forty years after the disciples walked with Jesus, the Temple was destroyed. So how do you worship in a world where there is no Temple? How do you worship when you don’t know where God is to be found?
The ancient people of Palestine were always trying to answer this question about where to find God – that is why they built so many shrines and huts on the mountaintops – “the high places” that are referred to in I and II Kings - and in groves of big trees. That is why it seemed so right that Moses would go up on the mountain of Sinai and meet with God, with his face glowing so much when he came down that it had to be covered by a veil lest he frighten people. You find God on the mountaintop if you don’t have a Temple. And if you find God on the mountaintop, you build a small hut or shrine for God to live in so you can find God the next time you need Him.
We still do this, don’t we? Although we know in our head that God is everywhere, our culture and our heart tells us that God can only be found in certain places – a grove of redwoods, the top of Pike’s Peak, on Spruce Knob, in Cathedral State Park among the trees. We talk of finding God in our garden, and we even put special monuments and stones and signs and statues of angels in and around our homes so we will know where to find God. We look for God in our church buildings.
After the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD, the Jewish nation was terribly disturbed. Where do you find God without the Temple? How do you worship without being able to give animal sacrifice. So the rabbi’s began to talk about worship as being prayer. And prayer as one form of worship is a good idea. But Jesus was way ahead of the rabbis. But even today, we often are confused, because we still want to worship in the Temple, in the building. Stained glass and brass help us worship, it seems.
Learning to worship God is often measured by the smallness of the things we thank God for.
In the Temple, as part of the regular daily sacrificial routine, certain prayers were said to God by the priests and there were responses by the people. These prayers were fixed – These are the equivalent of our liturgical prayers, the prayers we find in the bulletin and the pastoral prayers I pray each week. These are the prayers of a community, praying together to worship God.
But, as you know, there are other types of prayers. For there is the prayer of an individual who comes to the altar at some point in a service to speak to the God that created him or her. When we pray at the altar, we are not limited to confessing some great sin. We are not limited to turning over our heart to Jesus. No, when we come to the altar, we may do so because we want to tell God how grateful we are for His ordinary, daily goodness, the provision of our daily bread, the home we have, the friends God has sent us. We don’t need to wait for the special blessings, the miraculous healing or deliverance, the new job, the winning of the lottery, the big things of life. No, we can and should pray our thanks, not for just what God gives us, but even for the simple goodness of God.
I have noticed that learning to worship God is often measured by the smallness of the things we thank God for. A new Christian only thanks God for big things like a home, a saved marriage, a deliverance from cancer. The mature Christian thanks God for the cup of water that came from the spigot this morning like every morning, the blue sky of a Wednesday morning, and the quietness of the night that allowed a good rest, the songs of the birds that greet the sun in the morning.
And there is the worship of song or poem, of reading scripture back to God, particularly of the Psalms. And this can truly lift us up just as much as it shows our devotion to God. So when you sing, sing strongly, for you are worshiping God with your music – even if it is off-key and non-musical, for we do not sing for the people around us, but we sing for God when we sing.
My friend Gerry Messenger called me up this week. Gerry is nearly 90 years old and worships at Quiet Dell. She has been a lay speaker for decades and was the person I could call on Saturday night to substitute for me if I was sick on Sunday morning, because she always has a sermon ready to go.
Gerry makes a fabulous lemon meringue pie – one of those pies that has 2-3 inches of meringue on top of a LEMONY base, with little pearl drops of liquid on top of a perfectly browned meringue. Her pies are famous – people at her church skip the main food line to grab a piece of her pie, take it to their seat, then go back to get in line because they don’t want to miss the pie.
Gerry just wanted to offer me a pie as a gift - I think because at a recent meeting I didn't get any of her pie.. So I took time and drove over Wednesday morning and met her in a parking lot – I felt like I was doing a drug buy (My wife says I was...) – and she gave me the pie. We talked a couple of minutes and traded hugs.
Why did I do this? I don’t need desserts – the sugar is bad for me and so I have to ration my sweets very carefully. In fact, I guess I average about one mint a day in sweets.
But I also know this. I know that this woman does what she does as part of her worship of God. When she bakes a lemon pie, she is using her gifts to present something to God, to say “thank you” to God for a full life guided by God. – I just happened to be the recipient of this particular pie. So I enjoyed the pie and let her have the joy of having done something for the God I represent. This is her worship.
