February 22, 2004
By Jack Price

What's it like when God meets us?  What happens?  What does it mean?  How do we know it's God?  Christians have ask these questions for 2,000 years, conflicted about experiences of God.  Which are authentic:  ecstatic experiences or those more still and quiet?

God "met" many people, we are told, in the Old Testament.  We read about Moses with his face shining brightly after meeting God.  God encountered Moses first in the story of the burning bush as Moses, an exile from Egypt, was on the run from life.  God encountered Elijah, the prophet, when, after defeating the prophets of Baal at Mt. Carmel, he was on the run from Queen Jezebel's revenge.  Hiding in cave, he watched for God's presence in the wind and the storm until he finally sensed it like a still, small voice.  One thing is sure, when God met Moses and Elijah, the direction of their lives was irrevocably changed.

A story in the gospels can help us understand what happens when God meets us.  Jesus and three of his disciples had an experience of God's presence that we call the Transfiguration.  (Luke 9: 28-36).  What happened at the transfiguration?  It was a mountaintop experience.

Jesus went up the mountain to pray and had amazing experience.  In the world view of the Bible, mountains were the closest places on earth to heaven.  They were like the "thin places" in Celtic spirituality.  Jesus went to pray, his usual way to meet God.  In his prayer, the gospels report, his face began to shine.  Then both Moses and Elijah appear in glory.  The three disciples (Peter, James, and John) were also there, in a manner of speaking.  As they would at Gethsemane, the three were fighting sleep.  On this occasion, they manage to stay awake enough to have a "vision" of their own.

Jesus' face shone and his clothing became a dazzling white.  Moses and Elijah appear and then a cloud appears.  Finally, the disciples hear THE VOICE and the vision is over.

What really happened?  It is hard to know exactly.  Clearly heaven and earth were touching as the eternal and the mortal came together.  This was a profound experience for Jesus.  The testimony of 2^nd Peter 1:18 seems to speak to disciples' experience:  "We ourselves heard this voice come from heaven,  while we were with him on the holy mountain."  The Word of God in the Torah and spoken through the prophets, the Logos, is now embodied in Jesus.  The essential truth about his life is given to three disciples:  "This is my Son, the Beloved, hear him."

The story of Jesus' transfiguration is told in Matthew, Mark, and Luke.  In all three gospels, it is place immediately following Jesus' teaching about the power of the cross and the need of his followers to deny themselves take up their cross, and follow.  It is placed just before Jesus goes to Jerusalem to encounter his passion and death.  Ched Myers interprets the transfiguration, in his commentary on Mark's gospel (Binding the Strong Man), "The cross now stands with the 'Law and the prophets'."  Jesus has exchanged his clothing for the white robe of a martyr, as in Revelation.  The meaning of the transfiguration is found in Jesus' death and in his teaching about the way of the cross.  The Roman cross symbolized fear:  the fear of pain, of suffering, and of death.  It was a symbol of humiliation, reserved only for the lowest of outcasts and outlaws.  Roman Citizens were exempt from crucifixion.  Simply put, the cross is everything you'd want to avoid.  Mel Gibson's new movie, The Passion of the Christ, opens this week.  It appears to offer an honest, graphic, and brutal portrayal of the physical suffering of crucifixion. 

Physical shame and suffering were only a portion of the horror of crucifixion.  The victim's body was seldom buried, merely left to the processes of nature.  For the victim, in the understanding of that culture, there was, therefore, no eternal peace.  Yet, Jesus fully embraced the cross, willingly facing its weight.  He did not do so to save his followers from that same fate.  Ironically, many of them died at the hands of the Romans, some by crucifixion.  Jesus embraced the crossed to show them, to show us, the way to saving life. 

The transfiguration was, for Jesus, an experience of clarity.  He left the holy mountain and went to Jerusalem, clear about purpose and his mission.  In the wilderness temptations, at the beginning of his earthly ministry, Satan had tempted Jesus to accomplish his mission and avoid all the unpleasantness.  He could have it all!  Jesus refused.  Now Jesus embraces mission as it points to the cross.  He reaches out to embrace the new quality of life found only on that pathway.

What does the transfiguration story mean for us?  It was a time of renewal and clarity for Jesus, but what does the story mean for us?  My few "mountaintop" experiences have not been so dramatic.  In and through them, I have felt a renewed clarity of purpose and sense of the divine presence.  After my mother's death, I felt a clear sense of call to be a pastor.  After the hotel fire in Bogota, Colombia, while adopting our daughter, I had a clear sense of community and of comfort.  In the decision to come to Kansas City, to be your pastor, there was a clear sense of the Spirit's working with me and with you.

Many of you have experienced the mystical presence.  Those experiences have occurred in many different ways, including through the power of worship, the miracle of healing, the experience of conversion, and in the mystical presence in the high of starting a new church here at Crossroads.

