Hey, welcome to the Sunday sit down where it's not Sunday, but
we are sitting down and I'm here with Pastor Grant back after a
few weeks away. And we're looking forward to
going a little deeper into this past week where we explored the
transfiguration from Luke Chapter 9.
And this is like, it's a it's a bit of an odd story in some
ways. I know that like, you know, we
grew up. If you grew up in church, you
would have grown up listening to this story and reading about
this story and learning about this story.
But like when you sit back, it is a little odd.
It is, yeah. Yeah.
Can I just say it's great to be back, though.
Like, it's so much fun to be back.
We've taken too many tries getting this podcast started,
which has been wonderful. Like it's great to be back in
into the regular weekly flow of things, minus a vacation day
yesterday or a holiday for all of us.
But yes, transfiguration, it is a little bit strange, which
oddly didn't mention this explicitly in the sermon.
I think Luke kind of picks up on because he doesn't actually use
the word transfiguration, which I did mention.
So like in Luke's account, as opposed to Matthew and Mark,
when they tell the story, Matthew and Mark both use that
Greek word, which is the, you know, where we get the word
metamorphosis from. So they use the word that's
literally translated. He was transfigured, which does
have this seemingly like like big mysterious, like does he
look like himself kind of questioned behind it?
Like what really does he appear like?
Whereas Luke just says his his his face is closed.
Like everything was shining as bright as lightning, which is
still like really dramatic. But I think I said on Sunday,
like he doesn't shape shift. It's not like he becomes this
completely different person. He just reveals the fullness
like more of who he is right in his being.
Like I, I think we, you know, when we, when we picture Jesus
walking around with the disciples, I assume anyways, for
many of us, like it's easy to picture him walking around as a
human being. But we have this like theology
where we say Jesus is fully human, but he's fully God.
And then when he begins to reveal himself as fully God in
that full glory, power, awe and fear, the disciples are afraid.
We kind of go, yeah, we have a hard time picturing that.
And I think that's OK. You know, I think this is part
of the challenge of holding that theology of Jesus being fully
God and fully man. So we go, OK, I like the fully
human piece. I can picture that.
I can imagine what it looks like for Jesus to walk around.
And then we go, OK, fully God. But these are the moments where
given those glimpses into that full nature.
I wonder if, and I'm just picking up on this as you're
talking there, like I'm now thinking about, you know, Fast
forward, Jesus has died and been raised and, and they're
struggling to recognize him. Like they're, they're like,
they, it's like, it's like, it's him, but it's different, you
know, like he. Walks through walls.
Yeah, like. Beers.
Places. There, there is, there is an
element that that I'm kind of just thinking like, you know,
when, when Jesus is glorified in that way, you know, like it, it
feels like, yeah, something's different in his, in his
appearance to people. Yeah.
Yeah, but I think it is. So, you know, Luke, Luke
definitely describes the events in largely the same way as as
Matthew and as Mark, the two of the other gospel writers.
But he does it in a way that I think does kind of wrestle with
the, yeah, like, you're never gonna believe what happened, but
yeah, this is what happened. And the disciples, too, you
know, at the end. We didn't talk much about this
on Sunday, now through. So we've just come through a
chunk of nine of, of Luke 9 where Jesus tells people to be
silent. And in many instances where
Jesus tells somebody to be silent, they're not here.
Jesus doesn't say, oh, be quiet about this.
Don't tell anybody. They're so struck by awe and
fear, reverence, like the full, like the fullness of this.
They don't tell anybody they're silent almost by choice in this,
in this moment. So I think they're wrestling it
out as well, like what has just happened.
But it it is certainly a, it is a different event than many of
the ones like, I can't remember which commentary I was reading
in actually again today, pushing forward into the next few
passages over the next few weeks.
And one of the commentators writes along those lines, like,
we have better language. We see the healings.
We see these other things happen and they're miraculous.
But, you know, I think maybe it's because human beings are
involved here. It's like the only actor, the
only actor is God, right? Like everybody else is just
standing there witnessing the thing, you know, Jesus having
this conversation with Moses and Elijah, which maybe adds to like
the the mystery of it. It does for me because it it, it
kind of feels like I started thinking about it and I and I
started thinking about felt Star Wars.