You see, worship is about an interaction with God. Yes, it is about prayer – a conversation with our wisest friend. But it is also about willfully, joyfully doing what God would have us do – it is about quilting, about needlepoint, about singing as we work, about making a bird feeder, about planting tulip bulbs or spreading mulch.
The age-old question of how and where to find God was answered in a new way for Christians – God could be found, not only in the Temple, not only on the mountain, not only in Holy Scripture – but God could be found in two-way prayer in your shower, in your car, in your living room, walking along the street, working in your garden, sitting at your desk, waiting in the doctor’s office. We get close to God when we practice two-way prayer with God, speaking our deepest desires and listening to God’s response. In the most mature Christians, the asking part of daily prayer is not a list of things desired – but simply a question: “What would You have me do today, Lord?”
In our 2 Corinthians reading, Paul tells us that when Moses came down from the mountain, Moses listened to the people and put a veil over his glowing face so they would not be reminded that he had stood in front of God, for that frightened them. And we still get nervous today when someone starts talking about God speaking to them, don’t we? We look for the exits, we begin to wonder if this person has "other issues", don’t we? It is because we want the veil between us and any reminder of God's presence, we don’t want to know that we can get close to God – we even sit far away from the altar, don’t we?
The apostle Paul points out that this veil still lies over hearts when the Law given to Moses is read, but it is set aside by Christ, when a person really turns to Christ, the heaviness, the darkness, the chains of the Law are lifted and the glory of the Lord shines forth. Paul says it is like looking in a mirror at the glory of the Lord and being transformed into the same image by that glory. Now, we can see with the light of the glory of God through the Spirit of the Lord and there is freedom. Or we can be focused upon the do’s and don’ts of the Law – and the veil blocks the glow. Look at the freedom Jesus gave us and see with the light of the glory of God!
Peter, James, and John saw the glory of Christ on the mountain that day and were changed! And so we see the glory of Christ on the mountain from time to time and it changes us.
We all have mountaintop experiences, times when the Spirit grabs us and shakes us, when joy hits our hearts and we want to shout rather than contain that joy. A worship service, a concert, a quiet reading of scripture or a sermon alone at home can give a wonderful emotional experience to us.
But worship is not about our emotions. Worship is not about our joy. There is nothing wrong with becoming emotional in worship, nothing wrong with raising hands, with dancing, with singing joyfully. But if our purpose in worship becomes to gain an emotional high, we have confused the horse and the wagon. For worship is a flow from us to God of our praise for God, our need for God, our desire for God. Truly, the more we praise God, need God and desire God, the more we will find our emotions rising. But that emotion needs to remain the effect of worship, not the goal of worship.
And yet we still need to come to worship expectant – expecting to hear from God – sometimes a wonderful emotional lift, yes! – but just as valuable to us as the joy is a dread feeling in the pit of our stomach in the middle of worship that tells us we have gotten off track with God’s will. – Did you notice that when God spoke to the disciples on the mountain, it was more of a correction than a compliment? – Other times, worship gives us just a quiet glow that says we are where we need to be, the smile of God is upon us, if you will.
But if we come to a worship service looking for that emotional high, it will not happen, just as the man or woman who seeks happiness will not gain it. That is striving for a high the same way an alcoholic or a drug addict looks for a high. "Do this, and you’ll be high." No!
“That morning, the Master asked us to follow Him up to the top of the mountain to pray. Mt Hermon, which lies well north of the Sea of Galilee and is the tallest mountain in the area, usually covered with snow. (Some have said over the years that we were at Mt Tabor, but it was Mt Hermon.) I thought sarcastically, “Wow! We’re going to take a hard climb up on a mountain to watch Him pray. Again. Oh joy.” But I came along with my brother John and Simon, the one the Master had begun calling Peter, the Rock. We climbed up the mountain, passing along the way little shrines that looked like huts. People must have been making these shrines here on the mountain since the Flood, for there were many of them – wood and stone heaped together, sometimes with bones lying on altars. They smelled of death. We walked up above the clouds that morning, as the hawks and vultures circled far above.
