Some years back, Desmond McCarthy, renowned drama critic for The London Sunday Times, came for his initial visit to America. His New York City host had arranged, naturally, to go to the theater the very same night that he arrived. Coming out after the performance, McCarthy looked for the first time at the dazzling lights of Broadway. He had blinked at them for a few moments without a word, then he turned to his host and said: “Tell me, what do you Americans do when it comes time to celebrate what should be celebrated?” (Donald Shelby, “That’s Holy").

It is an arresting question: What do you do when it comes time to celebrate what should be celebrated?

Peter, James and John had to deal that question: What do you celebrate – how do you keep on celebrating — when is it time for the celebration to end?

It was one of the most spectacular — certainly one of the most dramatic incidents in the life of Jesus. We call it the Transfiguration.

I

Maybe we ought to begin our intensive look at this experience with somewhat of a sidetrack of thought.

Peter suggests that sidetrack. When Moses and Elijah appeared and were talking to Jesus, Peter was so overwhelmed that he said, “Master it is well that we are here; let us make three booths, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah.” (vs 5). Mark felt that he needed to explain why Peter would say something like that so he added this word, in verse 6, “For he did not know what to say.”

One commentator suggests that Peter did not know what to say because he was caught off guard, having been asleep. They were aroused just in time to catch a glimpse of the transfiguration scene, and so, that’s the reason Peter made his irrelevant remarks — he didn’t know what to say.

I’m not sure that’s the reason Peter said what he did. But the word is a very suggestive one: “For he did not know what to say.”

How often do we find ourselves in that kind of predicament. Silence settles over a group, and you think that if someone doesn’t say something, you will scream — so, you say something, and everybody else screams. There are all sorts of times when we grope for something to say. I heard of a minister who returned to a church that he had served to preach an anniversary service. A few years had elapsed, and he was greeting people that he had known. When one woman came to him he said, “Well, hello Mary, how in the world is your husband John?” “Oh, haven’t you heard, John went to heaven.”

“Oh, I’m sorry!” – but that didn’t sound right — to be sorry that John had gone to heaven – so he came back quickly – “I’m glad.”

But that didn’t sound right either. So he said, “I’m surprised.”

How often are we in Peter’s shoes? We don’t know what to say. At times like that, stay quiet. Why do we think we always have to say something?

Simon and Garfunkel did a song called “The Sound of Silence,” mourning a city full of people who talked without speaking, a city full of sounds devoid of meaning. It’s a slicing indictment against our failure to be tuned into another’s world. Yet, I quarrel with that title. At the risk of despoiling poetic license, I think it might be more accurate to call the song “The Silence of Sounds.”

Sometime ago, Together Magazine carried a story of a minister whose wife was afflicted with a terminal illness. The minister tells us that one day as he stepped out of his house, a fellow clergyman was driving by. The clergyman pulled over and asked, “How’s your wife? I hear she’s ill?” Then the minister recalls, “I answered his question courteously and when he felt her could leave, he gave me a professional smile and said, ‘Well, chin up — and knees down.’ That left me churning inside. One of my friends met me for coffee, and as we sat he asked me, ‘Well, how is she?’ I told him. And as the full significance of my words became clear to him, he wept. No glib words. No quoted scripture text, no pious advice – just tears running down his cheeks. I’ve never been so comforted as I was in that moment.”

When we don’t know what to say, maybe it’s best to say nothing - to be quiet, and feel with the other person, enter into the situation of silence with such intentionality and such attentiveness that the Spirit can do the work that only the Spirit can do.

But let’s get back on the main track now as we look at the experience of Peter, James and John with Jesus on the mountain top.

II

As already stated, this was one of the most spectacular and dramatic incidents in the life of Jesus — the Transfiguration. Along with Mark, both Matthew and Luke record this story — and they all record it as an experience of ecstasy.

Jesus was transfigured into a dazzling whiteness and brightness difficult to describe.

How do you explain such a marvelous scene? You don’t! You simply accept it as the eternal God again witnessing to who his Son was.

What a masterful way the story is told. When Peter makes his statement, whether it came out of embarrassment because he had been asleep, or whether one that really expressed the deep desire of his heart — it doesn’t matter — Jesus didn’t answer his request with words.

The scripture says immediately a cloud overshadowed them, and a voice came out of the cloud saying, “This is my beloved Son; listen to Him.”

Do you remember the other occasion when that kind of word came? As Jesus was coming out of the Baptismal water of the Jordan, the dove came and rested upon him and the voice from heaven said much the same thing – “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”

So this was God’s doings God’s powerful witness of the divinity of Jesus, and the fact that God had sent his own son to save us.

“One cannot believe the Bible and doubt the deity of Jesus. Matthew says that when the disciples heard the voice they fell on their faces and were sore afraid, and that Jesus came and touched them and told them to get up and be not afraid, All agree in practically identical words that when they lifted up their eyes they saw Jesus only. Here is the heart of their immediate experience. They needed only a vision of Jesus and the full knowledge of who He was; now they had it. Perhaps the greatest need of those who try to do the Lord’s work today is a vision of Jesus, the glorified Christ.” (Hill, op.cit., p. 93)

The point is two-fold. One, there is a place for ecstasy in our Christian experience. In fact, “we need moments of ecstasy, for we are more than rational beings who think and conceptualize. We’re also who feel and resonate. There are…dimensions of life beyond the obvious which are not reached through logic or reason, but through passion, through awe. We love and are loved; we laugh and we cry; we dream and our imaginations take flight to realms beyond the conscious. We pray and experience God’s presence as a creative urge we cannot explain, as resilience we cannot account for. That is why religion is only real when it feels, when it makes hearts beat faster, when it is a shiver in the soul, a song inside that needs singing, when it is joy and celebration, when it takes us out of ourselves and the beauty of our world is a sacrament and love is large enough for everyone (Donald J. Shelby, “Ecstasy, Agony and Baloney”)

To be sure, those experiences are not everyday affairs — if they were they would cease to be ecstasy - but they come - we need them, we need to order our lives. Our worship should provide at least a hint of that — and we should never apologize for feeling in our experience of the Christian faith. We need to cease boxing ourselves in, quit being so uptight, break out of our rigid, rational, reasonable approach to things, and let God reveal Himself to us. So, that’s the first aspect – there is a place and a need for ecstasy in our Christian experience.

