Fiber Optic Communication

Fiber Optic Communication
2 Peter 1:16-21; Exodus 24:12-18; Matthew 17:1-9

When you ask a person why they climb a mountain, often the answer will be. “Because it is there.” A follow-up question might be, “What did you see when you got to the top?” “More mountains.”

That might be the biblical answer. Think about who many mountains are mentioned in the Bible. There is Mt. Ararat, where the ark bearing Noah, his family and all of life came to rest following the great flood. There is mountain in the land of Moriah where God provided a ram caught in a thicket to be the sacrifice, not Isaac. Then there is Sinai where Moses encountered God first in a burning bush and later, to the amazement of the Israelites, in the cloud and lightning. Of course, there is Mt. Carmel where God through Elijah bested the prophets of Baal, an event which caused a scared Elijah to flee to another mountain only to find God in the sound of silence telling him not worry and to get back to work.

We have spent the last four weeks on another mountain, working our way through the first third of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus’ opening declaration of what God’s rule was all about. Now we find ourselves on another mountain with Jesus, a mountain where he is transfigured before the eyes of three of his disciples. From this mountain we can theologically see the Mount of Olives from which he initiated his final visit to Jerusalem, often referred to as Mt. Zion. And if we look off into the distance, we can see Mt. Calvary where Jesus will be crucified, and beyond that an unidentified mountain where the risen Jesus blessed his disciples, commissioned them for ministry, and took his physical leave from them.

No wonder the psalmist says that he raises his eyes to the mountains, the likely source of God’s help. It is not that God doesn’t act everywhere – God does – but God seems to do some of God’s most memorable work on mountains.

One of the metaphorical mountains of show business – the movie business in particular – is tonight’s annual presentation of the Academy Awards, the Oscars. There are perennial nominees, some of whom have won multiple times and others who have never won. There are some new nominees who will go on to be favorites, and there are some who may have one great film and will become lost in obscurity. It is a mountaintop experience for everyone. Who wouldn’t like some red carpet to strut down? We know that Jesus never got a red carpet. He did get palm branches and cloaks.

At the Oscar ceremony, we never know what will happen, who will win, and how they will respond. Many will babble on trying to thank everyone from Adam onward. Others will acquit  themselves smartly with few words. One actor many years ago reportedly strode to the microphone, said, “Thank you,” and walked off the stage. After the show is over, few will remember what was said; even Ellen Degeneres’ jokes won’t last long. And the whole mountain will disappear into the clouds of memory until it rises Brigadoon-like a year from now.

Jesus’ words are not so short-lived. That’s one thrust that the author of the Second Peter letter wished to give the readers. The number of years was growing from the time of Jesus’ transfiguration to the writer’s time. The first-hand memory of the event was getting worn with age. More or less was remembered. The accuracy of memory wasn’t as sharp as it once was. And for those who only knew the event second-, third-, or fourth-hand, the impact of the mountaintop experience was growing less.

Christians were beginning to wonder if the risen Jesus on whom they had pinned all their hope really was special. Perhaps he wasn’t who everyone said he was after all. Perhaps his fifteen minutes of limelight had run its course. Perhaps his light was fading. People had banked their lives on the message which people like Peter, James, John, Paul and others had passionately and courageously spoken. Had the gospel had its day? The blessings didn’t seem to be there. The persecution was mounting. That was a strange way of confirming the hope of peace and life. The people were feeling anything but blessed.

Blessing has nothing to do with choosing God. Jesus didn’t choose God. God chose him: “This is my Son whom I dearly love. I am very pleased with him.” God chose the believers to whom the Peter letter was written. God chose us. Our blessing is being chosen by God, not how many cars are in the garage or shoes in the closet or books on the shelf. The blessed life is not a “cosmic lottery where every sincere prayer buys another scratch-off ticket.”(1)

The view from the mountain of the transfiguration didn’t face heavenly bliss. It faced a world laced with oppression, a world filled with indignities done by human beings to human beings, a dynamic world where rocks quakes, wind blows, fires rage, floods sweep, and pestilence spreads. Life is weird as well as wonderful. Life is stupid as well as smart. Living can be two-faced. A pundit has quipped that if a politician knew there were cannibals in the audience, he would promise a missionary in every pot.

The world is filled with wannabe messiahs and over-achieving purveyors of religious pablum of all kinds. Jesus pulls no punches about the world. He does not hide his head in the sand. When the mother of James and John sought the seats of honor in the kingdom for them, he asked with irony if they are able to drink the cup that he was about to drink. In ignorance, delusion, and naivete they quickly said they could. To which Jesus replied that they would indeed get to drink that cup.

Going back to the Oscar image, the mountaintop experience of Jesus is not like getting the award for best supporting actor. It is more akin to the lifetime achievement award. After all, Jesus didn’t give it to himself. Some starlet or hunk didn’t mangle his name into the microphone. This recognition was given by God – the biggest actor, director, producer, script writer, lyricist, casting director, set-designer, cinematographer, film editor, etc., etc., etc.

And if it were a lifetime achievement award, it would be based on a body of work. Look who Jesus was standing with: Moses and Elijah. These were the heart of the Hebrew scripture. The scene is set in such a way as to subtly say that their work was really Christ’s work in disguise. “This is my Son whom I dearly love. I am very pleased with him,” is a recognition that Christ’s divinity and his emerging kingdom has been an ongoing work since the beginning of time.

For Peter the implications are clear. If the transfiguration really took place, which Peter as an eyewitness is staking his life on, then despite persecution, despite false teachers, and despite a kingdom that’s seen only in part but still longed for in full, this Christ is worth hitching our hope to. He cannot fail us. Likewise, his truth — both captured in what would be known as the Old Testament, and proclaimed among his first-century hearers in what would become the New Testament — is absolutely trustworthy. After all, when someone rises from the dead, you believe what he tells you. You trust him. And when the most respected religious figures in history come back from the dead to say the same the thing, you really, really trust Jesus and what he has to say.

But Peter goes even further. He refers to this truth of Christ, this “prophetic word,” as more than a revelation in the past that we can trust today. He speaks of it in the present tense, as an active reality in our lives: a lamp currently, actively “shining in a dark place.” We tend to think of light being a beam or emanating glow from a source. What makes are telecommunication so cheap today is fiber optics. Signals are transmitted along wires translucent material. One of the great attributes of fiber optics is that light will travel along the transmitting fiber and go around corners and into places that a beam of light can’t reach. More than that, a single strand of fiber optic material can transmit hundreds, if not thousands, of signals, all at different wavelengths of light.

We, like Peter, are at the end of one of those optical fibers and the prophetic, gospel word of Jesus is reaching us across the centuries and seas, across geography and language. Jesus needs no Oscar acceptance speech. All we need is the light-communicated word, “Listen to him!” That message is still meaningful. Sure, he's long since left the mountain, but, like a good movie that never, ever gets old, his words are still echoing, still reaching, still relevant and still cutting a streak of light into our world of darkness.(2)

May it indeed be so. Amen.

(1) Scott Dannemiller, “The One Thing Christians Should Stop Saying,” The Huffington Post, Posted: 02/27/2014 3:43 pm EST;  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/scott-dannemiller/christians-should-stop-saying_b_4868963.html
(2) General source: Homiletics, March 2014, pp. 8-10.

Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com 
Copyright 2014 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.