And by that I by that I mean, I kind of like picture, like the
end of spoiler alert. If you have not seen the return
of the Jedi, that's the, the episode 6 right.
Return of the Jedi. Anyway, we're like, you know,
like at the very end and like you got like Darth Vader or
like, you know, Anakin, he was like, you know, in like a little
bubble in the they're kind of like, you know, saying hi,
waving away. The same thing happened 1 Obi
Wan Kenobi like. Same thing happens in Happy
Gilmore. Yeah, I wonder if that was
inspired. By for sure.
Absolutely it was, but like you almost kind of like picture
like, OK, how, how are our how is Moses and Elijah present?
In what way are they present? And I know that like in some
ways it doesn't matter, but I think for for, for in some ways
it's, it's, it's important to consider like what was the
nature of this event, right? And I know that, you know, when
you look at like Elijah, Elijah technically is one of the only
other years in the Scripture that doesn't die in the classic
sense. We think of.
We think of Elijah and then Enoch.
And so there was some sense even earlier in Luke 9 that, you
know, that Jesus was sort of the return of Elijah in some way
like that. He was the, the, this prophetic
figure in the same way of Elijah.
And maybe Elijah didn't die somebody, Elijah somehow
returned all these hundreds of years later.
Moses, however, did very clearly die, you know, and and so it's
just, yeah, it's, it's interesting.
It feels it's like it's, it's fascinating, fantastical, a
little a little challenging to grapple with.
Hmm Yeah, yeah, I I don't know how far we wanna go down this
path, but did you find it interesting that yeah, like
Elijah is one of these figures like you've mentioned who, who
doesn't die in the way that we, you know, we we would think of
or describe death. So in second Kings, I just
pulled this up, but it's second Kings 211.
He he's whisked away on on a chariot and it's literally it's
like mid conversation with Elijah.
So he in 10 he's Elijah says you've asked a difficult thing.
Elijah said. Yet if you see me when I am
taken from you, it will be yours.
Otherwise it will not. And then 11 as they were walking
along and talking together, suddenly a chariot of fire and
horses fire fire appeared separated the two of them.
Elijah went up to heaven in a whirlwind.
Elijah saw this and cried out like that's it.
Like mid conversation walking and talking.
Really fantastical. Equally, equally so, yeah.
But, you know, I think in terms of the way Scripture talks about
the interaction between what would what we would describe as
like heaven or the heavens and earth, like we really, you and
I've talked about this, I think on the podcast, like human
beings. I think certainly like 2025,
like we really like good solid delineation, borders,
boundaries. You know, I think we really like
to compartmentalize things. And so we think of, you know,
heaven's the place where we go when we die, uh, completely
spiritual. Spiritual is other, you know, if
we, if we have that even sort of theology or vision of what life
after death looks like, it is very different separated from
this like physical earth. We like to separate what is
physical from what is spiritual. And the scripture doesn't tell
that story. One of where there are these
separated realms of in heaven away up there somewhere like
that's, you know, medieval like, like we gotta work our way long
into the history of Christianity to kind of work our way toward
that level of like separation between heaven and earth.
And so a really good example of it is Isaiah 6 where like Isaiah
sees Jesus. So you get this like vision
Isaiah and says in the year that King Uziah died, I saw the Lord
high and exalted seated on a throne, right.
And so a lot of people talk about, you know, want to
understand that it's like Elijah seeing seeing Jesus pre, you
know, pre incarnation. And I go, OK, like we can talk
about that and debate what does it mean when referring to Lord
here? All of that like, you know, but
there are these moments where figures in the scripture have
these, um, you know, these visions, these experiences,
these moments where like heaven and earth just collapse.
The different like the the distinction between the distance
between just collapse. And you use that language of
thin spaces which which? Where did that come from?
Again, that was. So yeah, like Celtic
Christianity. So the best example of it is
Iona, like the island off Scotland and lots of good
Presbyterian minister got to talk about it, right.
But you know, Scottish heritage we that that's a place that's
described as a thin space, the island of Iona where you can go
and make your way to a building. There is name is gone from my
head but. Yeah.
And so I could imagine, you know, with like these thin
spaces when we think about, you know, not delineating heaven and
earth in the same way that we are prone to doing, and I'm
still very prone to doing. It's, it's like our natural
ingrained bent I think is to is to delineate those things.
