It was to be his first trip back to China. He was born in China to missionary parents in the 1930s. When his parents had to flee China and return to the States because of the Second World War, however, Tom Stone came with them. And he had never been back; never seen the land of his birth -- until his journey in the 1990s. As the plane landed in Beijing his heart began to pound. What would it be like? Would he remember anything? What would he discover about himself in this land of his birth?

Tom Stone took in China like a breath of fresh air. He loved so very much of what it was. The Great Wall. China's bustling cities. The gentle people. The vast landscape. Wonderful! Breathtaking! Exciting! How good it was to be home again. He found China much to his liking except for one thing -- one thing that he had not expected to find. He thought the great Chairman Mao Tse-tung was dead and gone. Not so. It seemed like he ran into the image of the Chairman at every turn.

Tom knew that Chairman Mao had written The Little Red Book as a kind of "bible" of his thoughts. Tom assumed that The Little Red Book was a thing of the past, tucked away with memories of the Chairman. But it was not so. The Little Red Book was for sale everywhere. The Chairman's "bible" functioned like the "bible" for many Chinese people.

If it wasn't The Little Red Book that reminded Tom Stone of the Chairman there were plenty of other reminders. Aluminum buttons with Mao's picture on it were abundantly evident. He saw them everywhere on people's clothing. People wore them proudly as a way to venerate their great ancestor. "Was this just nostalgia?" Tom wondered, "or are these people looking to Mao as a kind of god?"

Once he had become aware of the presence of Mao, Tom Stone found him everywhere. Posters and portraits of the Chairman were omnipresent. "Why do you hang his picture like that?" Tom asked one day. "Mao's picture helps to ward off evil spirits," he was told. Elsewhere Tom saw a woman trudging up the streets caressing a tiny bronze statue of Mao. "Mao made us proud of China," the woman said to Tom. "Our leaders now dishonor his name."

Tom Stone had discovered that for millions and millions of Chinese citizens Mao Tse-tung still lives and is believed to exercise supernatural powers on behalf of his people. Perhaps the greatest sign of all this was the way in which Mao had become the "St. Christopher" of China. Nearly every taxi he entered and every truck that he saw carrying goods for the life blood of modern day China, prominently displayed a portrait of Chairman Mao. His face dangled from rear view mirrors or was plastered on the dash board of their vehicles. Mao Tse-tung was, indeed, respected and venerated as a godlike man.

Tom Stone had read much on China. He had read much on Mao Tse-tung. He knew that Chairman Mao sought to portray himself to his people as one larger than life. Mao was a man who was sorely tempted to reach for the stars. He was a mortal who reached for immortality. He was a man who would be god. Millions of Chinese people today firmly believe that Mao was, indeed, a man who would be god."

His given name was Leslie Leonard but everyone just called him "Pete." Pete was the son of very devout parents. They saw to it that the seeds of faith were planted in him. They were there to nourish the seeds along. Once he got out on his own in life, however, it appeared that the seeds of faith had not taken very deep root in Pete's soul. He sowed wild oats instead. He appeared to have left behind him the faith of his parents.

Early on life went well for Pete. He married, had a son, was involved with a number of businesses. He had some successes in his life. What was most successful about him was his personality. Pete was a charmer. He had a ready smile for all whom he encountered. People who were swept into his life's orbit couldn't help but like him. He was just that kind of guy.

As the years passed by things were not easy for Pete. His marriage failed him. His only son failed him as well. And then the greatest tragedy of all occurred. His health failed him. In his early 40s he was stricken with multiple sclerosis. He was totally blind and paralyzed from the neck down. Eventually he got back the use of his upper body though his eyes and his legs never recovered. After some years one of his legs had to be amputated. Suffering covered Pete's life like a blanket.

Blind and crippled Pete had every earthly reason to be bitter over his state in life. He had every earthly reason to complain. He had every earthly reason to hate life and God. But he didn't. Miraculously, as his suffering increased, his faith increased as well. He hinted at times that there in his hospital bed, in the first days of his MS, God had been revealed to him in a special way. Whatever the reason, Pete was a new man. The faith planted by his parents blossomed at last!

People often went to visit Pete. After a visit to him a man said of his experience, "I went to cheer him up and it was he who cheered me up. It's always like that with him."

His pastor spoke similar words about Pete. "I don't go to call on Pete in order to minister to him," they would often say. "I go to call on Pete when I need someone to talk to; when I need someone to minister to me. I take my problems to him. In his blindness he sees more than just about anyone I know."

As long as he was able, Pete was in church every Sunday. There was a space reserved for him in the last row where his wheelchair would easily fit. Through the cajoling of his pastors Pete also served many terms on the church council. He was one of the leaders of his congregation. His common sense and his faith tested-by-fire helped him to pierce to the core of many of the issues that faced the congregation. He was blind but he could see things that most people could never see. He was immobile of body but mobile of mind and thought.

When Pete died the whole congregation mourned. On a bitter winter day the church was full for his funeral. The pastor put into words that day what most of them had thought. "We saw in him the glory of God," the pastor said, "the glory of God shining through the depths of human suffering. Thanks be to God."

In Luke's account, Jesus prayed but the disciples slept. They had fallen asleep. With their heads in the clouds, they drifted off into an unconscious state. Remember the story of Rip Van Winkle? He fell asleep one day in a quiet spot on the banks of the Hudson River and he didn't wake up for twenty years. When he went to sleep, the sign above his favorite tavern read: "King George III, King of England." He was a subject of the British crown. When he woke up, King George was replaced by George Washington and he was an American citizen. The tragic part was that he slept through a revolution. While he snored, oblivious to his surroundings, fantastic, earth-shaking events had taken place.

This is what happened to the disciples. They were oblivious to all that was taking place. Don't be too critical of the disciples at this point. Many times we have our heads in the clouds, enclosed in our own little world and losing sight of the larger world, and sleep through great events. How many times are we preoccupied with our own self-importance? We become the prisoners of our own little world of trivialities.

Bishop Arthur Moore loved to tell the story of a man who had been away from his home church for some years, involved in all kinds of shady practices and criminal activities. But when he came back to his home church and testimony-time came, he was ready.

He stood and said, “I’m so glad to be back in my own church, and I want to tell you that while it’s true that I have beaten my wife, that I have deserted my children, that I have stolen and lied and done all manner of evil and served several terms in jail—but I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that not once, in all that time, did I ever lose my religion!”

Now, if your religion is nothing more than an insurance policy for heaven, if it has no effect on how you live and how you treat others now, then first of all, you are missing out on life. And second, you’d better check your motivation. Christianity is good religion because it works in day-to-day life.

Ever since Alex Haley’s novel, Roots, hit the bookstands in the mid-70s, there has been an increasing number of people interested in their heritage. Many people buy computers and get on the internet primarily to keep track of their family tree.

Parish secretaries are often called upon to do research for people investigating their family heritage. It is clear that many persons have been motivated to search through history in an attempt to find their roots. As one newspaper columnist wrote, "The once fabled rootless Americans are realizing that the people who formed the foundations of their heritage are important. And more than that, they are enjoying their quest, for there is satisfaction and security in finding one’s roots."

Finding our roots, unveiling the people of our past, is a process that helps us discover who we are by looking at where we came from. But it’s only the beginning. Even more telling is the question of where we have set our roots for daily life. What motivates our day-to-day existence? Or I could put the question to you in this way, "What’s the biggest thing in your life?" What’s most important to you?

Some might answer, "My home and family, everything revolves around them." Or someone else, "My country, first, last and always." Some might even say, "My work, my work means everything to me; without that, I’d be lost." Others might answer, "My youth. The important thing in my life right now is the fact that I’m young." Many would simply reply, "Health and happiness." Don’t we say, "If you’ve got your health, you’ve got just about everything?" And we all want to be happy.

These are certainly important facts of life, the foliage which enhances our daily living. Then we must ask, "What if these things go?" What happens when your home, your family is crushed by news of a fatal illness or shattered by the death of a loved one? What if you lose your job? Or if your income no longer pays the bills? What if you wake up one day and realize that you’re not just getting older but that you’re getting old!" For our youth goes, too. The springtime of life so quickly turns to autumn, and then to winter.

In a society that idolizes youth, it’s tough to accept the fact that our youth is literally wasting away.

Health and happiness? There may be some people in church this morning whose health is gone; it may never come back. Perhaps some of you are worshiping today because you are looking for healing, or your burden is too heavy to bear alone so you have come looking for a word of encouragement. For others, an increasing number of problems have cast a pall over your life, and you wish that someone would listen to you and try to understand. You are not very happy and you’re not so sure you ever will be again. Life is so uncertain.

In his book, Man’s Search for Meaning, Dr. Victor Frankl, a Jewish psychiatrist, tells how he survived three unimaginably grim years in Nazi concentration camps. His wife, his brother, his mother and father, all were killed in similar camps. He, himself, was stripped of all his possessions, all his clothing, his watch, his rings, even his glasses. Then they shaved all the hair off his body and he was utterly naked. Now, you see, the question he had to face was, "Does my life have meaning now?" Family gone; all possessions gone; position in the community, gone; all dignity, gone; possession only what he called, "My ridiculously naked life." Now does my being have roots? Is there any reason to continue living?

In the book, Unconditional Love, Father John Powell tells of a young man, Tommy, a student in his class, The Theology of Faith. Tommy turns out to be the “atheist in residence” in the course. He constantly objected to, smirked at, or whined about the possibility of an unconditionally loving Father-God.