"Near the top, the Master asked us to wait, so we sat down and began to fall asleep in the warm sunshine, tired and sweaty after the climb. He went a few feet further, stood looking toward Heaven and began to pray to His Father. That was when it happened…his face changed and became different, His clothes turned whiter than the snow patches around us, bright and glowing in the sunlight like lightning. Then two men appeared, gloriously, they were Moses and Elijah, and began to speak to Him of his upcoming departure from Jerusalem.
"We had gotten very sleepy when He began praying after our hard climb, but then we woke up in the bright sunshine when we saw Him talking to the two men. As they were about to leave, Simon spoke up – He always began to talk when he was nervous – Simon Peter spoke up and said, ““Master, it’s good for us to be here! Let us make three tabernacles: one for You, one for Moses, and one for Elijah” As usual, Peter didn’t realize what he was saying – that the Master, Moses, and Elijah were all the same and worthy to be worshiped in the same way as the false gods that countless people had built those little shrines and huts for on the mountain road, the ones we’d passed climbing the mountain.
"Well, while Peter was babbling on, a cloud came onto the mountain, it got very dark, and we began to be afraid. Then a Voice came from the cloud which said, “This is My Son, the Chosen One. Listen to Him!”
"When we looked back up, Moses and Elijah were gone. We – especially Peter – were very quiet as we walked back down the mountain. We did not tell anyone what we had seen until after the Master’s Resurrection. But it changed us. We had known that Jesus spoke to God, but something special happened that day when God spoke directly to us about Jesus. “This is My Son, the Chosen One. Listen to Him!” We began to listen much more closely to what He was saying. Just talking about it sends shivers up my spine. We wondered. WHO IS THIS MAN? "
… Exodus 34:29-35; 2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2; Luke 9:28-36
The story of the Transfiguration is a pivotal story in the Gospels. The first three Gospels go into detail and even John refers to it in John 1:14 – “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
Peter wrote about it in 2 Peter 1:16-18: “For we did not follow cleverly devised stories when we told you about the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in power, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. He received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory, saying, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with him on the sacred mountain.” That’s what Peter wrote, years later.
Clearly, the story was important to the disciples. Of course, when we realize just what happened, we begin to understand. The man they followed up the mountain was, as far as they knew, just another rabbi – smart, wise, energetic, even possibly the Messiah, the Savior of Israel – but just a man.
But for the three who watched on the mountaintop that day, Jesus became eternally different – God’s Son, recommended by God Himself to the three, who had been told directly by God to listen to Him – and there was no doubt that God had spoken! Plus, Moses and Elijah, the George Washington and Abraham Lincoln of Jewish history, men who had talked personally with God – these two men who were supposedly long dead or at least taken into Heaven – they had talked with Jesus right in front of the three.
It is like finding out that your Sunday School teacher is not just a godly man or woman – but is God’s Son or Daughter and holds a two-way conversation with God every morning, or, in a more earthly example, discovering that your postman is your favorite former president’s grandson, and they talk about world events every Tuesday and Thursday evening. It changes things. You develop a new respect for your friend, a certain awe. Where you might listen with one ear before, now, you want to hear all the stories. But Jesus wasn't just the grandson of a president - Jesus was Son of the Living God!
For the three disciples, it meant that they now not only respected Jesus, but could begin to worship Him, for if Jesus was truly the Son of God – and when God tells you this directly from a cloud on a mountaintop, you believe it – then Jesus the Son of God should be listened to most carefully and truly worshiped, recognized as worthy to be followed in all things.
And there, we have a disconnect, for most of us really have little idea of what it means to worship someone. Peter definitely was messed up in his idea of worship, when he thought he ought to build three shrines to Jesus, Moses, and Elijah. So what is worship?
To the Jewish rabbis of Jesus’ time, worship was one of the three pillars that holds up the Universe – the other two being the study of scripture and the performance of deeds of loving kindness. Worship was equated in their minds with animal sacrifices at the Temple because that was where God was to be found. You went to the Temple, paid your sacrifice, and God had been satisfied, your world could continue. But soon, the Temple was gone. Forty years after the disciples walked with Jesus, the Temple was destroyed. So how do you worship in a world where there is no Temple? How do you worship when you don’t know where God is to be found?
The ancient people of Palestine were always trying to answer this question about where to find God – that is why they built so many shrines and huts on the mountaintops – “the high places” that are referred to in I and II Kings - and in groves of big trees. That is why it seemed so right that Moses would go up on the mountain of Sinai and meet with God, with his face glowing so much when he came down that it had to be covered by a veil lest he frighten people. You find God on the mountaintop if you don’t have a Temple. And if you find God on the mountaintop, you build a small hut or shrine for God to live in so you can find God the next time you need Him.