And so when we we need that reminder that like, hey, what's
happening here is that is that like there's, there's a little
bit of heaven happening here, you know, and, and I'm just
trying to tease this out a little bit for my own, for my
own brain a little bit even. Yeah, like there's a little bit
of heaven happening here. And so when we think about
having and the potential reuniting of those who came
before us and loved ones, etcetera.
OK, yeah, it could make sense. It makes a lot of sense actually
that that these two significant, two of the most significant
figures in in their in their spiritual heritage have have
turned up for this event. Yeah, yeah, I think so.
And again, like I referenced this, but I didn't, we didn't do
a deep dive into it on Sunday. The like the fact that it is
Moses and Elijah, I think is very like theologically pointed.
It's a very specific, so you have Moses who represents all of
the law of Israel, like Israel's history between the people of
Israel and God as covenant people and all of the law that
was given pointing toward Jesus and Elijah really representing
all of the prophets. So you know, when we hear those
two reference together, essentially what we're saying
is, and what we're seeing here is that all of the law, all of
what we would understand as like Israel's history to this point,
their relationship via the law toward God.
And all of the prophets, all of what they declared to be true
about Israel, about the about the world, about the nations
around Israel, about God, all of it is pointing us toward Jesus.
And so I like, I do think that it's, you know, could it have
been other people? Sure.
Like could Abraham have appeared and Enoch, who you referenced,
right. Or Elijah?
Yeah, maybe. But I think those two are very
specific because what what is being declared in this moment
and witnessed by Peter, James and John is all of their like,
as as Jewish men, like all of their history going, ohhh, this
is this is the fulfillment of that.
This is God declaring who Jesus is and pointing those present
toward all of their hopes and expectations for themselves, for
their people, for the world being fulfilled in Jesus.
And I started wondering, you know, yeah, why not someone like
Abraham, you know, I started wondering, why not a king, you
know, like that. So it's.
But I think you you've highlighted exactly, you know
exactly why it's it's the law and the prophets that Jesus has
come to fulfill the you know, what they what they set out to
do is the culmination is here. Yeah.
Yeah, just like to say one thing.
I think that this moment, it's somewhat unique in the New
Testament, like there are fewer, like when I think about the Old
Testament stories that I even just, like, immediately come to,
like Moses going up, maybe just because, like I did mention it
on Sunday, like Moses going up the mountain to get the 10
commandments. Yeah, asking, right, people
asking to see God's face, like the glory of God, you go.
I mean, Moses had a ton of them. The burning Bush's.
Yeah, right. Like these, these encounters
with God. So that one specifically where
Moses is told where he speaks with God and the burning Bush,
he's told to take off his sandals, like take off because
the ground he's standing on his holy.
So we get a lot of these moments throughout the Old Testament and
it's a fairly natural way of talking about human like God
meeting with human beings. You have the tent of the
presence through the wanderings in the wilderness.
Where was it was expected, like it was known God would show up
there. And then we get the New
Testament and so much of it is focused on Jesus and the work
that Jesus is doing incarnation. It's almost like the entire
story of Jesus, like those those years of his ministry that are
told in the gospels. All of them are that same level
of moment. And yet we still get this like
this one feels like a little heightened.
We kind of get used to like, oh, Jesus is walking around with
you, man, like God's physically present and it just becomes a
little bit like mundane. And then we have this moment.
We're like, Oh no, but really like the whole whole of the
whole of Jesus ministry is one of these moments where like
God's physically here, like in this miraculous and very
grounded way. But I think that this moment,
this mountain top experience is just like it really is just
trying to hammer that point home that this is gad come, doesn't
need a 10th of presence, doesn't need a temple, doesn't need a
burning Bush, doesn't need it like like God is here in this
person. And even though didn't need a
tent, they, they, they, they seemed to want the disciples
seemed to want tents Like it's, it's good that we're here.
Let's, let's set up some tents. Let's let's hang out here a
while, which, you know, kind of is a, is a natural segue into
one of the other thoughts that arose for me, which was some of
what you were talking about when it comes to limiting and
containing God and, and even even moments, You know, I think
it's like, it's natural for us and, and for me as as a, as a
human being, that when we're experiencing a good thing, like
this is a good, this is really amazing.