At the end of the course he asked in a slightly cynical tone: “Do you think I’ll ever find God?” Powell decided on a little shock therapy. “No!” he said. “Oh,” Tommy responded, “I thought that was the product you were pushing.” I let him get five steps from the door and then called out: “Tommy! I don’t think you’ll ever find him but I’m absolutely certain he will find you!” He shrugged a little and left my class and my life.

Later, I heard a report that Tom had graduated, and I was duly grateful. Then a sad report, Tommy had a terminal illness. Before I could search him out, he came to see me.

“Tommy, I’ve thought about you so often. I hear you are sick.”

“O yes, very sick."

“Can you talk about it?”

“Sure. What would you like to know?”

“What’s it like to be only 24 and dying?”

“Well, it could be worse.”

“Like what?”

“Well, like being 50 and having no values or ideals, like being 50 and thinking that booze, and making money are the real ‘biggies’ in life.”

“But what I really came to see you about,” Tom said, “is something you said to me on the last day of class. I asked you if you thought I would ever find God and you said, ‘No!’ which surprised me. Then you said, ‘But he will find you.’ I thought about that a lot, even though my search for God was not at all intense… at that time.

“One day I woke up, and decided to spend what time I had doing something more profitable. I thought about you and your class, and remembered something else you said: ‘The essential sadness is to go through life without living. But it would be almost equally sad to go through life and leave this world without ever telling those you loved that you had loved them.’ So I began with the hardest one, my dad.

“He was reading the newspaper when I approached him. ‘Dad?’ ‘Yes, what?’ he asked without lowering the newspaper. ‘Dad, I would like to talk with you.’ ‘Well, talk.’ ‘I mean, it’s really important.’ The newspaper came down three slow inches. ‘What is it?’ ‘Dad, I love you. I just wanted you to know that.’

The newspaper fluttered to the floor. Then my father did two things I could not remember him ever doing before. He cried, and he hugged me. It felt so good to be close to my father, to see his tears, to feel his hug, to hear him say that he loved me.

“It was easier with my mother and little brother. We shared things we had been keeping secret for so many years.

“Then one day I turned around, and God was there. Apparently, God does things in his own way and at his own hour.

“But the important thing is that he was there. He found me. You were right. He found me even after I stopped looking for him.”

Tommy learned a universal truth. The surest way to find God is not to make him a private possession or a problem-solver. The surest way is to listen, to open ourselves up to his love and he will find us.”

Fred Craddock tells a wonderful story about a young minister, newly graduated from seminary, serving his very first church. He gets a call telling him that a church member, elderly woman who has given her life in service to the church, is in the hospital. She's so weak she can't even get up out of bed, and the doctors don't hold much hope for her recovery. Would he go up and visit? Well, of course he will and he does.

All the way to the hospital he's thinking about what he will say to this Christian lady, what words of comfort he can give her to prepare her for her eminent death. He arrives at the hospital, goes up to her room for the visit. He sits and talks with her a few minutes, just small talk really, nothing earth shattering. When he makes ready to leave, he asks if she would like him to have prayer with her. She answers, "Yes, of course. That's why I wanted you to come."

He then asks politely, "And what exactly would you like me to pray for?"

"Why, I want you to pray that God will heal me," she answers in a surprised tone of voice.

Haltingly, fumbling over the words, he prays just as she wanted, that God will heal her, even though he's not really sure that can happen. When he says the "Amen" at the end of the prayer, the woman says, "You know, I think it worked! I think I'm healed!" And she gets out of the bed and begins to run up and down the hallway of the hospital, shouting, "Praise God! I'm healed! Praise God! I'm healed!"

Meanwhile, the young minister, in a stupor, stumbles to the stairwell, walks down five flights of stairs, makes his way to the parking lot and somehow manages to find his car. As he fumbles to get his keys out of his pocket, he looks heavenward and says, "Don't you ever do that to me again!" He had a mountaintop moment, but he didn't know what to do with it!

This preacher moved to a new Church. This particular church didn't have a lawn mower so he was looking for someone to either mow the lawn or sell him a used lawnmower. One day he saw a young man going by pushing a lawnmower. So the preacher asked him, "Hey, looking for a job?" The young man said, "Sure." It turned out that he was mowing yards and trying to earn enough money to buy a bicycle. This preacher was kind of young and didn't mind mowing the yard so he told the young man, "Look, I've got a 10 speed bicycle that I never ride any more. What do you say we trade the bicycle for the lawnmower."

Well, the young man was ecstatic. They swapped and the young man took off on the bicycle. He rode around the block and came back to see the preacher standing in the same place wiping sweat off his brow. The preacher waved the boy over and said, "Hey, I've pulled on the rope a half a dozen times and this lawn mower just won't start."

The young man said, "Preacher, I hate to tell you this but it's a special kind of lawnmower. You have to cuss it to get it to start."

The preacher looked at him and said, "Well, I've been in the ministry so long I don't think I can remember how to cuss."

The young man grinned and said, "Pull on the rope some more and it'll come back to you."

The point is this, we ought not stay on the mountain top so long that we forget what it is like to be in the crowd. Like Peter, we shouldn't forget that our work is in the crowds.

God never meant us to live on the mountaintop. We don't often read the Transfiguration and include the story immediately after it, but we should. Because the next story is the key to the transfiguration story. The disciples and Jesus came off the mountain, and they came right down to the bottom of the valley. They came off the mountain and they came down into the valley and they found a boy who was having epileptic seizures. The mother and father were enormously upset and worried about the desperately sick boy, and the little boy fell into a fire and burned himself. In other words, the disciples came down off that mountaintop right into the problems of real life. Home from a mountaintop vacation and into the real world at home. And the disciples discovered that God is also down in the valley and does not live only or even primarily on the mountaintop.

I like the quotation by Henry Drummond, the Scottish theologian when he said, "God does not make the mountains in order to be inhabited. God does not make the mountaintops for us to live on the mountaintops. It is not God's desire that we live on the mountaintops. We only ascend to the heights to catch a broader vision of the earthly surroundings below. But we don't live there. We don't tarry there. The streams begin in the uplands, but these streams descend quickly to gladden the valleys below." The streams start in the mountaintops, but they come down to gladden the valleys below.

You and I experience the valleys of life. You and I both know what happens the next day coming down from the mountain. It is the real world and the real life. After Sundays of life, there are always Mondays. You know, the tough ones of life. God is with us there.

The glory of God comes to us when we are most "fully awake." A list of the half-dozen or more true geniuses of human history would surely include the name of Blaise Pascal the seventeenth-century French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist. In his brief 39 years, he made scientific discoveries which are basic to a great amount of our most significant contemporary knowledge.

But with all his ability in logic and all his commitment to tough-minded scholarship, Pascal found his greatest personal assurance, not in science but in faith. On the evening of Monday, November 23, 1654, he felt the reality of Jesus Christ in such an intense way that it changed him. So that he would never forget that moment and forget his Lord he he wrote his feelings down on parchment and sewed it into the lining of his coat, which he wore for the rest of his life. Here is some of what he wrote:

God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob.
Not of the Philosophers and Scientists.
Certainty, Certainty, Feeling Joy, Peace.
God of Jesus Christ
May I not forget your words. Amen.

The words were found by his servant after his death nearly eight years later. For Pascal the greatest reality was not what he discovered in laboratory experiments, but what he found in his communion with God. It was at such a time that he was "fully awake."

Note: Here is the full writing as it appears on the parchment in his jacket:

Memorial

The year of grace 1654,

Monday, 23 November, feast of St. Clement, pope and martyr,
and others in the martyrology.
Vigil of St. Chrysogonus, martyr, and others.
From about half past ten at night until about half past midnight,

FIRE.

GOD of Abraham, GOD of Isaac, GOD of Jacob
not of the philosophers and of the learned.
Certitude. Certitude. Feeling. Joy. Peace.
GOD of Jesus Christ.
My God and your God.
Your GOD will be my God.
Forgetfulness of the world and of everything, except GOD.
He is only found by the ways taught in the Gospel.
Grandeur of the human soul.
Righteous Father, the world has not known you, but I have known you.
Joy, joy, joy, tears of joy.
I have departed from him:
They have forsaken me, the fount of living water.
My God, will you leave me?
Let me not be separated from him forever.
This is eternal life, that they know you, the one true God,
and the one that you sent, Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ.
I left him; I fled him, renounced, crucified.
Let me never be separated from him.
He is only kept securely by the ways taught in the Gospel:
Renunciation, total and sweet.
Complete submission to Jesus Christ and to my director.
Eternally in joy for a day’s exercise on the earth.
May I not forget your words. Amen.

Some years ago, Harry Emerson Fosdick received a letter from a young mother in which she told what happened when she moved into a new subdivision: We tried everything we could think of to make this place something other than a real-estate development. We tried organized recreation, community picnics, and square dancing. We formed a women's club and held bridge parties, and started a garden club. We had a parents' organization and evening discussion groups. We tried everything. But it was not until the church came that we changed from a subdivision into a community and became real neighbors to one another (Dear Mr. Brown, 1961 , p. 150).

Good religion works now—in practical daily living. It gives us a sense of personal partnership with God. Good religion keeps on growing, and it works now.

There is a story told about Napoleon during the invasion of Russia. He somehow got separated from his men and was spotted by his enemies, the Russian Cossacks. They chased him through the winding streets. Running for his life Napoleon eventually ducked into a furrier’s shop. Gasping for air and talking at the same time he begged the shopkeeper to save him. The furrier said, "Quick hide under this big pile of furs in the corner." Then the furrier made the pile even large by throwing more furs atop of Napoleon.