We still do this, don’t we? Although we know in our head that God is everywhere, our culture and our heart tells us that God can only be found in certain places – a grove of redwoods, the top of Pike’s Peak, on Spruce Knob, in Cathedral State Park among the trees. We talk of finding God in our garden, and we even put special monuments and stones and signs and statues of angels in and around our homes so we will know where to find God. We look for God in our church buildings.
After the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD, the Jewish nation was terribly disturbed. Where do you find God without the Temple? How do you worship without being able to give animal sacrifice. So the rabbi’s began to talk about worship as being prayer. And prayer as one form of worship is a good idea. But Jesus was way ahead of the rabbis. But even today, we often are confused, because we still want to worship in the Temple, in the building. Stained glass and brass help us worship, it seems.
Learning to worship God is often measured by the smallness of the things we thank God for.
In the Temple, as part of the regular daily sacrificial routine, certain prayers were said to God by the priests and there were responses by the people. These prayers were fixed – These are the equivalent of our liturgical prayers, the prayers we find in the bulletin and the pastoral prayers I pray each week. These are the prayers of a community, praying together to worship God.
But, as you know, there are other types of prayers. For there is the prayer of an individual who comes to the altar at some point in a service to speak to the God that created him or her. When we pray at the altar, we are not limited to confessing some great sin. We are not limited to turning over our heart to Jesus. No, when we come to the altar, we may do so because we want to tell God how grateful we are for His ordinary, daily goodness, the provision of our daily bread, the home we have, the friends God has sent us. We don’t need to wait for the special blessings, the miraculous healing or deliverance, the new job, the winning of the lottery, the big things of life. No, we can and should pray our thanks, not for just what God gives us, but even for the simple goodness of God.
I have noticed that learning to worship God is often measured by the smallness of the things we thank God for. A new Christian only thanks God for big things like a home, a saved marriage, a deliverance from cancer. The mature Christian thanks God for the cup of water that came from the spigot this morning like every morning, the blue sky of a Wednesday morning, and the quietness of the night that allowed a good rest, the songs of the birds that greet the sun in the morning.
And there is the worship of song or poem, of reading scripture back to God, particularly of the Psalms. And this can truly lift us up just as much as it shows our devotion to God. So when you sing, sing strongly, for you are worshiping God with your music – even if it is off-key and non-musical, for we do not sing for the people around us, but we sing for God when we sing.
My friend Gerry Messenger called me up this week. Gerry is nearly 90 years old and worships at Quiet Dell. She has been a lay speaker for decades and was the person I could call on Saturday night to substitute for me if I was sick on Sunday morning, because she always has a sermon ready to go.
Gerry makes a fabulous lemon meringue pie – one of those pies that has 2-3 inches of meringue on top of a LEMONY base, with little pearl drops of liquid on top of a perfectly browned meringue. Her pies are famous – people at her church skip the main food line to grab a piece of her pie, take it to their seat, then go back to get in line because they don’t want to miss the pie.
Gerry just wanted to offer me a pie as a gift - I think because at a recent meeting I didn't get any of her pie.. So I took time and drove over Wednesday morning and met her in a parking lot – I felt like I was doing a drug buy (My wife says I was...) – and she gave me the pie. We talked a couple of minutes and traded hugs.
Why did I do this? I don’t need desserts – the sugar is bad for me and so I have to ration my sweets very carefully. In fact, I guess I average about one mint a day in sweets.
But I also know this. I know that this woman does what she does as part of her worship of God. When she bakes a lemon pie, she is using her gifts to present something to God, to say “thank you” to God for a full life guided by God. – I just happened to be the recipient of this particular pie. So I enjoyed the pie and let her have the joy of having done something for the God I represent. This is her worship.
You see, worship is about an interaction with God. Yes, it is about prayer – a conversation with our wisest friend. But it is also about willfully, joyfully doing what God would have us do – it is about quilting, about needlepoint, about singing as we work, about making a bird feeder, about planting tulip bulbs or spreading mulch.
- Worship is about creating a beautiful story, about building a company that helps people, about visiting those who are homebound, about repairing a friend’s front porch while they are at work.
