X Marks the Spot

"X Marks the Spot"
Matthew 17:1-9


I remember one time as a boy, when my father and I were driving into Seattle on the new floating bridge across Lake Washington.  He took an uncharacteristic diversion.  My father was a point A to point B kind of driver.  The exit he took wasn’t anywhere near where point B was, so I was a bit confused.  He asked me if I wanted to see the house where he lived as a boy, near the University of Washington.  I said, “Sure,” even though the decision had already been made.

I just remember that for some reason it was important for my father to show me this particular place out of his past.  What the reason was for this little side trip, I don’t know.  I was probably 11 or 12, and I was too caught up in my own kid thoughts to care.  I wish I had been paying more attention, so I would remember not just that my father had taken an odd side trip, but why it was important to him.  I never even thought to ask.  Now, I’ll never know.

I didn’t realize how important places could be for us, and how we have this need to share those places with another we think might understand.  Those places are all surrounded and infused with memories.  When I was living out my younger life, I didn’t understand that memories were being made.  Our memories become like an old parchment map upon which specific places are marked with an X where the treasure is buried.

One of the X’s the disciple Peter had on his treasure map of memories was this undistinguished mountain where he and two of his fellow disciples saw something extraordinary.  I’ve been there.  I’ve seen it.  We were driving down from Caesarea and Mt. Carmel, a place associated with Elijah the prophet.  We were in a tour bus passing this oversized hill.  Kind of a mini-mountain.  It was pock marked with rocks, and a scruff of low bushes on its sides that looked like a large man’s face with a three week growth of beard.  Our tour guide, Joseph, pointed it out as we were driving by, telling us over the loud speaker that it was the Mount of Transfiguration.  We didn’t get to go up there; I can’t remember why.

I remember looking at it and thinking about the story.  The first line of the story here in Matthew talks about how Jesus took three disciples, “...and led them up a very high mountain.”  I’m here to tell you, it’s not very high.  You read a line like that and you think the Rockies.  Here’s a picture of it.  It is a mountain, but not like we think of mountains.  It wouldn’t just be a small hike to get to the top of it.  No nice manicured trails with pleasant switchbacks.  It wasn’t, as I looked at it from the tour bus window, a mountain you just meander up.

It wasn’t because of its height; it was it’s terrain.  Rocky and scrub brush covered.  There was no good way to get up it.  It would have been a hard, tedious climb.  I could imagine the disciples grousing and complaining, asking Jesus repeatedly if they were really going all the way to the top.  Weren’t they far enough up for prayer time?  Were they there yet?  When Matthew tells us that Jesus led them up the mountain, it wasn’t a fun little hike.

They would have been pooped by the time they got to the top.  It would have been a great view once atop the mountain, overlooking Meggido Valley.  I’m sure the only view they were looking at was their tired feet and their aching bodies.

That’s one of the reasons I really like this odd story.  The disciples hike with Jesus is what the Christian life is really like.  It’s what life with Jesus really is.  We turn our lives over to Christ and we think the toughness is going to drain out of life.  Oh, we think to ourselves, there may be a hill to climb here and there, but the climb will be easy, and the terrain will be all good footing.  And when we get there we’ll have this wonderful prayer time with Jesus.

Yet that’s not the way it turns out, does it?  Life with Jesus doesn’t get easier.  A lot of times it gets more difficult  The harshness of life doesn’t go away or leave us alone.  The rolling hills we expected turn out to be mountains.  The way up is a hard climb with no clearly marked path to follow.  Just Jesus.  He’s the path.  We end up following a man, not a path.

By the time we get to the top, we could care less about having prayer time, or some great spiritual experience.  We’re tired and cranky and sore in body and spirit.  Any expectations for a great spiritual life with Jesus went out the window half way up the mountain.

But then something happened that changed all their sense of drudgery, achiness and grumbling.  Jesus changed.  I’m not sure what time of day it was.  But all of a sudden it was as bright as high noon.  The light wasn’t coming from the sun, though.  It was coming from Jesus.  It was coming from his clothes, his face.  Instead of complaining anymore, or thinking only about himself, Peter is gushing:  “Master, this is a great moment!  How good it is that we are here!”