No sooner had he finished when the Russian Cossacks burst into the shop. "Where is he?" they demanded to know. The furrier denied knowing what they were talking about. Despite his protests the Russian Cossacks tore the shop apart trying to find Napoleon. They poked into the pile of furs with their swords but did not find him. The eventually gave up and left the shop.

After some time had past, Napoleon crept out from under the furs, unharmed. Shortly after Napoleon’s personal guards came into the store. Before Napoleon left, the furrier asked, "Excuse me for asking this question of such a great man, but what was it like to be under the furs, knowing that the next moment could surely be your last?

Napoleon became indignant. "How dare you ask such a question of the Emperor Napoleon?" Immediately he ordered his guards to blindfold the furrier and execute him.

The furrier was dragged out of the shop, blindfolded and placed against the wall of the shop. The furrier could see nothing but he could hear the guards shuffling into a line and preparing their rifles. Then he heard Napoleon call out, "Ready!" In that moment a feeling the shopkeeper could not describe welled up with him. Tears poured down his cheeks. "Aim!"

Suddenly the blindfold was stripped from his eyes. Napoleon stood before him. They were face to face and Napoleon said, "Now you know the answer to your question."

The lesson here is obvious: How can you describe a near death experience? You can’t. It has to be experienced. Jesus’ transfiguration fall in the same category of events which cannot be described. I think that is why Luke says that they kept it to themselves and told no one what they had seen. How do you describe it? It had to be experienced. (Adapted from a story by Rev. Richard Hayes Weyer)

A little boy was out in his backyard, throwing a ball up in the air. An elderly passerby, not accustomed to such youthful delights, asked the boy what he was doing. He replied, “I am playing a game of catch with God. I throw the ball up in the air and he throws it back.”

I am in no position to comment on God’s ability to play ball, but I do know that whatever goes up must come down. There may be exceptions, such as Charlie Brown’s kite! But as a rule, whatever goes up must come down. The process is so predictable that you could refer to it as a scientific law.

The same process applies to our religious lives. It is a good thing to “go up” to a great experience with God, but we will become greatly disillusioned if we do not remember that eventually we have to “come down” again.

He had just finished feeding the 5,000 men plus women and children when he asked them the question (Luke 9:10-17). In this context of feeding people (cf. Luke 24:28-35) Jesus asked his disciples, "Who do the crowds say that I am?" (Luke 9:18). We stand here at a turning point in Luke's story of Jesus. In earlier stories of Jesus' baptism, genealogy, temptation and a sabbath in his hometown synagogue Luke has given us all kinds of clues as to the identity of Jesus. After that there comes action. Jesus healed people. He forgave sinners. He called disciples. He challenged sabbath laws and so on. It's time now to return to the question of identity. Do even the disciples understand who this man is? Does anyone really understand?

The disciples answered Jesus question by stating the opinions of some in the crowds. Jesus' then zeroes in on the disciples themselves. "But who do you say that I am?" (Luke 9:20). "The Messiah of God," Peter answered.

And then Jesus did a surprising thing. He acknowledged that Peter had the right answer to his question. But he told the disciples not to tell anyone the truth of his identity. The coming of the Messiah would move Israel from one degree of glory to another. But Jesus was not to be this Messiah of glory. Jesus was to be a Messiah on a cross. Jesus tells it straight in a new revelation of his identity. "The Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and be killed and on the third day be raised" (Luke 9:22).

The disciples must have been stunned. They had glory on their minds, too. But, no, the way of this Messiah was to be a way of suffering for him and for the disciples. "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me" (Luke 9:23). The disciples never could get this through their heads. In the story of the transfiguration which Luke tells next we hear Jesus discussing the departure he would accomplish in Jerusalem. Jesus, that is, was discussing with Moses and Elijah his way to Jerusalem, his way to the cross. And the disciples? They wanted to build booths and live on this mountain of glory and transfiguration forever. They did not know what they were saying, Luke tells us.

This hardness of heart of the disciples appears again when they all come down from the Mount of Transfiguration. A man comes to Jesus in order that Jesus might heal his son who is possessed by a demon. "I begged your disciples to cast it out, but they could not," the father says to Jesus. Jesus proceeds to wonder aloud about the faithless disciples. He tells them again, therefore, of his mission. "Let these words sink into your ears," he tells them, "The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into human hands." Sadly Luke tells us of the disciples that, "... they did not understand this saying; its meaning was concealed from them, so they could not perceive it" (Luke 9:44-45). The disciples prove the truth of this statement by turning to a discussion among themselves about which one of them was the greatest. They're still thinking of glory!

Jesus has revealed that he must go to Jerusalem to suffer, to die and to be raised again. The disciples don't get it at all. With his heart heavy with the suffering that lay ahead, therefore, and with his mind puzzled by disciples who failed to understand, Jesus set his face to go to Jerusalem.

It was unlike Olivier Messiaen, the composer, ever to do things in small measure, especially late in his career.  He had a vision of intense realization when he recognized the splendor of the gospel account of the transfiguration. He struggled to represent with music what was for him an emotional understanding…and he struggled to bring the audience to the mountain top with him.

"It was in clear weather, whilst gazing at Mont Blanc and the Jungfrau, that I grasped the difference between the modest splendor of snow and the mighty splendor of the sun - that is also where I could imagine the extent of the awesomeness of the place of the Transfiguration," wrote Messiaen.

Composed between 1965 and 1969, La Transfiguration is an intense meditation on the Transfiguration of Christ. Aspects of that divine synthesis are reflected by a dense mosaic of interwoven Latin texts, drawing on sources as diverse as the Gospels, Genesis, the Epistles of St Paul and the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas.

Yet even more kaleidoscopic are the large, complex forces for which Messiaen calls, comprising six separate groups of musicians - 18 woodwind, 17 brass, 68 strings, six percussionists, a 100-strong choir, plus a further seven instrumental soloists

There's nothing false about La Transfiguration - ecstasy, joy, awe and terror are all there: what you hear is what you get.

Messiaen: La Transfiguration de Notre-Seigneur Jesus-Christ Orchestre Philharmonique et Choeurde Radio France; Myung-Whun Chung, cond. (DeutscheGrammophon 471 569-2; 2 CDs)

You remember the story about the old monastery which was down to just three monks? Years had passed since anyone joined the order. Its time had passed and these three monks figured they would be the last. The abbot in charge shared his sadness with a friend, the neighboring rabbi. The rabbi looked surprised. "Oh no," he said. "Your order will not die. Your monastery will not close. I have had a revelation that the Messiah is among you. So, no, you will not close." The Abbot returned to the other monks scratching his head, and told his two colleagues. They were all astonished. And suddenly, they began to see each other in an entirely new light. They began to take care of each other as never before, as if they were taking care of the Messiah. They listened to each other as they had never listened before, as if they were listening to the Messiah. They blessed one another as they had never blessed one another before, as if they were blessing the Messiah. Visitors to the monastery noticed the quality of the monks care for one another. It was beautiful. And it was contagious. People wanted to experience what they experienced. People wanted to join, and when they did, they were told the secret: "Sh-h-h-h-h! The Messiah is here among us!" And each met the Messiah in the other until all were drawn close in the love of God.

The 96th Psalm is closely comparable with 1 Chronicles 16:23-26. Psalm 29:2 also contains the words, "Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness." The New Revised Standard Version translated Psalm 96:9 to read, "Worship the Lord in holy splendor; tremble before him all the earth." Older people have long been accustomed to using the words from the King James Version.

Worship ought to be made beautiful in sight, sound, and thought. The physical settings of worship experiences serve to enhance and reinforce the yearning for understanding and completeness. This may be illustrated by a question: "Would you rather have a picnic on a graveled area in the heat of the sun, or where there is verdure of grass, and the shade of trees?" Worship is best when the scene is not barren, but blessed with good architecture, beauty of color, protection from the elements, and in the presence of an altar, giving it sacred significance.

We need to remember that truth is not only conveyed by words. It is also shared in feelings, situational inclusion, comfortable meditation and contemplation, which nurtures us. But worship can also take place in foxholes of distress, danger, and despair. God's messages and our responses do not always come in pretty packages with liturgical decorations. Sometimes they come in moments of destitution, hunger, inner distress, pain, and loneliness. What we make of what we learn at such times turns the place of discovery into a temple, and we worship in the beauty of holiness because we have found a relationship that truly enriches life.

Worship may take place in prison, a hospital or a nursing home; in a cemetery, a forest, or in a barren desert. It was in a desert setting that Jesus dealt with his temptations and life determinations, as he recalled Deuteronomy 6:13, and declared, "You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve." To the woman at the well in Samaria, Jesus said, "Believe me the hour is coming when on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. ... But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for such the Father seeks to worship him. God is a spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth." (See John 4:19-24)

All of us yearn for the experience of "worship in the beauty of holiness." The psychiatrist, Von Frankl, held that the urge to worship is instinctive in children in much the same way as the urge to nurse. He suggested that the ages of four and five are the times when children are most desirous and accepting for the experiences of worship. Esthetics and quality appreciation are important to the development and life of the child. The elderly demonstrate much of the same needs in their lives.

"The beauty of holiness" is a most suggestive and satisfying phrase. It conveys the idea of "Holy Presence," and of being involved in spiritual goodness. My how human hearts long for that! In the midst of crassness, competitiveness, controversies, hostility, and uncertainty of conditions, we need that respite desperately.