- Worship can be about taking a photo of a sunset or grilling hot dogs for the kids in the neighborhood.
- Worship can be about bringing a pan of lasagna to your neighbor that you have always wanted to meet, especially when you see they can’t keep up their property because they are always working.
- Worship is about being generous, it is about giving of things, giving of time, giving of ideas to those other creatures of God that walk around – our friends – and those who could become our friends.
The age-old question of how and where to find God was answered in a new way for Christians – God could be found, not only in the Temple, not only on the mountain, not only in Holy Scripture – but God could be found in two-way prayer in your shower, in your car, in your living room, walking along the street, working in your garden, sitting at your desk, waiting in the doctor’s office. We get close to God when we practice two-way prayer with God, speaking our deepest desires and listening to God’s response. In the most mature Christians, the asking part of daily prayer is not a list of things desired – but simply a question: “What would You have me do today, Lord?”
In our 2 Corinthians reading, Paul tells us that when Moses came down from the mountain, Moses listened to the people and put a veil over his glowing face so they would not be reminded that he had stood in front of God, for that frightened them. And we still get nervous today when someone starts talking about God speaking to them, don’t we? We look for the exits, we begin to wonder if this person has "other issues", don’t we? It is because we want the veil between us and any reminder of God's presence, we don’t want to know that we can get close to God – we even sit far away from the altar, don’t we?
The apostle Paul points out that this veil still lies over hearts when the Law given to Moses is read, but it is set aside by Christ, when a person really turns to Christ, the heaviness, the darkness, the chains of the Law are lifted and the glory of the Lord shines forth. Paul says it is like looking in a mirror at the glory of the Lord and being transformed into the same image by that glory. Now, we can see with the light of the glory of God through the Spirit of the Lord and there is freedom. Or we can be focused upon the do’s and don’ts of the Law – and the veil blocks the glow. Look at the freedom Jesus gave us and see with the light of the glory of God!
Peter, James, and John saw the glory of Christ on the mountain that day and were changed! And so we see the glory of Christ on the mountain from time to time and it changes us.
We all have mountaintop experiences, times when the Spirit grabs us and shakes us, when joy hits our hearts and we want to shout rather than contain that joy. A worship service, a concert, a quiet reading of scripture or a sermon alone at home can give a wonderful emotional experience to us.
But worship is not about our emotions. Worship is not about our joy. There is nothing wrong with becoming emotional in worship, nothing wrong with raising hands, with dancing, with singing joyfully. But if our purpose in worship becomes to gain an emotional high, we have confused the horse and the wagon. For worship is a flow from us to God of our praise for God, our need for God, our desire for God. Truly, the more we praise God, need God and desire God, the more we will find our emotions rising. But that emotion needs to remain the effect of worship, not the goal of worship.
And yet we still need to come to worship expectant – expecting to hear from God – sometimes a wonderful emotional lift, yes! – but just as valuable to us as the joy is a dread feeling in the pit of our stomach in the middle of worship that tells us we have gotten off track with God’s will. – Did you notice that when God spoke to the disciples on the mountain, it was more of a correction than a compliment? – Other times, worship gives us just a quiet glow that says we are where we need to be, the smile of God is upon us, if you will.
But if we come to a worship service looking for that emotional high, it will not happen, just as the man or woman who seeks happiness will not gain it. That is striving for a high the same way an alcoholic or a drug addict looks for a high. "Do this, and you’ll be high." No!
Happiness – and joy – come when we have chosen to do what our Creator desires of us – and when we know we have done what God asks. And so we find joy praising God together in prayer and in song, we find joy when we realize that God chose the passages of scripture this week because of something happening in our lives, and we find joy when we bow down at the altar rail in tears because we realize that God is listening to us, even us.
The disciples did not climb Mt Hermon that morning expecting to see and hear God. They did not expect a singular, once-in-their lives experience. They expected a difficult climb – which they got. They expected to be bored when Jesus began to pray – which they got. They even feel asleep! But God chose something else for them that day. And what God chose was enough to silence them during the long walk down.