Like I, I'm here with, with my rabbi, who I've just recently
learned is like the Messiah. And I'm here now with these, you
know, these heroes of the faith that I grew up learning about.
Like this is this is pretty full on, you know, how can we, how
could we hang out here a while like that?
That feels very, very normal, right?
And yet it's obviously not what Jesus had intended for that
moment. And, and we can, you know, we
can look at the example of particularly Peter, as you, as
you pointed out, of our, of our tendency to, to cling to, to
cling to and limit and contain God.
And I'm thinking about that for our lives.
You know, I, I, I'm, I've been thinking on that a little bit.
Would love to get into that a bit.
And also as a church, how we do that as a church, as as churches
across the world really, you know, I think specifically for
us, but it's good for us to consider very specific
implications. But I don't know, like, I don't
know where you want to go with that.
But I'm, I'm just been thinking on that a little bit, yeah.
Yeah, so like I think there's a way of talking about Peter's
reaction. Like Peter's reaction is very,
This is why I love Peter. Like it is the human reaction.
Like it's so Peter gets beaten up on a lot, but mostly because
I go, oh, yes, I would react the same way, right.
You can very easily find yourself there.
And so I think like we're gonna see from here through to the end
of Chapter 9 really is, I think, I think Fred Craddock calls it
like snapshots of the not yet ready disciples or something.
So we really start to see like the disciples begin to struggle
and wrestle out what what this means for Jesus to be who he
says he is. This is his predicted his death
once he's going to predict his death again, like in for us what
will be a couple of weeks. But you know, before the end of
the chapter, I believe it's once more in.
Yeah, it's, it's once more in Chapter 9.
So, you know, I, I really do think that they're, they're
coming to terms with what it means for Jesus to be the
Messiah in a way that is not what they expected.
Yeah. So you know they are there.
I can picture the tension of being so right, being like we
were waiting for a Messiah for generations and he's here.
Like the Messiah is here. We were right, but we were so
wrong about what that would look like and what it meant for them,
what it meant for Jesus for it to be like the, the, this
beautiful tension. We're going to see this
beautiful tension between power and powerlessness, like pure,
that power of God who created the heavens and the earth and
powerlessness of one who dies on a cross.
And they're starting to wrestle this out because Jesus has said,
Hey, this is who I am. He's shown it over and over
again. Now he's declared, I've gotta
die. And so I can picture Peter
going, what if? What if you don't have to?
Yeah. Like, like, this is a pretty
good moment. Why can't we hold on to this?
Even if it means, like, even if you do have to die, let's stay
here as absolutely as long as possible.
And you're like, so I can see that.
Just the tension between what Peter wants and what God wants.
And feels like it's like directly, I know it's like it's
eight days after Jesus has talked about this.
So it kind of feels like this is fresh off the heels of, of, of
this massive revelation of who Jesus is.
Yeah. And, and, and their, their
declaration of who Jesus is. And, and now they're, they're
like, oh, well, that if there's a way to stop that, if we yeah,
yeah. Or delay or yeah, yeah.
So I think, I think Peter, I think on the one hand, Peter is
afraid of the future. So he's fearing what will be and
he's idolizing what was, you know, I think, you know, one of
the easiest to the point of your question, one of the easiest
ways that we fall into the same trap as a church.
And I'll just say this as the pastor of a church, right?
We can fear the future and what is unknown, and we can fear
following Jesus into what is unknown.
And like, even now I'm going like me and my girls love
watching Frozen and like the there's a song, like I know
that's exactly it. Then we can also idolize the
past. Yeah.
And I think we're particularly good at doing both of those
things as churches still. Yeah.
That when we think about. So one of the East simplest ways
I hear this is we shouldn't, we couldn't do that.
Why? Well, why be?
Well, because we tried that in 1875 and it didn't work.
And I remember I was there like that type of and like,
obviously, like nobody, you know, nobody still around from
1875, but. And I chose a date that was
before our church was actually planted.
I did that also did that on purpose.
But like, you know, we get into that mindset of yeah, either
either the past is this idol of perfection.
And like, I remember when the Sunday school had 150 kids and
like there weren't even 150 adults in the like, there were
like, like, but you get into that mindset of the past was all
things successful and it was easy.
And we are bursting at the seams and we had every sort of age
group filled and we're struggling now.
