Jim Gill                                                                                               March 18, 2007                                         “Canyon Bottom”                                                 Luke 9:26-37 INTRODUCTION Our Scripture lesson for the day from the Gospel of Luke describes something that has only happened once and has never happened since.  The passage has come to be called  “The Transfiguration.”   Something similar happened with Moses when he came down off the mountain after receiving the 10 commandments (and subsequently the other 603.)  Exodus says that Moses face “glowed.”  It glowed to the extent that the people begged him to put a bag over his head so they wouldn’t have to be blinded by the glow.  Something almost as spectacular happened with Elijah when he left this earth in the original chariot of fire.  But what we are going to read about this morning that happened to Jesus outshines both of those experiences.  And it involves both Moses and Elijah. It’s what we have come to call, ‘The Transfiguration.” And it happens on a mountain top.  Hear the word of the Lord, the gospel of our Lord from Luke 9:26-37. ****************** Let us pray: Lord, thank you for this your word.  Give us minds to comprehend the incomprehensible.  Give us eyes to see, ears to hear, and spirits to fathom the meaning of this portion of your word for us this morning. Give us willing hands and feet to move in response to what we learn.  In Jesus name we pray. Amen. ***** This week one of John Denver’s songs was made the 2nd official state song of Colorado.  I’ll give you a hint. It wasn’t Annie’s Song, that’s my state song, the holy state of matrimony.  No, it was Rocky Mountain High.  As I heard on my other favorite Saturday Radio Show, “Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me,” there was some consternation about the word “high,” especially the part about, friends around the campfire and everybody’s high,” but in the end it was decided that it was a natural high engendered by the height of the mountain and not to substances consumed once on top. One day Jesus took  Peter, James, and John, his three closest friends, his three amigos mountain climbing. There wasn’t a campfire, but what they saw must have made them think they were high on something. They fell asleep, of course.  Every time Jesus goes off to pray they fall asleep.  They fell asleep, but when they woke they saw Jesus glowing and talking with two long dead heroes of their faith—Moses and Elijah!  Rocky Mountain High in Judea!   While Jesus was praying he was transfigured. The appearance of his countenance was altered, and his raiment became dazzling white.  Shine Jesus Shine!  In 1960’s parlance, “It was mind-blowing.”  First of all there was this blinding light.  Second there was Moses and Elijah!  According to tradition Elijah never died he just was taken to heaven by fiery chariots.  But Moses died!  He was buried!  Now here he is with Elijah talking to Jesus!  More than any two figures in the Old Testament Moses and Elijah represent the Law and the Prophets.  Indeed, when Jews refer to the Old Testament they call it, “The Law and the Prophets.”  Moses and Elijah appearing with Jesus says that the anticipated Messiah is fulfilled in Jesus. As Moses had led the Israelites out of Egypt to form a new nation, Jesus was to lead his followers into a new kingdom. As Elijah had confronted the evil prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel, Jesus was to conquer sin on Mount Calvary. Peter is so overwhelmed by what he has seen he wants to perpetuate this marvelous moment by building three altars. Those of us reading through the Bible in 90 Days know how much and how often they liked to build altars.  Any time anything significant happened they built an altar and named the place something. But Jesus refused the offer. As if all this wasn’t enough a cloud settles over this group of six and like at his baptism Jesus receives the confirmation from his heavenly Father. Out of the cloud comes a voice saying, “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to Him!”  The three amigos rubbed their eyes and Moses and Elijah disappeared, leaving only Jesus. The old is ended. The new has come.  The three amigos kept quiet about this and told no one.  No one wouldn’t have believed them anyway. What a mountain top experience that was!  But Jesus refused Peter’s offer to build three altars and stay on the mountain top.  Eventually everyone must come down from that mountaintop to live in a world which nevertheless continues to be full of sickness, pain and suffering.  What goes up…..must come down. So it is significant for us to consider what Jesus did when he came down from the mountaintop. The mountaintop was an experience that was a tremendous encouragement to Jesus.  To talk with Moses and Elijah…to hear his Father’s voice again, encouraged him that he was on the right path. For his three amigos to see it encouraged them also.   But the purpose of encouragement is not to just be encouraged.  The purpose of encouragement is to receive the courage to do what you need to do.  Jesus was encouraged so he could go down the mountain and into Jerusalem for the week WE call ‘holy.”    Verses 37-43 tell us that coming down the mountain Jesus encounters a great crowd. A father of a boy who is troubled with epilepsy cries to Jesus to heal his beloved only child of this cursed affliction. Jesus then is immediately confronted with the problems and challenges of the real world. He must shift gears quickly - after communing with God in peace and glory, our Lord must now deal with what Luke describes as a demon.  Jesus has to go from a Rocky Mountain High to a Crowded Valley Low. There is much more to this passage than simply the healing of a boy with epilepsy. This dramatic confrontation between Jesus and what is called an "unclean spirit" enables us to become aware of the deep and pervasive power of evil which permeates the world we live in. We find that evil, which is contrary to the will of God, in the daily struggles of our lives. The reality of evil and the results of living in a fallen world are among us almost everywhere we look. Humanity's inhumanity to individuals and groups of people has a long and sordid history. Ever since Cain murdered Abel, we have experienced evil spirits working deep within the human soul as people destroy one another. We may not understand the violence which is the result of hatred and bitterness, but we feel at the very least that we can explain crimes which philosophers categorize as moral evil, that is, evil that is caused by one person's cruelty towards another human being, or one group of people towards other groups of people or one nation of people towards another nation of people or other nations of people.  