Scripture does not record that the disciples ever walked up that particular mountain again. They did not need to – most mountaintop experiences are a once-in-a-lifetime thing. And even if they did go back there, God did not meet them there. God did not want to limit the disciples, for God knew that there would be disciples one day who could not travel to Mt Hermon on the Lebanon-Syria border. God wants to meet us everywhere. God is ready to meet us everywhere and anywhere – the question is where do we expect to see God? Are we willing to accept the correction from God as well as the joy, for God’s corrections are always for our good?
God does not want to only talk to us on the mountain. He wants to come into our home, our life. He wants to talk to us in our bedroom, in our car, at our desk, in the shower. God wants us to spend every waking minute talking to Him. God wants us to talk to him while we bake lemon pies because God wants to be our closest friend. And God wants us to listen to Him, His Son, and the Holy Spirit, God wants us to walk with Him in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, as He once did with Adam so long ago – and will again with us one day.
Will you take time today to walk or sit with God and talk with Him – just you and Him, no television, no internet, no music. Just you and Him talking together like a pair of old friends – not asking for anything except “Father, what would you like me to do?” For like all voices, the Voice of God is best heard in silence with focus and concentration on what the Voice is saying, taking time to understand,... not rushing,... not hurrying,... not worrying about the cares of the world. Glory is best appreciated by a slow study, not a quick glance.
You see, when Jesus walked off the mountain, Jesus left the dazzling glow behind, but He took with Him His glory. Jesus had changed on the mountain before the disciples, but it was the disciples who were changed the most, as it is when we see the glory of Christ, we are changed!
The disciples kept the glow of the mountain with them for the rest of their lives – it was now in their minds, unforgettable. And the same should be with us – carrying around the glory of the Son in our minds, as we walk with the Spirit of God in our heart, conducting our worship through our actions which are designed to bring glory to God – our praises, our humble petitions, our good deeds of loving kindness – and our tears when we find out how we have stumbled, when we have misspoken, when we have brought God down on the same level as those who worship idols.
Take the glow of the mountain with you today! Bow down before our Creator and speak with God in a two-way prayer. Worship the One worthy of worship.
The disciples did not climb Mt Hermon that morning expecting to see and hear God. They did not expect a singular, once-in-their lives experience. They expected a difficult climb – which they got. They expected to be bored when Jesus began to pray – which they got. They even feel asleep! But God chose something else for them that day. And what God chose was enough to silence them during the long walk down.
Scripture does not record that the disciples ever walked up that particular mountain again. They did not need to – most mountaintop experiences are a once-in-a-lifetime thing. And even if they did go back there, God did not meet them there. God did not want to limit the disciples, for God knew that there would be disciples one day who could not travel to Mt Hermon on the Lebanon-Syria border. God wants to meet us everywhere. God is ready to meet us everywhere and anywhere – the question is where do we expect to see God? Are we willing to accept the correction from God as well as the joy, for God’s corrections are always for our good?
God does not want to only talk to us on the mountain. He wants to come into our home, our life. He wants to talk to us in our bedroom, in our car, at our desk, in the shower. God wants us to spend every waking minute talking to Him. God wants us to talk to him while we bake lemon pies because God wants to be our closest friend. And God wants us to listen to Him, His Son, and the Holy Spirit, God wants us to walk with Him in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, as He once did with Adam so long ago – and will again with us one day.
Will you take time today to walk or sit with God and talk with Him – just you and Him, no television, no internet, no music. Just you and Him talking together like a pair of old friends – not asking for anything except “Father, what would you like me to do?” For like all voices, the Voice of God is best heard in silence with focus and concentration on what the Voice is saying, taking time to understand,... not rushing,... not hurrying,... not worrying about the cares of the world. Glory is best appreciated by a slow study, not a quick glance.
You see, when Jesus walked off the mountain, Jesus left the dazzling glow behind, but He took with Him His glory. Jesus had changed on the mountain before the disciples, but it was the disciples who were changed the most, as it is when we see the glory of Christ, we are changed!
The disciples kept the glow of the mountain with them for the rest of their lives – it was now in their minds, unforgettable. And the same should be with us – carrying around the glory of the Son in our minds, as we walk with the Spirit of God in our heart, conducting our worship through our actions which are designed to bring glory to God – our praises, our humble petitions, our good deeds of loving kindness – and our tears when we find out how we have stumbled, when we have misspoken, when we have brought God down on the same level as those who worship idols.
Take the glow of the mountain with you today! Bow down before our Creator and speak with God in a two-way prayer. Worship the One worthy of worship.
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