Symbolism, the historic sign of faith, serves to renew our sense of oneness with what has been generative before us, and proclaims that we too can be involved in the experience of personal inclusion.

The building we refer to as the church or the chapel ought to be as adequate, as comfortable, and as attractive as we want our homes to be. Shouldn't God's house be the most attractive and architecturally satisfying of all? Nostalgia is important to many of us, and plays a tremendous role in our religious and personal life. It is the incentive that leads us to memorialize -- to provide new and beautiful things that relate to worship. Yet, we know that nostalgic sentiment can become a barrier to doing what is most important for the future. We can become so attached to what we have, and give our loyalty to what is familiar, that we may neglect to see what we ought to develop.

"The beauty of holiness" should inspire us for the transformation of life. It should also challenge us to greater things, with God's encouragement and guidance. Contemplating "the beauty of holiness" is not enough! We must also ask, "And what else ought we to do, God?" The answer we receive may not be the one we might prefer, but we had better not pray, "Thy will be done," unless we are willing to be a part of that will. God calls us to the faithful application of our Christian belief and commitment to discipleship, in which is included "the beauty of holiness." Therein lies the great truth of the words with which we began this worship time:

"O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness;
Serve him with gladness all the earth." Amen.

The Benediction: Send us forth, O God, causing us to remember that the beauty of holiness needs to show in our lives, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Messianic Age. This is what every Jewish child of God was hoping, praying, and waiting for. It is easy to see why when we hear God's Old Testament promises about the Messianic Age:

• (Isa 2:2) In the last days the mountain of the Lord's temple will be established as chief among the mountains; it will be raised above the hills, and all nations will stream to it.
• (Isa 2:4) They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.
• (Isa 35:5-7) Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. (6) Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy. Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert. (7) The burning sand will become a pool, the thirsty ground bubbling springs. In the haunts where jackals once lay, grass and reeds and papyrus will grow.
• (Isa 60:3,10-13) Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn. (13) "Foreigners will rebuild your walls, and their kings will serve you ... (11) Your gates will always stand open, they will never be shut, day or night, so that men may bring you the wealth of the nations their kings led in triumphal procession. (12) For the nation or kingdom that will not serve you will perish; it will be utterly ruined. (13) "The glory of Lebanon will come to you, the pine, the fir and the cypress together, to adorn the place of my sanctuary; and I will glorify the place of my feet.
• (Isa 65:20-21,25) "Never again will there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not live out his years; he who dies at a hundred will be thought a mere youth; he who fails to reach a hundred will be considered accursed. (21) They will build houses and dwell in them; they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit ... (25) The wolf and the lamb will feed together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox, but dust will be the serpent's food. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain," says the LORD.

What wonderful, beautiful promises. No wonder God's Jewish children could hardly wait for the Messianic Age.

The Old Testament Scriptures clearly state that the beauty and wonder of the Messianic Age will become a reality; but this will be so only with the coming of the Messiah. The Messiah. It is He Who brings about the Messianic Age.

Today, in the story of Jesus' baptism, Matthew tells his Jewish audience that the Messiah has come and that the Messianic Age is about to begin. And, in a departure from Jewish expectations about the Messiah, Matthew tells his Jewish audience that Messiah Jesus has come to take the sinner's place.

One of the earliest and most potent threats to early Christianity came from the heretical group known as the Gnostics. Blending elements of Christianity, Greek philosophy, and oriental mysticism, the Gnostics denied the orthodox view of God, man, and the world, and Christ. The apostle John included them in the camp of the Antichrist.

The Gnostics were so called because of their view of revelation. The word gnosis is the Greek word for "knowledge." In many cases the Gnostic heretics did not make a frontal assault against the apostles or against the apostolic teaching of Scripture. In fact, many of them insisted that they were genuine, Bible-believing Christians. It wasn't that they rejected the Bible; they just claimed an additional source of knowledge or insight that was superior to or at least beyond the knowledge of Scripture. The "Gnostikoi" were "those in the know." Their knowledge was not derived from intellectual comprehension of the Scripture or by empirical research, but was mystical, direct, and immediate. God "revealed" private, intuitive insights to them that carried nothing less than divine authority.

Here is a typical Gnostic statement: "We cannot communicate with God mentally, for He is a Spirit. But we can reach Him with our Spirit, and it is through our Spirit that we come to know God….This is one reason God put teachers (those who are really called to teach) in the church to renew our minds. Many times those who teach do so with only a natural knowledge that they have gained from the Bible and other sources. But I am referring here to one of the ministry gifts. Those who are called and anointed by the Spirit to teach. God has given us His Word, and we can feed upon that Word. This will renew our minds. But He also puts teachers in the church to renew our minds and to bring us the revelation of the knowledge of God's Word." (Kenneth E. Hagin, Man on Three Dimensions (Tulsa, Okla.: Faith Library, 1985), 1:8,13.)

Notice that this quotation does not include a direct assault on the Bible. The Bible is recognized as God's word. But in order to understand the Bible we need something beyond our natural mental ability. We need the Spirit-anointed teachers to "bring us the revelation of the knowledge of God's Word." This is a typically Gnostic statement, but the quote is not from Valentinus or any of the other early Gnostics. It is from the pen of a modern missionary of Gnosticism, Kenneth E. Hagin. It is from Hagin's Man on Three Dimensions. Hagin's theology echoes the tripartite epistemology of early Gnosticism (man as having three separate entities: body, soul, and spirit).

Robert Tilton also claims a direct pipeline to divine revelation: "God showed me a vision that almost took my breath away. I was sucked into the Spirit . . ., caught away . . . and I found myself standing in the very presence of Almighty God.  It just echoed into my being. And he said these words to me. . . exactly these words . . ."Many of my ministers pray for my people, but I want you to pray the Prayer of Agreement with them" . . . I have never seen the presence of God so powerful. This same anointing flooded my Spirit-man . . . It's inside of me now, and I have supernatural faith to agree with you. From that day forth, as I have been faithful to that heavenly vision, I've seen every kind of miracle imaginable happen when I pray the Prayer of Agreement with God's people." (Robert Tilton, newsletter from Robert Tilton Ministries, Word of Faith World Outreach Center, Box 819000, Dallas, TX75381.

It seems that in Robert Tilton the church is blessed with a twentieth-century apostle whose visions of revelation exceed that of the apostle John and whose miracle powers surpass that of the apostle Paul. If we are to believe Tilton's astonishing claims, there is no reason we should not include his writings in the next edition of the New Testament.

Paul Crouch of the Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN), has revelatory dreams and has warmly embraced the neo-Gnostic dogma. His network has become a prime distribution center for the growing movement. Kenneth Copeland also receives phrases from God in "his spirit."

Have you ever looked forward to something and when it happened, it was so much more than you anticipated? Maybe this was your experience at the time of your marriage or the birth of your first child. This was somewhat like the experience of David Livingstone, the explorer and missionary to central Africa in the mid-1800s. In his journal he tells about his discovery of the great falls, which he named the Victoria Falls, and what that experience meant to him. He had heard from the natives that there was something up the river, but he was not sure what it was. He could hear the roar of the falls for miles and he could see the spray five miles away. He said he could never explain the splendor that fell upon his soul when he looked on the falls for the first time. Suddenly, right before his eyes, the Zambezi River was a mile wide; it sloped slightly and then cascaded in a 400-foot plunge in a display of awesome splendor. He said for several minutes the sight literally paralyzed him. He knew that something was ahead but his discovery was far beyond his wildest imagination.

This is exactly what happened to Simeon in the text. He knew the Messiah was coming and he waited and prayed for the day to arrive. He was told by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death until he would see the Lord's Messiah. Every time parents brought their children to the Temple he was filled with anticipation that possibly one of them was the child he was waiting for. Then Mary and Joseph arrived at the Temple and Simeon, now an old man, took the child up into his arms and praised God saying:

Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared for all peoples.

The scene is a moving one: an old man now ready to die holding a six-week-old baby, who is at long last "the salvation for all people."

For what purpose doth He go up into the mountain? To teach us, that loneliness and retirement is good, when we are to pray to God. With this view, you see, He is continually withdrawing into the wilderness, and there often spends the whole night in prayer, teaching us earnestly to seek such quietness in our prayers, as the time and place may confer. For the wilderness is the mother of quiet; it is a calm and a harbor, delivering us from all turmoils.

In contrast to the theology of the cross and our suffering/dying king. Robert Capon in Hunting the Divine Fox presents a wonderful picture of our typical American Messiah and it doesn't look much like Jesus on the cross.

Almost nobody resists the temptation to jazz up the humanity of Christ. The true paradigm of the ordinary American view of Jesus is Superman: "Faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. It's Superman! Strange visitor from another planet, who came to earth with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men, and who, disguised as Clark Kent, mild-mannered reporter for a great metropolitan newspaper, fights a never-ending battle for truth, justice and the American Way." If that isn't popular christology, I'll eat my hat. Jesus gentle, meek and mild, but with secret, souped-up, more-than-human insides bumbles around for thirty-three years, nearly gets himself done in for good by the Kryptonite Kross, but at the last minute, struggles into the phone booth of the Empty Tomb, changes into his Easter suit and, with a single bound, leaps back up to the planet Heaven.