Here.  In this place.  The significance wasn’t being lost on Peter, James and John.  They wanted to build three memorial stones to mark the place.  In 1992, driving by, I looked up at that mountain, thinking that some place up there, lost now to everyone else, an ordinary, rocky, scruffy place became holy and markedly unordinary.  Up there, Jesus, Peter, James, and John had a mostly indescribable experience.  Up there, somewhere amongst the stones and bushes, Peter was changed.  A place of achiness and complaining became a place of light and a place where the voice of God was clearly heard; a place where Jesus was clearly seen for who He is.  There, three unassuming, unexpectant, cranky disciples witnessed an unbelievable, unspeakable sight.  That place became a “holy here.”

Places are important not only because of the memories of what happened at those places, but also because of the people who have shared those places with us.  Places have historic significance where some events have happened that ended up creating an identity for us by God.  Then God provided the continuity of that identity across our life spans.  It has been at these particular places that important words have been spoken, tears have been shed, vows have been spoken and promises made, identity has been formed or honed, vocation has been defined, or a destiny has been brought into clearer vision.

One lady in a church I served came to me asking help for what she called her “sin of idolatry.”  She had recently lost her husband to cancer after 40 years of marriage.  She spent a couple of months of quiet and reflection with her sister in another state, letting the Lord take care of her grief.  One Sunday, after she had returned home, she came into the sanctuary a little late for worship.  She found a new young couple sitting in the place where she and her husband had sat for so many years.

She went on to explain to me, “For thirty-eight years I shared that pew with my husband.  I know it’s idolatrous, pastor, but I feel God is closer to me there than any where else.  There is nowhere else like that pew on earth.”

I would guess that maybe some of you have similar feelings associated with a place in the pew in this sanctuary.  Many people find strength and serenity when they are seated in their place.  It’s almost like God comes and sits down beside you when you have a place like that.

One of the reasons that is so, besides the place itself, is who we share the place with.  A place is important because of the others who are there.  Peter, James, and John got to be in on the amazing vision of Jesus, Moses, and Elijah together.  Remember Peter said, “Master, this is a great moment!  How good it is that WE are here!”  Here is where WE have been touched.  Here is where it is that WE, together, have a shared memory.  That is such an important point for congregations to understand.  Important places, and the experiences we have in them have a we-ness about them, where, together, as a community of believers, God makes Himself known.

In a book about ministry in smaller churches, Carl Dudley wrote, “Those congregations who care only for themselves are becoming smaller and smaller.  Eventually their place will have no meaning because they haven’t shared it with anyone else.”  One of the great ministries of any congregation is sharing and giving a place to those who have none.  The way that happens best is by sharing the great stories of what has happened to you in that place with those who don’t know those stories.  Indeed, faith may not be able to develop fully when the person has no place.  When we help people find their places we may be helping them come into contact with holy experiences of their own.

The widow I just mentioned ended up doing a beautiful thing.  The next Sunday she shared her spot in the pew with that young couple.  She told them a part of the story of how she and her husband made that a holy place.  She shared not only the pew, but part of her memories with the couple.  The young couple “took up residence” with the woman in that pew and the three of them became very close friends.  I like to think that some day, 40 years in the future, that young couple, then old, will do the same for some new young couple.

That’s why Peter looked back at this event on the bushy mountain top, where he witnessed the brilliance of Christ with his friends, and wrote in his second letter:

We weren’t, you know, just wishing upon a star when we laid the facts out before you regarding the powerful return of our Master, Jesus Christ.  We were there for the preview!  We saw it with our own eyes:  Jesus resplendent with light from God the Father as the voice of Majestic Glory spoke:  “This is my Son, marked by my love, focus of all my delight.”  We were there on the holy mountain with him!  We heard the voice out of heaven with our very own ears!  We couldn’t be more sure of what we saw and heard--God’s glory, God’s voice.  The prophetic word was confirmed to us.  You’ll do well to keep focusing on it.  It’s the one light you have in a dark time as you wait for daybreak and the rising of the Morning Star in your hearts.  (2 Peter 1:16-20, EHP)

Here Peter recounts that memorable place and event for those who may not have known about it.  He’s had a few years to think about what happened in that place, and everything it meant not just for him but for the whole church.

It was clearly a pivotal event for Peter in his own faith development.  When Peter was writing this letter, the church was under fire.  Christians were leaving the church, afraid of torturous persecution.  It was an extremely hard time to be a Christian.  So Peter shares this memory of an amazing day, on an ordinary mountain with a life changing Savior who would come again in that same blinding light, making everything right.  Peter’s memorable experience helped Christians and the church hold on in desperate times.

Thanks be to God, who in everyday places, at ordinary times, when we least expect it, meets us, transforming those places, and us, with His brilliant presence.