What can we say of the evil that manifests itself as undeserved illness in the lives of so many people whom we know and love? In most cases, disease cannot be categorized as moral evil, that is, evil that is caused by one person's sin towards another human being. What do we say, what do we do, when, as in our Scripture lesson today, a child is afflicted with an incurable disease? The more difficult question is, what does God think, and what does God do in the midst of such terrible and senseless suffering? Theologians and philosophers speak of this issue as the problem of evil. It is for pastors the most difficult question that must be faced in the ministry. As a pastor, I cannot explain to you why some suffer more than others, or why some are healed of their afflictions and others are not. I do believe that some illness is a result of people doing things that are not prescribed by God.  Abusing our bodies by over eating and under exercising, by overworking and under resting, by over indulging in drugs that are not prescribed, can bring illness and resulting pain.  As I’ve been reading through the books of I and II Samuel, Kings and Chronicles I read stores of God’s direct actions to punish those who have rebelled and ignored God’s commands. However, I do not believe that in every case that illness is the result of God punishing people for their sins. There are illnesses and pain that come not as the result of our actions or God’s direct acts to punish those who have strayed.  Sometimes boys are born with epilepsy. I do not think that it is always the case that we feel pain because God is trying to teach us some sort of painful lesson that will bring us into line.  To be sure God can teach us things as we deal with pain.  Remember, scripture also says that those whom God loves he disciplines. In the end, God will be victorious over evil, and all things will work together for good. Furthermore, I believe that our God is a God who suffers with us, that God feels our pain as we feel it.  Remember God chose to redeem us through pain and suffering of God’s only son!  Together, with the spirit of God in our hearts and in our souls, we can make ready to do battle with the evil which plagues our lives and thwarts God's good intentions for us in this world.  Together we can go up the mountain to pray and come down the mountain to serve and love and care for others. I was not with you last week because I was in the bottom of a canyon.  I had a “canyon bottom” experience.  I was in Canyon Camp in Hinton, Oklahoma for Oklahoma Presbyterian Cursillo #37.  Canyon Camp is a United Methodist Campground in the bottom of a geological formation officially known as “Devil’s Canyon.”  Which seems a perfectly great place to put a church camp to me. Let me tell you, you get nervous when it rains and you’re in a canyon.  There’s nowhere lower for the water to go. There’s no drain.  It’s like being in a huge bowl.  When you’re in a canyon, the level ground from which you descended looks like a mountain. Even so, it’s as hard to come back from a canyon bottom experience as it is from a mountain top experience.  There was no campfire, but by the end everybody was high.  Emotions, spirits, souls were high from the weekend we spent sharing communion, singing spiritual songs, hearing moving testimonies and learning how much God loves us.   But then the weekend is over and life back home awaits. There are so many humdrum things like bulletins and letters and articles and sermons to write.  But like Jesus who had a boy needing to be healed in the valley below, I had a minor miracle waiting in the level ground above.  (I love saying minor miracle; it’s like setting up a whole clinic for minor emergencies!)  My minor miracle happened back here in Pearland in the parking lot of Best Buy.  I was taking Abbey’s Ipod to be fixed for the second time.  (You know if you use something 20 hours a day every day they tend to have problems)  In so doing I saw Marie Mullarkey, the owner of My Great Beginnings Learning Center next door where we hold our Sunday morning classes.  We met in the line at the store and continued talking in the parking lot.  As we were talking Marie noticed a man out of the corner of her eye.  He was unshaven and disheveled looking bent over at the waist, wobbling looking at the pavement.  She wondered out loud, “Is He O.K.?”  I am ashamed to confess that my first reaction was that he was a drunk bum at 3:00 in the afternoon in the Best Buy Parking lot looking for a handout.  But he was looking down. Like the Levite who passed by the man on the side of the road in Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan, after a quick glance I was ready to ignore this man.  But I couldn’t ignore the concern in Marie’s eyes.  Together we walked over to the man who was noticeably having difficulty standing there.  I asked, “Sir are you all right?”  The moment he began speaking I recognized the halting speech pattern of a man who had suffered a stroke in the past.  I was ashamed of the conclusion to which my eyes and mind had jumped.  He said, “I dropped a battery….and I can’t see it.”   All three of us began to look, mainly because he was in the lane of traffic and we all wanted him out of there.  Finally the man saw the battery.  He bent down to pick it up, but couldn’t.  I said, ‘”Here let me help.” I bent down and retrieved the prize, handed it to the man and he thanked me with a crooked smile. I went to Devil’s Canyon to recharge my spiritual batteries, but I found that one can even get batteries charged by helping pick one up back home in front of Best Buy.  I said it was a minor miracle.  My face wasn’t glowing.  It wasn’t healing epilepsy.  I hadn’t been speaking with Moses and Elijah.   But I had spent a weekend following God’s instructions to listen to Jesus, who has something to say to me whether I’m on a mountain top or a canyon bottom. …or in front of Best Buy. Let’s pray. Oh Lord, you have an infinite capacity for surprise! There are times when the power of the moment astonishes us and we are able to catch a fleeting glimpse of your glory. We are like Peter. We want to build altars on the mountain.  We do not know what to say, but we say something anyway.  Then there are other times when you seem so far away. We long for mountain top experiences which are altogether too infrequent. We easily grow impatient. We are quick to complain. We question. Teach us to resist the impulse to cling to things which do not finally matter. Help us to remember that you unfold your finest work within the full view of ordinary people who are engaged in ordinary life situations. Increase our faith. Increase our capacity for service, but never let us get so jaded that we can’t be surprised. We pray that you would surprise us with revelations of who you really are.  We pray that you would reveal to us who WE really are, joint heirs with Jesus provided we suffer with him that we may also be glorified with him.  We are your children that you love so much you will not neglect to discipline us.  We are your children that you love so much that you weep when we are weeping and you laugh when we are laughing.  Shine Jesus, Shine.  Fill us with your grace and glory.  Send forth your word and let there be light.