You think that's funny? Don't laugh. The human race is, was and probably always will be deeply unwilling to accept a human messiah. We don't want to be saved in our humanity; we want to be fished out of it. We crucified Jesus, not because he was God, but because he blasphemed: He claimed to be God and then failed to come up to our standards for assessing the claim. It's not that we weren't looking for the Messiah; it's just that he wasn't what we were looking for. Our kind of Messiah would come down from a cross. He would carry a folding phone booth in his back pocket. He wouldn't do a stupid thing like rising from the dead. He would do a smart thing like never dying." [pp. 90-91; this book has been reprinted, along with two others under the title The Romance of the Word: One Man's Love Affair with Theology]

J. O. Sanders offers this interesting description of the counterfeit nature of Satan:

• Satan has his own trinity the devil, the beast, and the false prophet (Revelation 16:13).
• He has his own church, "a synagogue of Satan" (Revelation 2:9).
• He has his own ministers, "ministers of Satan" (2 Corinthians 11:4-5).
• He has formulated his own system of theology "doctrines of demons" (1 Timothy 4:1).
• He has established his own sacrificial system; "The Gentiles...sacrifice to demons" (1 Corinthians 10:20).
• He has his own communion service, "the cup of demons...and the table of demons" (1 Corinthians 10:21).
• His ministers proclaim his own gospel, "a gospel contrary to that which we have preached to you" (Galatians 1:7-8).
• He has his own throne (Revelation 13:2) and his own worshipers (Revelation 13:4).
• So he has developed a thorough imitation of Christianity, viewed as a system of religion.
• In his role as the imitator of God, he inspires false christs, self-constituted messiahs (Matthew 24:4-5).
• He employs false teachers who are specialists in his "theology," to bring in "destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them" (2 Peter 2:1). They are adept at mixing truth and error in such proportions as to make error palatable. They carry on their teaching surreptitiously and often anonymously.
• He sends out false prophets. "And many false prophets will arise, and will mislead many" (Matthew 24:11).
• He introduces false brethren into the church, who "had sneaked in to spy out our liberty...in order to bring us into bondage" (Galatians 2:4).
• He sponsors false apostles who imitate the true (2 Corinthians 11:13).

Most readers of the Bible seem to have a love-hate relationship with its concluding book. In fact, the Revelation to John almost appears to possess the uncanny ability of being frustrating and fascinating at the same time -- much like a toddler playing with a piece of Scotch tape! They are, no doubt, the most famous last words ever written. However, "well-known" does not always imply "well-thought-of" or even "well-understood." Granted, few portions of Scripture have aroused the curiosity of as many -- I dare say, "a great multitude that no one could count." But then again, simply arousing curiosity, in and of itself, is hardly a ringing endorsement for the book. After all, those who slow down on the highway to gawk at a roadside accident may be interested in what's going on, but they don't necessarily wish to become involved with it. And so it has been throughout the centuries for Revelation: garnering reverence from some, outright ridicule from others.

Martin Luther, for instance, felt that the letter "to the seven churches that are in Asia" should have been returned to sender. He found Christ neither taught nor acknowledged in its gaudy imagery and surreal symbolism. Zwingli's assessment was just as blunt, and for that matter, equally harsh. He saw no need to be concerned with the Apocalypse, because, in his words, "it is not a biblical book." John Calvin didn't even deem it worthy of comment. He wrote extensively on every portion of the New Testament – with the conspicuous exception of this one. Even today, John's rather extravagant vision from the prison island of Patmos is regarded by many as little more than a playground for religious eccentrics and placard-carrying prophets of doom.

Needless to say, some of the difficulty in comprehending Revelation lies in the fact that it is a work fraught with mystery, and like all mysteries I suppose, it is at times compelling and at other times confusing. Filled with truth, but nevertheless teasingly enigmatic. Of course, thinking of this book only as a mystery leaves the impression that it doesn't need so much to be studied as it does to be solved. However, to be honest, such an endeavor is like trying to analyze a sunset or dissect a rainbow. At best, it's a wearisome task to scour John's words in the hope of deciphering secret clues. At worst, it seems to treat his journey of faith as if it were a scavenger hunt.

Simply put, Revelation is neither an ancient chronicle of the past, nor a cryptic almanac of the future. John is not interested in explaining God's purposes, or even in describing them, but rather in creating an awareness through which they might be encountered again. If you will, he is more of a poet than a mystery writer -- fashioning a new reality from the fertile language of imagination. And as Eugene Peterson once observed, "We do not have more information after we read a poem, we have more experience."

There was a famous monastery which had fallen on very hard times. Formerly its many buildings were filled with young monks, and its huge chapel resounded with the singing of the choir. But now it was deserted. People no longer came there to be nourished by prayer. A handful of old monks shuffled through the cloisters and praised God with heavy hearts.

On the edge of the monastery woods, an old rabbi had built a tiny hut. He would come there from time to time to fast and pray. No one ever spoke with him, but whenever he appeared, the word would be passed from monk to monk: "The rabbi walks in the woods." And, for as long as he was there, the monks would feel sustained by his prayerful presence.

One day the abbot decided to visit the rabbi and open his heart to him. So, after the morning Eucharist, he set out through the woods. As he approached the hut, the abbot saw the rabbi standing in the doorway, his arms outstretched in welcome. It was as though he had been waiting there for some time. The two embraced like long-lost brothers. Then they stepped back and just stood there, smiling at one another with smiles their faces could hardly contain.

After a while, the rabbi motioned the abbot to enter. In the middle of the room was a wooden table with the Scriptures open on it. They sat there for a moment, in the presence of the Book. Then the rabbi began to cry. The abbot could not contain himself. He covered his face with his hands and began to cry, too. For the first time in his life, he cried his heart out. The two men sat there like lost children, filling the hut with their sobs and moistening the wood of the table with their tears.

After the tears had ceased to flow and all was quiet again, the rabbi lifted his head. "You and your brothers are serving God with heavy hearts," he said. "You have come to ask a teaching of me. I will give you a teaching, but you can only repeat it once. After that, no one must ever say it aloud again."

The rabbi looked straight at the abbot and said, "The Messiah is among you." For a while, all was silent. Then the rabbi said, "Now you must go." The abbot left without ever looking back.

The next morning, the abbot called his monks together in the chapter room. He told them that he had received a teaching from the rabbi who walks in the woods, and that this teaching was never again to be spoken aloud. Then he looked at each of his brothers and said, "The rabbi said that one of us is the Messiah."

The monks were startled by this saying. "What could it mean?" they asked themselves. "Is brother John the Messiah? No, he's too old and crotchety. Is brother Thomas? No, he's too stubborn and set in his ways. Am I the Messiah? What could this possibly mean?" They were all deeply puzzled by the rabbi's teaching. But no one ever mentioned it again.

As time went by, though, something unusual began to happen at the monastery. The monks began to treat one another with a very special reverence. There was a gentle, wholehearted, human quality about them now which was hard to describe, but easy to notice. They lived with one another as brothers who had finally found something. And yet, they prayed over the Scriptures together as those who were still looking for something. Visitors found themselves deeply moved by the genuine caring and sharing that went on among the brothers. Before long, people were again coming from far and wide to be nourished by the prayer life of these monks. And young men were asking, once again, to become part of the community.

In those days, the rabbi no longer walked in the woods. His hut had fallen into ruins. But somehow or other, the older monks who had taken his teaching to heart still felt sustained by his prayerful presence.

Possible Biblical references to Satan:

• Genesis 3:1-14 · He was disguised under the Edenic serpent
• Genesis 3:15 · He is the serpent's seed
• 1 Chronicles 21:1 · Satan stands against Israel 
• Job 1:7-2:10 · He accused and afflicted Job
• Isaiah 14:12 · He was Lucifer, son of the morning before the fall (This verse is erroneously ascribed to Satan. It actually refers to the king of Babylon, see v. 3)
• Ezekiel 28:14 · He was the anointed cherub that covers (This verse also is erroneously ascribed to Satan. It actually refers to the king of Tyre, see v. 1)
• Zecheriah 3:1-9 · He is Satan, the Adversary of unbelieving Israel
• Matthew 4:3 · He is the tempter
• Matthew 4:4; Luke 4:10-11 · He perverts the Word of God
• Matthew 12:22-29 · He works in demon possession
• Matthew 12:24; Acts 10:38 · He is the prince of the demons
• Matthew 13:19 · Snatches away the Word
• Matthew 13:38 · "the evil one"
• Matthew 13:38-39 · He sows tares
• Matthew 13:39 · He is "the enemy"
• Matthew 25:41 · He is a fallen angel
• Matthew 25:41; Rev 20:10 · His ultimate fate is Gehenna
• Luke 4:13 · He is the devil, the slanderer
• Luke 10:18 · He fell from a sinless high estate
• Luke 13:16 · He blinds people physically and spiritually
• Luke 22:31 · He viewed Simon Peter as a target
• John 3:8, 10 · His children are unsaved people
• John 8:44 · He was branded "a liar" and "the father of lies" by Jesus
• John 8:44 · He is a murderer
• John 12:31; 14:30 · He is the prince of this world
• John 13:2,27 · He caused Judas to betray Christ
• Acts 5:3 · Educes Ananias to lie
• 2 Corinthians 4:4 · He blinds people spiritually
• Ephesians 2:2 · He indwells the unsaved
• Ephesians 6:10-20 · He is routed by Spirit-directed prayer
• Ephesians 6:11-12 · He heads a celestial hierarchy of evil
• 1 Thessalonians 2:18 · He hinders God's will in believers
• 2 Thessalonians 2:9 · He works diabolic miracles
• 1 Timothy 4:1-6 · He instigates false doctrine
• 1 Peter 5:8 · He seeks to harm believers
• 1 Peter 5:8-9 · He is overcome by faith
• Revelation 2:9 · He has a synagogue of legalists who deny God's grace in Christ
• Revelation 12:9 · He is the deceiver
• Revelation 12:9; 20:2 · He is the dragon, that old serpent
• Revelation 20:1-3 · He will be bound during the millennium

It was Sunday morning in the mountain country of central Europe, and the church bells were ringing. A man walking a mountain path came upon a shepherd lad with his father's flock of sheep. The boy was kneeling, and, looking up, was reciting the alphabet.

