Have you ever had a mountaintop experience? A time when you were away from the hustle and bustle and struggle of daily life and were awed by the fullness of the glory of God? What was that like? Did you want to stay and hold onto it forever?
The mountaintop experience keeps us going. We need the assurance of the glory to carry us through the harsh reality. We know that the next hill Jesus climbs is that of calvary, where God will use powerless love to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat and bring life from death to overcome to powers of the world that defy God.
So we share these mountaintop experiences – that’s what we’re doing in our Lenten devotions written and created by members of our congregation – sharing these moments and encounters with the glory of God that inspire our faithful living.
“This is my son, the beloved, listen to him!”
Today! Right now, this is a time to listen to Christ. To look and listen for how God is at work in our community and how God is calling us to join in that mission. We listen to Christ in scripture, prayer, on council retreats, in song, at the font, at the table, and through one another in community.
A need for other perspectives. Particularly for those of us who, unlike the first followers of Jesus, find ourselves in a place of being on top, not oppressed or persecuted.
Like Peter, we may want the mountaintop moment to last forever, we may want to stop in awe and wonder, but then we miss the best part. Sure, we may avoid the Good Friday crucifixion, but we would also miss out on Easter Resurrection.
So we listen for the voice of Christ in the voices of our neighbors, of our siblings in Christ, especially those who left the mountaintop and re-entered the struggle for justice, righteousness, peace, and love. The perspective of those whose faith carries them through the suffering of life – who know that to follow Jesus means to take up one’s cross, to be met with opposition, who live that experience day in and day out – they reveal to us the shining glory of Christ that helps us through life, that points to the resurrection and reminds us of the paradox of the life-giving cross.
James Cone – Christian faith and hope sustain us in the midst of historical struggle, that hope keeps us from despair and empowers us to continue to struggle for liberation.
“The gospel of Jesus is not a rational concept to be explained in a theory of salvation, but a story about God’s presence in Jesus’ solidarity with the oppressed, which led to his death on the cross. What is redemptive is the faith that God snatches victory out of defeat, life out of death, and hope out of despair.”
― James H. Cone, The Cross and the Lynching Tree
Rev. Lenny Duncan “Dear Church” book we’re studying, kicking off our study this Thursday evening at 6:30PM.
Recounts his love of the church, of the ELCA, of Lutheran theology, and the beauty of God’s grace and the way he was able to encounter God’s love. He also offers us a critical voice that helps us see better who the church is called to be and what we are called to do in light of God’s grace. “Grace is free. But loving the neighbor has a high cost. It may cost us our lives and the very church as we know it… we are armed with a fact that changes it all, the world believes Jesus is dead, and we know he isn’t.”
The songs we have been singing in worship today.
-some of them may be new to you
-some of them may be really familiar, and yet you didn’t know that they came from our brothers and sisters of African descent
All of these Tell us the stories of GOd’s people, point us to a more complete understanding of God, God’s love, the kingdom of God Christ ushers in. They remind us that Christ is alive and at work in the world.
It is this Lenten journey on which we are about to embark, beginning with the gracious ritual of ashes this Wednesday, that reminds us who and whose we are. And it is that identity as a beloved child of God, as simply dust made beautiful and given life, that will carry us our whole life through. When sorrow and suffering come, we have seen God’s glory, we have heard it testified to by witnesses and saints before us, we have had God’s love placed within us, so we cry out knowing God promises to hear God’s people, we seek abundant life knowing that Jesus came so that the world might have life and have it abundantly, we work for justice, show mercy, and all with the humility that we know we are nothing apart from God, we know that life and love triumph over sin, hate, evil, racism, xenophobia, all that would separate us from God and one another, and yes, life and love triumph over the cross, death and the grave.
And so, behold Jesus transfigured in the fullness of the glory of God.
Let this mountaintop experience and the testimonies to God’s glory from perspectives different than your own inspire hope, reveal truth, and affirm you in faith.
From this moment forward, Jesus’ trajectory points to Jerusalem and to the cross. His radical inclusion will be met with ridicule, his insistence on bringing wholeness to a broken creation will be met with opposition by those who would prefer a status quo that gives them power over others, his love for everyone will be met with a plot to get him arrested and killed. Jesus will be pressed to his limits, and it is his faith, his identity as God’s beloved, his trust in God’s ways from which he will gain the strength to act, to move, to continue to offer himself so that the broken world might experience wholeness and that all might have life and have it abundantly.
For us, our identity as the body of Christ, our adoption as God’s beloved children, the faithfulness of Christ, our mountaintop experiences of the fullness of God’s radiant glory, and the trustworthiness of God empower us to
Sing out “We’ve come this far by faith, leaning on the Lord, trusting in his holy word, he’s never failed me yet. Singing ohhhhhhhhh can’t turn ‘round, we’ve come this far by faith.”
Our faith-formed identity equips us to
Enter into this costly life of discipleship that demands of us everything we have and all that we are for the sake of the gospel knowing the glory of God revealed in Christ.
And when fear and opposition and hate and sin and brokenness and suffering come, we know Christ is with us, and we know those things don’t get the last word, and we are freed to live motivated by our faith not our fear, by our trust in God’s faithfulness.
0 Comments