Texts: Exodus 34:29-35 Luke 9:28-36
Ann Ferrell Lewis First Presbyterian Church February 18,2007
A Radiant Presence
"And they kept silent - and in those days told no one any of the things they had seen.'" (Luke i}:36b) The truth is this is often how people respond to profound reHglous experiences. We don't talk about them. Today, even more than in the ancient past, people are not as willing to talk about their spiritual experiences. Why is that?
Retired United Methodist preacher, Mark Trotter, acknowledges that he was i't:1lictaiit to fey-eal 'such ail. experiehci:: l1t: had maFtY yi::aFs agu Because he was affaid of what people would think. He says, "But I'm retired now. I don't give a hoot what they think. "
He says, "I was in college, working the summer in the mountains on a camp staff.
I was struggling that summer with finding a vocation. I was being pulled toward the ministry, but resisting it mightily, for reasons that were important at that point in my life. I had been thinking and praying about what I should do with my life. One night, as I sat outside looking at the stars, I saw a light in the trees across the meadow. I turned away, thinking my eyes were playing tricks on me. I looked back. It was still there. It remained there for maybe twenty seconds, then disappeared.
"it was a wondert"ul experience. it left me with a sense ot; assurance and confidence, out of which I drew courage to make the decision of what I would do with my life. It was an epiphany, I am sure of it, because of what happened subsequently in my life. But I never told anyone, because I feared they might think I was suffering from delusions."l
I understand Mark Trotter's experience because I had a very similar experience when I was struggling with vocational issues and seeking God' guidance. A bright light awakened me in the middle of the night, and filled the room and I knew it was the light of God's loving presence setting me free from my anxiety and filling me with a deep sense of peace. I've never had an experience like that again, but I've carried that kl10wledge of God's loving presence with me for the rest of my life. I have shared that experience with others from time to time, but it took nearly a year before I mentioned it to anyone. It seems so intimate, so private, so holy, that it seems to cheapen the experience to speak of it frequently.
The University of Wales at Lampeter has a research center that has been studying religious experiences of a profound divine presence since 1969. They've found that more people have these kinds of experiences than you might think - but people don't often talk
1 Mark Trotter, "Are You Seeing Things," Sermon of February 10, 2002, First United Methodist Church of San Diego, CA.
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itbt'iutlhem. Oft the website f6rihe research eehter, they iftvitepeople to te1l6thefs of their experiences. They post some of the stories on the website: One person writes: "It seemed to me that, in some way, 1 was extending into my surrounds and was becoming one with them. At the same time 1 felt a sense of lightness, exhilaration and power as if 1 was beginning to understand the true meaning of the whole Universe." Another person \wites: "1 find it difficult to describe my experience, only to say that it seems to be outside of me and enormous and yet at the same time 1 am part of it, everything is. It is purely personal and helps me to live and love others. It is difficult to describe, but in some way because of this feeling 1 feel united to all people, to all living things. Of recent years the feeling has become so strong that 1 am now training to become a social worker because 1 find that 1 must help people: in some way 1 feel their unhappiness as my own.:" A third person writes: "1 heard nothing, yet it was as if 1 were surrounded by a golden light and as if 1 only had to reach out my hand to touch God himself who was surrounding me with his compassion.,,2
Mark Trotter tells the story of a woman who was washing dishes at the kitchen sink and had a vision that we are all one. Her vision was accompanied hy an exhiiarating feeling of well being. She ran into the living room shouting to her family, "We are all one. We are all one." She kept that up for several days, until her family took her to a doctor, who listened to her story, and committed her to a mental hospital.
Thefe she kept 011 sayihg, "We aie all 011E:." She Would beE:xfuiiifiedand When asked, "How do you feel?" she would say, "1 feel wonderful. 1 have never felt better in my life. And we are all one." Each time they checked in on her she would say the same think, "1 feel wonderful, and we are all one." Finally she caught on that as long as she told the truth, she would never be released. So the next time they asked her, "How are you feeling?" she said, "I feel lousy. p..nd the world is going to hell." They said, "You're cured. You can go home now." She said later, "1 still believe we are all one. Ijust don't tell anyone.,,3
Our culture is a secular one, in which we no longer expect to see God present in our world. We have science and reason to explain things, and so sacred experiences have retreated to the private interior spaces of our lives. But epiphanies still happen, and 1 would guess that many of you, though probably not all of you, have had such experiences, but perhaps you have never told anyone.
When Peter James and John came down from the mountaintop, they did not speak to anyone about what they had seen: Jesus' appearance is temporarily altered, his face and his clothes radiating a brilliant light, not unlike the light that appeared on Moses' face when he had been in the presence of God; and strangely Moses was there, and Elijah too! Then there was the cloud and the booming voice from heaven, "This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!" It was a terrifyingly holy event for the disciples - a moment in which the boundary between heaven and earth was very thin. That is the nature of epiphanies.
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And although they did not speak of it at first to anyone, you can imagine that this experience was engraved into their memory as one of the most powerful spiritual experiences of their lives - intense holiness. They carried the image of the radiant Jesus with them in their hearts. The sound of the voice of God thundered in their ears long after. "This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!"
" 'Listen to him.' That is what they heard. That was the epiphany. It was significant because they didn't want to listen to him. They didn't like what they heard at Caesarea Philippi. At Caesarea Philippi, he said, 'I'm going to Jerusalem to a cross, and if you are my disciples, you will take up your cross and follow me. '
"They hadn't counted on that. Jerusalem was the enemy's headquarters. As long as they had been up in Galilee, miles from Jerusalem, they were safe. Not only safe, but celebrated. ,,4
doing to jerusalem meant heading into an uncertain future, knowing only that the way was likely to ask more of them than anything they had been through before, because it was the way ofthe cross. No wonder Jesus needed to get away to pray before he set out upon this journey. How intense his prayers must have been as he anticipated what lie ahead. How much Jesus in his humanness must have needed the assurance of God's presenbe to accoiitpal1Y hiih on the joli¥i1ey ahead. How pfofoillld that Moses atid Elijah joined Jesus in that moment. For Jesus was about to cross a boundary that was not unlike Moses' leading the people across the Red Sea. What God had begun with Moses, what God had continued with Elijah, God would complete with Jesus Christ. For the way of the cross is the way of our salvation.
But here on the mountaintop, Jesus and the disciples are not quite on the road to Jerusalem. Here as they prepare to cross the boundary into the unknown, this great epiphany occurs. And that is exactly where most epiphanies occur, isn't it? In the boundary places of life. When we are called to go where we do not choose to go, to be who we are afraid to be. Perhaps that is why many epiphanies take place when people approach the threshold of death, they are about to cross over the boundary from this world to the next. Often times they report seeing a brilliant light.
Weare most likely to meet God when we are at the boundary places of life. We come to those places with all of our abilities to perceive realities that perhaps take more than a reasoning mind. But when we are in the presence of God, we know it - beyond the shadow of doubt - and we stand in wonder and awe - and with certain belief.
In Dag Hammarskjold's diary he wrote: "God does not die on the day we cease to believe ... but we die on the day when our lives cease to be illumined by the steady radiance, renewed daily, of a wonder, the source of which is beyond all reason.
4 ibid.
Togaht;i· la ustr-Ust in that radian'tpresenee 6f God in our lives and prepare to journey with Christ toward the cross.
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