The man asked, "What are you doing?" and the boy answered, "I am praying." Somewhat sternly, the man said, "Praying? What kind of praying is this? Just saying letters, no words at all?" The lad replied: "I've never learned any prayers, sir. But it's Sunday morning and the bells are ringing in the valley, and I thought I wanted to pray, and I thought maybe - well, maybe - if I just said all of the letters, God might hear them and put them together for me, and spell out what I ought to say."

This, my dear friend, is true worship - worship in its essence, worship at its purest and best: simply to place ourselves before God and turn it all over to him. This is the ultimate devotion, the first act of worship and the final one -here it begins and here it ends. Whatever else we may do - all our praying, all our preaching, all our singing - nothing ever surpasses this: simply to turn it all over to him and say, "Here it is, Lord; take it, and make it come together as it should; take it, and spell it out for me, if you please."

When we have done this, we will have prayed something pretty close to the perfect prayer.

In November 2019, a woman named Beth Pottle signed up to run a very difficult, multiday relay race out in the California desert. Beth was 58 years old at the time. She had only started running a few years earlier. All her teammates on this relay race were much younger and were much more experienced runners. Beth was nervous about completing the race and afraid that she might fail her team. One neighbor who saw Beth training in the North Carolina heat offered to add her name to a text prayer chain so other women in their small town could pray for her race.

On race day as Beth and her team gathered near the starting line, Beth’s phone suddenly pinged. Her teammates stared at her. They were in a remote desert region that had no cell phone service. The ping was a text from the neighborhood prayer chain back in North Carolina. Beth read it aloud to her team. It was Isaiah 41:10, a promise from God to the nation of Israel, “So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”

The runners ran up and down steep mountain slopes; some of the running even took place at night. After the first night’s run, Beth was so exhausted that she began to walk the trail rather than run. Then she heard that verse from Isaiah 41 in her head. And she picked up her feet and ran again. God was with her. All she had to do was keep moving forward. Beth and her teammates successfully finished the race. As they headed back into San Diego from the desert, all their phones began pinging them constantly with messages of support from their family and friends back home. But only one message had gotten through when they were in the desert--the message reminding them of the promise of God’s love.

A long time ago the man Moses went up into a mountain to meet God. It is not on a mountain that we meet today, but in this place dedicated to the worship of God.

As Moses went up into the mountain to meet God, so have we come to meet him here, and I pray that all of us may meet him, each in his or her own heart, each in God's own way.

To meet God, we don't have to go to some distant mountain anymore, because God has come to us - all the way to us. He has met all of us on a mountain called Calvary. "The high and lofty one who inhabits eternity" has stepped down into time and moved in close. He has come by way of a cross - in the person of Jesus Christ the Savior - all the way to the very threshold of your heart and mine, and he says, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock."

He who has come to us invites us to come to him, and so today we come, we come to meet him here. May we truly meet him in the spoken word of truth; may we meet him in the deep stillness of prayer; may we meet him in the stirring moments of music and song; may we meet him in the beauty of this place; may we meet him in the faces of our friends; and, going from here, may we meet him in the faces of those in need and pain to whom, perhaps, we can give a cup of cold water in his name.

If we can meet him so, then we shall have truly worshiped here.

Prayer brings comfort. I like the old story of a minister who went camping up in the mountains. He was enjoying the hiking through the mountain trails until the day he found himself face to face with the biggest ... ugliest ... meanest ... grizzly bear he had ever seen. He saw no means of escape and the bear was coming toward him growling. The minister did the only thing he knew to do. He dropped to his knees, closed his eyes, and began to pray. The longer he prayed, the better he felt. The bear had not attacked. So, the minister opened his eyes to see where the bear was and the bear was kneeling right in front of him. The minister was overjoyed and said, "O, Brother Bear, this is wonderful. It is a comfort to my soul to know that we are praying to the same Lord."

The bear opened his eyes, looked at the preacher, and said, "Brother, your comfort is going to be short-lived because I'm saying grace."
 

Our primary focus will be upon the divine Sonship of Jesus of Nazareth. Notice that we say Jesus of "Nazareth" here instead of Jesus "Christ." Prior to the events which we shall take up, Jesus had been identified simply as "the Nazarene," "the carpenter," or "the carpenter’s son." Following two specific events, his identity is enlarged upon to include "divine Sonship." What happened? There was a baptism and a transfiguration.

Baptism. The practice of baptism was not the peculiar invention of Christianity. Other religions, in fact, political systems, had long observed a form of "washing" or "sprinkling with water" as an initiatory act of accepting "outsiders" into their fellowship. John’s baptism, insofar as it was the "baptism of repentance" (Mark 1:4), was distinguished from the others. He proclaimed that one mightier than himself soon would come whose baptism was still yet different than his: "I indeed have baptized you with water; but he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost" (Mark 1:8). The difference is further realized in that there is no record of Jesus ever having baptized anyone with water. However, Jesus of Nazareth submitted himself for John’s water baptism in order to 1. identify himself with John’s message, 2. receive the public blessing of God through a symbolic act that all would understand, and 3. certify his divine Sonship. "And it came to pass in those days that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized of John in the Jordan ... and there came a voice from heaven, saying, ‘Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased’ " (Mark 1:9-11).

Transfiguration. Six days following the baptism, Jesus took Peter, James, and John and withdrew to the top of a mountain, possibly Mount Hermon. There, he was "transfigured;" that is to say, in a moment of spiritual union with God the Father, his countenance was transformed. Even his garments became glistening, intensely white (Mark 9:3), and Moses appeared with Elijah to speak with him. A cloud, long identified with the presence of God, i.e., "firey, cloudly pillar," overshadowed them, and a voice spoke from the cloud; "This is my beloved son; listen to him" (Mark 9:7). Dramatically, the carpenter’s son was now understood to be the "Son of God."

There is also one other noteworthy reference in our selected scripture. In Mark 9:5, James, Peter, and John wanted to erect three booths (or tabernacles) on a sacred spot and remain there in the afterglow. Moses had been tempted to do the same thing following his own mountaintop experience. However, it has always happened, it seems, that following high moments on a "mountain top," there is work to do in the valleys. To formalize a religious experience and not share it with others, or to interpret it through our lives, is to miss the point of the experience itself. Peter, James, and John built no shrine; they became living messages of the one to whom they said, "Truly, you are the Son of God" (Matthew 14:33).

The very concept of God having pleasure--the mighty Maker of the Universe being pleased, like a child, at things that take place on Earth--staggers the imagination. Most amazing of all is the revelation that it pleased Him to put His own Son through a terrible, bruising death, as the tremendous Messianic prophecy of our text reveals. Nevertheless, this was the only possible way whereby "the pleasure of the LORD" could be accomplished in the redeemed lives of lost men and women, whom He had created for eternal fellowship with the Triune god. "For the LORD taketh pleasure in His people. (Psalm 149:4).

Five times we read in the New Testament that God the Father spoke from heaven assuring us that He was "well pleased" with His "beloved Son" (Matthew 3:17, 17:5: Mark l:ll; Luke 3:22; II Peter l:17). Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him. Had it not been so, none of us could ever have been saved, but the Lord Jesus Himself has confirmed to His own "little flock" that "it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom" (Luke 12:32).

Thus, not only have we been created "for Thy pleasure" (Revelation 4:11), but also we have been predestinated "unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will" (Ephesians l:5). This is far beyond our comprehension, so we merely rest in the great truth that "it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure" (Philippians 2:13). We know that "the LORD taketh pleasure in them that fear Him, in those that hope in His mercy" (Psalm 147:11).

Have I told you the story of the three executives who were sitting around trying to define the word "fame" what it meant to arrive?

One of them said "fame is being invited to the White House for a visit with the President. That's got to be the ultimate expression of fame you've arrived."

"No, that's not what fame is", the second one said, "fame is being invited to the White House for a visit with the President, and when the hotline rings, he doesn't even get up to answer it. He just lets it ring! When that happens, you have really arrived."

"No," said the third executive. "That's not it. Fame is being invited to the White House for a visit with the President, and when the hotline rings, he does answer it, but he listens for a moment, and then he says, 'Here, this call is for you.'"

Go back to our scripture lesson. People were full of expectation looking for the Messiah and many of them felt that John the Baptist was the Messiah. Let's read verses 15 and 16 again. "As the people were in expectation, and all men questioned in their hearts concerning John, whether perhaps he were the Christ, John answered them all, "I baptize you with water; but he who is mightier than I is coming, the thong of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie; he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire."

Here is one of the most telling pictures of John. He knew who he was. He was not the Messiah he was the forerunner. It's never easy to play that role ,forerunner, or an even lesser role suggested by the expression, "playing second fiddle". You know where that metaphor comes from. It comes from the orchestra. Apart from the conductor, First Violinist is the most important person in the Orchestra. Only one sits in that chair and plays that role. All the rest "play second fiddle".