But there’s more than ecstasy here — suggesting a second dimension of truth..

‘What happened to Jesus (on the mountain) is symbolic of what he wants to happen to us on the mountaintops to which he leads us. He wants us to be sure of Him, and sure of ourselves. It can happen when we close out the valley and intently focus on God.

What that means, friends, is that we need mountain experiences to renew the vision our valley experiences have blurred. It’s easy for life to be beaten out of us, isn’t it? In the valleys where we live, forces conspire against us? Our energy is drained by all the demands that are made of us. Even the devil gets to us. Life is tough – always tough in the valley. We tend to forget the vision of the mountain - we tend to lose sight of the calling of the Lord - His touch upon our lives grows dull, so we need the mountain to renew the vision our valley experiences have blurred. We need to seek those mountain experiences in worship every Sunday. There’s no substitute for worship - you can’t live without it. But to seek them in other ways: Retreats, special conferences, Growth groups. I don’t know a more effective model for Mountain Experiences to enable us to line in the valley than the Emmaus Movement – a ministry of our church which has reached over 1000 people in the city. It provides ongoing experiences beyond the peak mountain tip ones to help us live in the valley.

Which leads to our next focus.

III

We can’t stay on the mountain forever. That fact is made dramatic in the way Mark tells the story. I referred to this a moment ago. When Peter made his response expressing his desire to build three tabernacles — one for Moses and one for Elijah and one for Jesus - and expressed that desire to stay on the mountain forever, Jesus didn’t even comment on Peter’s offer. A cloud came and overshadowed them, and the voice of the Father came affirming his beloved Son, and then it was all over, and Peter and James and John looking around saw only Jesus. And no comment is made. The scripture immediately moves in verse 9 to this abrupt word, “And as they were coming down the mountain.” You can’t stay on the mountain forever. If you read the chapter further you find that down in the valley, down below this experience of ecstasy, there was a young fellow, foaming at the mouth, grinding his teeth, having fits of dumbness, going into contortions that would dash him down against the ground. And with that little boy, a father who was almost paralyzed with concern.

That tells the story doesn’t it? The mountain is not enough. Ecstasy is not enough! Someone put it: “Ecstasy without agony is baloney.” That’s a way of saying that religion is real only when it both feels and heals, when the ecstasy becomes the power for coping and enduring, when it provides fidelity in the shadows and struggles of life, when it provides integrity for moral choices, and concerns at the crossroads of human need. (suggested by Don Shelby, “Ecstasy, Agony and Baloney”).

This Jesus who led his 3 disciples down from the mountain into the valley and involved himself with the masses is the one who said, “If anyone would be my disciple, let him take up his cross and follow me.” He’s the one who declared, “Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord - in a moment of ecstasy and inspiration - not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord shall enter the Kingdom but those who live out the will of God. And, this mountain man who never tried to escape the valleys, laid down a measuring scale for us. He said, “By their fruits shall you know them.”

The call of the valley where people toil and sweat and sin and suffer is just as urgent as it was when Jesus walked the earth. Do I need to remind you of that? I think not. But I do need to remind you of one thing. As the call of the valley is just as urgent as it was in Jesus’ day, his power is as adequate for us today as it was in that day. We must not forget the power. There is a tremendous suggestion in verse 8 of our scripture lesson. When the cloud had over shadowed them, and God had spoken out of the cloud saying, “This is my beloved son, listen to Him,” the scripture says, in verse 8, “and suddenly looking around, they no longer saw anyone with them but Jesus only.”

That’s what we need always — to see Jesus only and to know that His grace, His power, His presence is sufficient for us but also for those to whom we would minister in the valley.

Some years ago, Dr. Pierce Harris was the minister of the First Methodist Church in Atlanta, Georgia. I used to go and hear him every chance I got when I a University. He had a gravelly voice that grated your nerves, but you couldn’t help listening to him he was so dynamic in his person and in his message. He was one of the most popular preachers in all America. One day he was invited to preach in a maximum security prison in Georgia.

He was introduced to the inmates in a most unusual way. It was, not by the Warden or the Prison Chaplain or some official dignitary, but rather by one of the inmates right there in the prison! The inmate, in front of his fellow prisoners, said:

“It is such a privilege for me to introduce to you our noted speaker for today, Dr. Pierce Herris from Atlanta. And to do this, I want to tell you a true story. Several years ago, two boys lived in the same community in North Georgia and attended the same school, and played with the same bunch of fellows, and went to the same church and Sunday School. One of them dropped out of church because he felt that he had outgrown it and that it was “sissy stuff”, and the other kept going because he felt that it would really make a difference in his life.” Then this inmate said, “The boy who dropped out is yours truly, the persons making this introduction”. And the boy who kept going is the famous preacher who will speak to us this morning! (story recalled by Norman Neaves, “Getting Ready for a Great Future”).

It makes a difference what we stay focused on, doesn’t it? It makes a difference how we choose to look at things and who we invite to take up residence in our lives

We can always make it in the valley if we can stay focused on Jesus only.