Turning Points

We are at a turning point. We are certainly at a turning point in the liturgical year. We are completing the first great cycle of the Christian year, the Advent-Christmas-Epiphany cycle, which begins in December as we contemplate Jesus’ second coming, continues through the twelve days of Christmas tide, and culminates in the glimpses we get of Jesus’ true identity during the weeks of Epiphany tide. This coming week we will enter the second great cycle of the Christian year, the Lent-Easter-Pentecost cycle, during which we will walk with Jesus to Jerusalem, experience both his death and rising to life again, and give thanks to God for the gift of the Holy Spirit. Finally, during the long season of Pentecost, which stretches from early June through early December, we will grow and mature in our faith.

We’re also at a turning point in our contemplation of Jesus’ story. Although we’ve heard the story somewhat out of sequence, we celebrated the events surrounding Jesus’ birth, and we were with him and his family as old Simeon and Anna recognized him as God’s anointed one. When he emerged from his years of obscurity we were with him at his baptism. We heard him call Peter, Andrew, James, and John out of their lives as fishermen into new lives as his apprentices. We’ve heard portions of his sermons and teachings as the evangelist wove them together. When Jesus asked Peter, “But who do you say that I am?” perhaps we weren’t shocked when Peter blurted out, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” But then, when Peter tried to dissuade Jesus from mentioning the Cross, perhaps we were stunned as Jesus rebuked Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block ….”

Now the story changes direction. After today, Jesus will turn his face toward Jerusalem. He has already mentioned the Cross and rebuked Peter for trying to dissuade him from going to Jerusalem. From here he will set his face toward the holy city, toward his triumphal entrance into the city, his last meal with his friends, his agony in the garden of Gethsemane, his trial before the Jewish and Roman leaders, and his execution as a criminal.

At this turning point in the story, three of Jesus’ apprentices follow him up a mountain. There they have a great vision, and they see him as he truly is. Once they knew him as a man just like themselves. Now they see him in all his glory. Now the disciples know that they were right to leave all they most loved to follow Jesus. Now they understand that Jesus is the fulfillment of all the old prophecies, and that to be like him is the goal of all the myriad laws that make up God’s covenant with the Jews. Now they hear that he is both God’s beloved and their own guiding star. Did they also have a foretaste of the true end of the story? Did they sense in their vision of Jesus that the story would not end with Jesus’ death on the Cross? Did they get an inkling of the possibility that in his second coming Jesus would look as he did then? Whatever they sensed, they tried to capture the moment of their great vision. But Jesus was way ahead of them. “Can’t be done,” he said. “Get up. We need to go back down. We need to face what awaits us down there. Just don’t tell anyone what you experienced up here until the whole story has played out, and you truly understand what you saw today.”

The gospels of Mark, Matthew, and Luke all relate Peter, James, and John’s great vision at the turning point of the story. Yet no one knows for sure what really happened. We only know that somehow the vision confirmed Peter’s confession. Perhaps Peter, James, and John told the rest of Jesus’ closest friends. Perhaps knowledge of that vision, even if they had no clue what really happened, sustained them through the walk to Jerusalem and the dark days of Jesus’ execution.

Ultimately, though, no one can really talk about a vision like the one the disciples had. No one can really understand them or fix them in stone. There are truly experiences of God’s presence, whether in visions or in worship, that elude our understanding, and that we simply cannot express in words, or even pictures. Barbara Brown Taylor relates a story told by the physicist Niels Bohr.1 It seems that a young rabbinical student heard three lectures by a famous rabbi. He related to his friends that, “The first talk was brilliant, clear and simple. I understood every word. The second was even better, deep and subtle. I didn’t understand much, but the rabbi understood it all. The third was by far the finest, a great and unforgettable experience. I understood nothing, and the rabbi didn’t understand much either.” God’s presence is inexpressible; God literally takes our words away.

Jesus’ first followers were certainly not the only ones who had great visions. The Desert Fathers and Mothers had visions after they left Alexandria and the other cities behind for the solitude of monastic communities. Francis of Assisi had a vision of Jesus in the Church of San Damiano, in which Jesus commanded him to rebuild his church. As Julian of Norwich lay mortally ill she had visions of Jesus’ Passion, of the Trinity, and of God as our great lover. She spent the next twenty years of her life reflecting on her visions and attempting to express their depth and meaning for her. Martin Luther King, Jr., had his own mountain top vision, foreseeing, ahead of his time, the possibility of racial equality and justice in this country.

Many of us have also had such numinous experiences. Perhaps you felt God’s presence as you walked deep into a forest, or as you stood on a cliff looking out at the miles and miles of rocks and boulders below you. Perhaps you had a vision of Jesus as you sat in a quiet church, meditating on the stained glass windows or humming a familiar hymn. Perhaps you felt yourself drawn into the mystery of the Eucharist and knew yourself sitting at that long-ago table with Jesus and his friends. Perhaps you heard God speaking to you in the silence of your own prayer. Perhaps a psalm phrase leapt out at you as you read one of the daily offices. Perhaps a reading from Scripture caught you off guard, and you knew yourself directly addressed by God. All of sudden, you found yourself in a “thin place,” where the veil that separates us from the divine was suddenly lifted, where the cloud that conceals God’s reality was momentarily parted.

When we have such experiences, we too try to capture the moment. We may want to photograph the wonderful natural scene. We may want to journal about what we experienced in the church, in worship, or in prayer. We may want to use the psalm as a talisman, repeating it whenever we need assurance of God’s reality. Ultimately, Jesus says the same thing to us that he said to his friends. “Can’t be done,” he reminds us. “Get up. We need to go back down. We need to face what awaits us down there.”

And the reason is this: God gives us mountain-top experiences – or quiet pew experiences – so that we can be transformed. After we have had a vision of God’s reality we see the world and ourselves differently. You cannot go along doing the same old same old once you have glimpsed the nearness of God’s kingdom. When you have glimpsed Jesus’ true identity, your faith and confidence are deeper, and you have deeper trust in your ability to face whatever it is you must face.

Scottish writer Tom Gordon tells the story of a performance of Handel’s “Messiah” that almost didn’t happen. Everything that could go wrong did. Coming home after rehearsals that seemed to go nowhere, with choir members at odds with each other, Morag felt as if she were on a mountain climb with no end in sight. She needn’t have worried. On the night of the performance, the choir scaled the mountain. The performance was glorious. No one knew quite why. Was it the quality of the paid soloists? Was it the beaming smile of the former director sitting in the very first row? Was it somehow the work of God’s Holy Spirit? After the performance was over, and most of the musicians and singers had left, Morag sat in the dressing room, staring into space. “Not going home?” one of the tenors asked. “I don’t want to go home,” she replied. “I’d like to stay here, to hold on to this feeling for as long as possible. This is too good to let go.” The tenor smiled. “Aye, lass, it was good right enough. But you can’t stay here forever – none of us can. We’ll remember tonight for sure, and we’ll get a buzz out of our memories when we think back. But it’s time to go now. And there’ll always be another year.”2

We are at a turning point, a turning point from life as we knew it to life as Jesus’ friends. What visions of divine reality come to you in this place? When you have felt the nearness of God’s kingdom, will you go back down the mountain to be a healing presence to those around you?

1. From The Luminous Web (Boston: Cowley Publications, 2000), 79, quoted in Synthesis, 27, 3, March 2, 2014.

2. “I Want to Stay,” Welcoming Each Wonder (Glasgow, Wild Goose Publications, 2010), 87-89.