Frederick Buechner muses on the Transfiguration this way: In the Transfiguration it was the holiness of Jesus shining through his humanness, his face so afire with it that they were almost blinded.  Even with us something like that happens once in a while.  The face of a man walking his child in the park, of a woman picking peas in the garden, of sometimes even the unlikeliest person listening to a concert, say, or standing barefoot in the sand watching the waves roll in, or just having a beer at a Saturday baseball game in July.  Every once and so often, something so touching, so incandescent, so alive transfigures the human face that it's almost beyond bearing" (Whistling in the Dark, Harper San Francisco, 1988, p. 108).

In one sense Buechner here is maybe rendering the actual Transfiguration of Jesus a bit too mundane, a bit too much like what could happen to us on most any given afternoon while riding the bus or walking down a sidewalk.  But on the other hand, he may be on to something, and I would add to his musings this one:  Even on all kinds of days when the disciples and Jesus were by no means having a mountaintop experience and when dazzling garments whiter than white were nowhere to be seen, even then when Jesus smiled kindly at lepers, looked pained to see a "sinner" being shunned by the Temple establishment, or looked winsome after telling a hurting prostitute to go in peace because her sins were forgiven, there was sense in which the disciples were seeing the face of the divine transfigured in also those ordinary moments.  They were seeing hints of glory.  They were seeing true God of true God, vividly and surprisingly and, yes, dazzlingly on display in God's One and Only Son, full of grace and truth.

In the season of Epiphany we look at those special events in Jesus' life where his presence was especially manifested with power. Jesus' baptism is one of those epiphanies. You heard Luke's version read this morning. The Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form as a dove, and a voice came from heaven,"Thou art my beloved Son; with thee I am well pleased."  In newer translations, which are thought to be more accurate, the adjective "beloved" is made a separate phrase to emphasize the intensity of the personal nature of this experience. "You are my Son. My beloved. In thee I am well pleased."

That is Luke's version. All four gospels portray this scene. But Luke's version is a little different than the others. In each version, though, the Spirit descends"like a dove."   The Holy Spirit is not a bird. Luke and the other apostles use the dove as a metaphor for the Spirit's coming into our lives. It is a beautiful metaphor. Have you ever seen a dove descend and land? It is graceful, gentle, and quiet. That's the point being made. That is the way the Holy Spirit will enter into our lives. The Holy Spirit came to Jesus gently, quietly, and in Luke's version, privately.

That is why Luke is different than the other three gospels. The other writers imply that the Spirit descended upon Jesus at his baptism, apparently when he was still in the water. That is the way this scene is often portrayed in religious art, especially those beautiful paintings out of the Middle Ages. Jesus, standing waist deep in water. John the Baptist standing next to him, pointing at Jesus, as if to say, "This is the one!" or, in the words of the Gospel of John, "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world!" Above Jesus' head in these scenes is the Spirit, as a dove, descending. It is like the symbol that is in the baptismal font here, a nimbus around the Holy Spirit as he hovers above Jesus' head.

That's the way all the other gospels picture it. But Luke is different. He says,"Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the Holy Spirit descended upon him." Which means that the Epiphany, this special presence of God in this event, came to Jesus when he was by himself, praying. In other words, it wasn't a public event. It was a personal and private experience. No one else saw it. No one else heard that voice from heaven. He came out of the water, went off by himself, and prayed. That is when it happened.

Luke, more than any other gospel, emphasizes that Jesus prayed…

The next part of Matthew's description is, to my way of thinking, one of the most wonderful statements in the Gospels.  A voice rings out from heaven, and for everyone to hear, says, "This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased."

Everyone in this church this morning is someone's child.  And if you've been alive very many years, I promise that there have been times in your life when you craved hearing those words from your own father.  Most of us have had times where we rebelled or for some other reason the relationship got strained with our parents.  Or perhaps you were in the situation where the parent was just lost to you, either physically or emotionally and as a result those words never reached expression.  Or perhaps the parent thought he made the words plain to you, but somehow you two were just not speaking the same language.  "This is my son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased."  These words — spoken so seldom by most of us parents and longed for so often by all children — affirm not only that we are loved, which is a huge affirmation, but they also affirm that we are accepted and acceptable, just as we are, as my grandfather used to say, "warts and all."

Let me tell you a story about a family whose house burned down. Their little girl in that family was named Victoria. A couple years ago during Thanksgiving their home burned to the ground. Fortunately they were not home, but everything was lost.

Their next-door neighbors have an 8-year-old son named Ian who is a good friend of Victoria. A few days after the fire, Victoria's father returned to the burned house to see if he could find anything useful in the wreckage. He looked up and saw Ian coming in his direction carrying a round Styrofoam cooler in a wheelbarrow. Ian opened the top of the cooler proudly, displaying thousands of pennies that his family had been saving since he was two-years-old. He handed the cooler to Victoria's dad and said, "I want you to use this to buy a Christmas present for Victoria."

At first he thought he must decline the gift, but something in Ian's eyes just wouldn't let him. The boy's expression was so full of love. So he hugged him and said, "Thank you very much."

Thankfully, most of us have not experienced the horror of burned-down houses, but many of us have very definite hurts and longings this Advent season. The Messiah comes to us in the spirit of Ian, offering himself as our gift. How strange it is that when we accept the gift of the Messiah, it matches exactly our hurt and need. When we tie our destiny to this Messiah-King, we can face whatever the future brings, knowing that we are more than conquerors through Christ who loves us.

The boy Jesus was a powerful and expected sight for certain eyes born of devout and unwavering faith. It has been said that Harriet Tubman was known to wait in train stations without the aid of train schedules or knowing when the train was coming. When asked why she would do that, she simply said because she knew the train was coming. It was like she had this internal GPS. This may sound strange, but what does it mean to wait without a schedule but to be certain that the train is coming? Could it be that Tubman knew that the station was the place to be when waiting for coming trains? Might it have been that Tubman recognized that the tracks had already been laid outside the station for traveling beyond where her stationed eyes could see?

Likewise, Simeon and Anna were stationed in the very place, the temple, where certain eyes were able to see and recognize the boy Jesus for who he was and is the Messiah! We know that not all would or could not see Jesus as the Messiah. Experience had clouded their expectation, but this text calls us to expect to experience and to express what the Lord has shown us in the midst of all else. The world would not recognize him as the Messiah, certainly not a man on a donkey from an off-the-beaten-path like Nazareth. What a word!!! What a sight to see consolation and redemption in a baby that was yet gurgling. How it must have been for Joseph and Mary to see and hear what they heard! The text says that they were amazed!

According to an account in the New York Times, it was just before Christmas several years ago that David Storch, a music teacher, borrowed a copy of the score of Handel's "Messiah" from the Brooklyn Public Library. Through a clerical error, however, the transaction was not recorded. There were several other requests for the score, and the library staff, unaware that it had been checked out, spent many hours searching in vain for it through the stacks. On the day that Storch returned it, placing it on the circulation desk, he was astonished to hear the librarian spontaneously, joyously, and loudly shout, "The 'Messiah' is here! The 'Messiah' is back!" Every head in the library turned toward the voice, but, alas, as the Times reported, "A few minutes later everyone went back to work."

A wry story, but also a parable of the often dashed expectations of those who wait for God. Someone cries, "Peace, peace," but there is no peace. Another says, "Comfort, comfort," but there is little comfort. "Come, thou long-expected Jesus," goes the prayerful hymn, and heads turn in a moment of curious interest, then, seeing nothing, go back to work. And so, weary of waiting on a God who does not come, we lower our horizons, fold our hands in prayer to more tangible gods to give us purpose, and turn to more immediate and reliable resources for hope. We build shiny sanctuaries of glass and steel where we can celebrate "possibility thinking" and the other human potentials, which we hope will save us from our self-doubt, if not our sins. We fill the silos and the skies with ever more potent weapons of destruction, which we hope will save us from each other. And we summon the elixirs of modern medicine to save us from disease, aging, and finally from death. In short, tired of waiting for the one true God, we create our own, molded in our own image.

If I told you to pull out a piece of paper and write on it who you say Jesus is what would you write? We all have some answer; we all have some images of Jesus. Some of them are the images we learned as children in Sunday school which have proved troubling and we don't' have anything to replace them with. Sometimes we dismiss Jesus on the basis of what we knew about Jesus at age six. Some of us have never examined the evidence for ourselves.

One of my main goals in preaching is to gain a fresh hearing for Jesus, especially among those who believe they already understand him. I'm sorry to tell you this, but you probably don't. Because what happens sometimes is that presumed familiarity has led to unfamiliarity. Jesus is sometimes obstructed by clouds of well-intentioned misinformation.

But ultimately, rather than give you my answer to the question I'd rather challenge you to answer the question for yourself because that's the only answer that matters. Is he Messiah? If that's what you think, what does that mean? Jesus clearly didn't' fit into what a Messiah was expected to be. Messiahs were supposed to have power, were supposed to take charge, were supposed to set things right and free the Jews from political expression. But Jesus refused to stiff arm anybody. He refused to dominate or to take up arms.

Is he Savior? OK. But what is he saving us from and what is he saving us to? Some people clearly had no interest in being saved. When Jesus said the poor are precious and the rich are in big trouble, only those on one side of that equation found it intriguing.

Is he Teacher? Surely, but is that all?

Who do you say he is? Messiah, Savior, Lord, shaman, teacher, friend, prophet, prince of peace?