What do these encounters with God mean for us?  We have many encounters with God during our lives.  Prayer is always such an encounter.  There may only be a single "mountaintop" experience for you, or maybe none at all.  There is a profound difference between an emotional high and a spiritual experience.  Emotional highs are exciting and stimulating.  Emotions and the  Spirit can come together powerfully, especially in times of crisis or when we stand at life's crossroads.  A spiritual experience is a time of life clarity.  A spiritual experience is not so much a time of decision as a time of vision.  In it, we can see "the promised land," though we may spend a lifetime "unpacking" such an experience.

The gospel writers agree on this:  don't set up a tent at the sight of your mystical experiences.  They happen and we move on.  They can serve as touchstone, but they are not where we live our lives.  C. S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia provides a helpful illustration of this insight.  At the conclusion of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, the  children discovered that some of them might one day return to Narnia.  If they did, however, they would not enter through the wardrobe again.  Narnia is never entered the same way twice.  Our experiences of the numinous mystical presence are seldom repeated, not in same way.

Next week begins the third Lenten season for me with you  at Crossroads Church.  The reality for this congregation is that many of you have experienced God's presence in clear and powerful ways through the ministry of Broadway Baptist Church, our parent congregation.  Many of you are still trying to unpack some of those experiences, a process that is complicated by feelings of betrayal that led to the split five years ago.  Jesus' transfiguration teaches that the path of the cross is to respond, but not out of anger or by cutting off from those experiences.  Whatever drew you to Broadway, whatever was of the Spirit then, is still of the Spirit.  Whatever was clarified in you is still clarified.  Likewise, whatever drew you to Crossroads in the beginning, whatever was of the Spirit then, is still of the Spirit.

Five years are completed here and a sixth year begun.  What will the future hold?  What is the way of the cross for this body?  In my time as your pastor, a vision of a mission for this congregation has become clear.  There are three distinctives:  inclusion, non-violence, and equal opportunity.  Crossroads mission is to practice and advocate inclusion, non-violence, and equal opportunity with their many implications, for our society, in the political arena, economically, professionally (our jobs), and personally (how we live and treat others).

Last week, Bishop John Shelby Spong spoke here in Kansas City.  One of the many memorable things he said was that the two fastest growing segments of Christianity today are:  the "run to the right" (fundamentalism) and the "Church Alumni Association" (people leaving church).  The rise of fundamentalism around the world comes from a felt need for security and simplistic answers the big questions of life.  We have, toward these sisters and brothers in faith, a mission of love and accountability.  They are Christians, yet many of their words and actions are out of keeping with Jesus' words and actions.  The Kingdom of God does not come in the context of violent judgment.  The way of the cross is not that of a vindictive and judgmental God taking our punishment out on Jesus.  Jesus willingly walks straight to the cross, "despising its shame," agony, and death to show us way to life.  Like the three disciples on that holy mountain, let us "listen to the Beloved."  Let us join him by embracing our fears, by confessing our demons, and by relinquishing control to the Spirit of Life.  Our mission is to reach out with love to those who have run to the right, even as they reject us.

The other fast growing segment in Christianity is the Church Alumni Association, those who have given up on church.  We have a mission to reach out to them with the good news that God is a great God of love, far greater than all our interpretations and religious systems.  God encounters them where they are.

Bishop Spong spoke about experiencing the numinous in ways that are no less mystical because they seem so ordinary.  We experience God by learning to perceive God's "footprints" and God's tracings in life.  We experience this presence by observing the wonders of creation and by being aware of life's bias toward wholeness and healing.  We experience the numinous as we affirm that life moves us to transcend ourselves, to envision a self better than we are and strive to make it so. 

God meets as in still a more personal way.  We encounter God within ourselves.  The Hebrew word for wind (ruach) and for breath (nephish) are both powerful images of God.  They remind us God is not an alien being, innately present, and closer than our breath; in our life's breath itself. 

Finally, God meets us as we experience the mystical presence in our experience of love:  in loving and being in love.  True love gets us out of ourselves.  Jesus is our model.  The writer of the epistle 1 John states this profound truth (1John 4: 7-8):  "Love is of God and everyone who loves is born of God . for God is love."  Love is a powerful image for God.  Our experience of giving and receiving love is an experience of the numinous, the mystical and holy.

The story of the transfiguration points us to the way of the cross.  It is a way that has to be lived by embracing what we fear, by loving what and who we hate, and by releasing control.  This means trusting God with the stewardship of our living, our giving, and our loving.

In the sacred drama of worship, both corporate and private, we practice holding ourselves open to the mystical presence.  We gradually learn to "see."  We slowly learn to follow the footsteps and trace the markings of the Spirit in our lives.  We gradually recognize that we encounter mystical presence within ourselves.  And, we leave the holy mountain to face the way of our cross.