Now, as you try and answer that question, don't be too alarmed if you cant' nail it down. Even those of us who wrestle with the question regularly find it difficult, because Jesus is sometimes downright incomprehensible; he is often enigmatic, ambiguous. From the very beginning, who Jesus was, what he was about, was far from self-evident. There were people who stood face-to-face with Jesus and said, "This is God incarnate." There appear to be many more who said, "This man is nuts." Although I think that for most of us, the biggest issue isn't that we've listened to Jesus and found him incomprehensible; it's that we've listened to him and found him too damned difficult.

On the back of a pulpit in one church were printed these words: “Sir, we would see Jesus!” They were a reminder to the minister that he must never allow anything--no matter how good or interesting--to distract him from focusing on the Savior.

Peter, James, and John needed this reminder too when they witnessed Jesus’ transfiguration and the appearance of Moses and Elijah. Commenting on this account, J. B. Nicholson suggests that when Peter said, “Lord, it is good for us,” he was focusing on the wonderful experience. Nicholson then says, “Peter was sidetracked, and the Father had to open heaven and speak to him. He said, ‘This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear Him.’” God put the focus where it belonged, on Christ.

Sin diverts some believers from focusing on Jesus. Too much study and feverish activity distracts others. Such things as doctrines and church attendance, good as they are, must not become our main concerns. We are to keep Jesus at the center of our spiritual attention.

George Frederick Handel was dogged with misfortune. He had debt upon debt, despair upon despair. He had a cerebral hemorrhage and was paralyzed on his right side. For four years he could neither walk nor write. The doctors gave up on him. He wrote several operas, but again he fell in debt. At age 60 he thought his life was finished. Then he was challenged by a friend to write a sacred oratorio. He read the Scriptures and decided to work on the Messiah. For 24 days, without eating a crumb, he worked fanatically to produce the Messiah, which many today consider the greatest oratorio ever written.

Peter had fished all night and caught nothing. Jesus asked him to let down his nets for a catch. It seemed foolish to do so, because Peter knew there were no fish to catch. "But at your word," he said, "I will let down the nets" (v. 5).

The word "amen" is a most remarkable word. It was transliterated directly from the Hebrew into the Koine Greek of the New Testament, then into Latin and into English and many other languages, so that it is practically a universal word. It has been called the best-known word in human speech. The word is directly related in fact, almost identical to the Hebrew word for "believe" (aman), or "faithful." Thus, it came to mean "sure" or truly," an expression of absolute trust and confidence. When one believes God, he indicates his faith by an "amen." When God makes a promise, the believer's response is "amen" "so it will be!" In the New Testament, it is often translated "verily" or "truly." When we pray according to His Word and His will, we know God will answer, so we close with an "amen," and so also do we conclude a great hymn or anthem of praise and faith.

The word is even a title of Christ Himself. The last of His letters to the seven churches begins with a remarkable salutation by the glorified Lord: "These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God" (Revelation 3:14). We can be preeminently certain that His Word is always faithful and true, because He is none other than the Creator of all things, and thus He is our eternal "Amen." As our text reminds us, every promise of God in Christ is "yea and amen," as strong an affirmation of truth as can be expressed in the Greek language.

It is, therefore, profoundly meaningful that the entire Bible closes with an "amen." "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen" (Revelation 22:21), assuring everyone who reads these words that the whole Book is absolutely true and trustworthy. Amen!

We get this comforting idea that if we follow the Messiah life will somehow be smoother, or at least all fit together in some "good" way. Then we run smack into the reality that the only guarantee Jesus made to us had to do with the activities that come after this life. In fact, Jesus very clearly expected that his followers would have a harder time getting through this life than those who walked away. But we still have these expectations of a "Savior" and when Jesus doesn't meet them we begin to wonder if he is really who we thought he was. There are thousands of empty church pews that used to be full of people who believed in Jesus Christ. But then he didn't live up to their expectations and they went home. Their families still fought, they still had some frightening decisions to make, and they still couldn't make ends meet on a budget. They began to wonder if they had made a mistake with Jesus.

Maybe that's what happened to John. He said that he had come to baptize with water, and that the one following him would baptize with "fire from heaven." So where was the fire? So far there wasn't even smoke. So far, the Pharisees and Sadducees were still in charge of the faith, and Rome was still in charge of the government. In fact, instead of bringing in the kingdom, Jesus had kept pretty quiet up north while John got himself arrested and thrown into one of Herod's dungeons on a mountaintop down by the Dead Sea. That might make a person ask some questions. Is this any way for a Messiah to behave?

At least I hope that's what happened with John. If John the Baptist, as high up as he ranked, still had some questions, maybe there is room for me and mine.

Working in a small town in Latin America, a woman felt despair. She was experiencing marital problems, as well as conflicts with people she worked with. Without warning, an earthquake struck one day. In those moments of panic and fear she ran with other people to the relative safety of a garden plaza as buildings shattered and dust billowed.

"For those moments I saw everything so clearly," she recalls, "how I could become so much kinder to my husband, how other relationships could work out. In an instant and with such gratitude I saw how it would be so easy for me to turn things around." In that dramatic moment this woman had glimpsed how the brokenness in her life could be mended. At that moment she saw clearly how she could bring about healing in her life. At that moment it was as if God had spoken to her in a most dramatic way.

God had told John in a personal epiphany, "He on whom you see the spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit." When John saw the Spirit descend upon Jesus in the form of a dove, he knew without a doubt that Jesus was the Messiah. John believed that day because of a personal act of revelation.

Sometimes that happens. The truth of God comes into our lives in such a dramatic fashion that we can scarcely deny that we have been in His presence.

How much time does it take to read from Genesis to Revelation? If you would read the Bible at standard pulpit speed (slow enough to be heard and understood) the reading time would be seventy-one hours. If you would break that down into minutes and divide it into 365 days you could read the entire Bible, cover to cover, in only twelve minutes a day. Is this really too much time to spend reading about God?

Let me tell about a man who in my book was a "light for revelation" as Simeon put it. When he was alive his parents called him Billy Frank. His wife called him Bill. His face was drawn by the gravitational pull of years. The wrinkles on his brow betrayed a life of hard work and stress. His legs were weak. So, too, his arms. His hands trembled involuntarily. His voice, once strong, grew tired. He grew old gracefully. For most of his 82 years, this man touched the world by holding before it the Christ of Christmas.

Jesus knows the trembling hands that hold on to him with unflinching tenacity. He recognizes his faithful follower’s tender touch. He understands that the cause for which he came into our fallen world is the cause to which this frail fellow had committed his life. Since embracing the Savior as a teenager, Bill carried in his heart a concern for all kinds of people in all kinds of places. The races of the world have been equally important to him. Ever since graduating from Wheaton College, this North Carolinian walked his talk around the block and across the seas. William Franklin Graham was a living example of what it means to embrace others with the love of God. In Billy Graham we saw a light. A light for all humanity to see the revelation of God in Christ.

Jesus lived three years with his disciples. They went everywhere together and did everything together. They ate, slept, and breathed the life of Jesus and yet it was difficult for them to make the transition in their minds from a Messiah who would be a mighty King of Jews to a Messiah that would die for the sins of mankind. But Jesus never wavered in his mission. Throughout his entire ministry among the people and his training of the disciples he held in his heart this hope: That Peter along with the rest of his disciples would lose their earthly ambitions and become feeders of sheep fishers of men.

The very first words of Jesus when he and Peter met at the waters was, "Follow me, and I will make you a fisher of men." His very last words to Peter, again down at the waters of the Sea of Galilee, and after his resurrection, were, "Feed my sheep, Follow me." From beginning to end this is the mission of the Church.

Alan Paton's novel, Cry, the Beloved Country, is the story of a black South African pastor, Stephen Kumalo, who travels from his small village of Ntodsheni to the city of Johannesburg, to find his son Jonathan. Jonathan had gone to the city to find employment, but while there had gotten involved with the wrong crowd, and when Pastor Kumalo finds his son, Jonathan is in jail for killing a white lawyer named Arthur Jarvis. In an intriguing turn of events, we learn that Arthur had been a leading advocate for the rights of black Africans and had just finished writing a book about the need for justice in that hate-torn nation.

In his grief the pastor goes to the father of Arthur Jarvis, to apologize for his son's crime. The elder Jarvis little agreed with his son's passion for working against the evils of apartheid. But in the aftermath of Arthur's death, the father struggles to make sense of the changes in his son's perspective that had set him on such a markedly different course in life. As a result, the father reads and rereads his son's manuscript. And that seems to explain what enabled the elder Jarvis not to berate or reject Pastor Kumalo, but instead to receive him kindly. In the days and weeks that follow, the elder Jarvis continues to embrace a new perspective, eventually promising to erect a new church building for the congregation Pastor Kumalo serves. Further, the elder Jarvis offers to build a dam for the village of Ntodsheni, so that the people might have year-round access to fresh water.

The very rumor of what is to be done sends a shock wave of hope throughout the village. There will now be water for irrigation. The people will be able to raise cattle. And because there will be abundant food and milk for their families, the young people of the village will no longer have to drift off to the cities to find work. There will be laughter and singing and dancing once again. Nothing had yet happened, and yet the village is transformed, as if the changes have already occurred. Writes Alan Paton, "Although nothing has come yet, something is here already."

The Gospel writers portray John the Baptist as one who raised the hopes of the ancient people of Israel, pointing the way to the coming of the Messiah, the One so much greater than John that the Baptist feels unworthy even to untie his sandals. As the Baptist begins his ministry, nothing has yet happened; and yet, in their anticipation of more yet to come, the people begin to respond as if the long-awaited Messiah were already present.