So you idolize what was like, we got to get back to that.
And So what we got to do those same things because, well, what
worked then should work, but it doesn't work that way.
What what gets you here is not gonna get you there.
And what got them anyway? So we we idolize what was either
by, you know, by saying that, yeah, we tried that once and it
failed, we should never try it again, or by just assuming this
like rose coloured glasses. The past was perfect and we
gotta get back to it. And I think we struggle with
fearing the future and what is unknown and the what ifs and the
what if we do something and everybody leaves?
Or what if this is the Sunday that nobody shows up?
Or what if they like, you know, so we, we live in this kind of
perpetual, um, limbo almost of, you know, we can't go back and
we're afraid to go forward. So I think that's what Peter
stuck in, in this moment. He's idolizing the past.
He's like, he's using the past to understand what's happening
in the present. And so in doing that, it misses
really some of the point of, of God confirming the way of the
cross for Jesus. So he's like, no, I understand
this. We get it.
Like we can just put it into this box back here and be good
with it. Yeah, and he's doing it because
he's afraid of what is to come, and he's afraid of what, you
know. He kind of knows, doesn't really
know. Jesus said he's gonna die.
Not like, you know, they, there's these moments right
where it says like he's, they still don't understand what's to
come, but eventually they, they do.
And yeah, and you know, after Jesus raised some debt, then
they understood. So like there's a lot of unknown
and uncertainty for the disciples in there, like
immediate future right now. So I think we do that as a
church. We, like I said, we idolize the
past. We fear the future.
I think as individuals we do it as well because we're also
afraid of what God might do. And I think that's like a
perpetual hustling that we have is just this tendency to, you
know, I might not like where I am, but at least I know, like,
what's this saying? Like better the devil you know.
Yeah, right. I don't know.
I think we kind of get stuck in that, like, uncomfortable.
I don't wanna be uncomfortable. If change makes me
uncomfortable, I'll choose to stay here.
Yeah. So we don't like the discomfort
that comes with change. We don't like the discomfort
with that comes with God doing something significant.
And so we we like to stay kind of exactly where we are.
Hmm, yeah. I mean, the the same can be true
of individuals as as is of the church as a whole.
We can long for days that were and kind of regret and bemoan
and miss and but I think probably more so as individuals,
we fear the the discomfort of God actually doing the thing
that we really long and need him to do.
Because like it means that there's gonna have to be, you
know, there is change and, and it's going to often going to be
hard change and uncomfortable change.
And all of those things will lead us to wanting to either,
you know, just put a little, put it, let's put that.
Let's just put it, put a dent on it.
Yeah, yeah, Let's just stay here now.
We're good, we're good. And I am also thinking about,
you know, like just real, you know, in real time here.
It's the first week of September 2025.
It's actually our churches 45th anniversary as a church.
And I'm and I'm thinking about that.
It's, you know, it's it's not 50, but it's, you know, it's a
milestone. It's and and I am aware.
And this is like a good for just us to Mull over as as a church.
I am aware that as a church kind of creeps toward sort of that
that 50. You know, churches early on in
their lifespan for the first number of decades often have
this very entrepreneurial spirit about them, this very sort of
even Apostolic spirit, right? And I think that's very true, of
course, right? Like like when you hear some of
the stories about what God has done over the years and God's
faithfulness through some pretty cool circumstances.
Like there are so many beautiful stories about what, what God has
done and, and, and things that have happened within this
community. But I'm also aware that when you
get to kind of 50 or older, like you can start to
institutionalized and it starts to become, you know, just same
old, same old. What, what you know, what can we
do that we know will work? And sometimes that leads to, you
know, the inevitable decline that we're seeing in lots of
churches around our, you know, around our denomination.
Not to talk about the elephant in the room, but yeah, I don't
know what what are your what are your thoughts on?
That no, I I love that. I think that if, yeah, if
there's one thing from the past for us as a church that I don't
want people to forget and abandon, it is that church
planting boldness that that is the reason for our existence.
Yeah. Like we exist.
We're sitting here in this building which like ironically,
comedically, I don't know, in God's humor, was the building
that we started in when we, like you and I, weren't here.
Not this, Not this we. Weren't even born.
Church we, right, 45 years ago, this church was planted and we
met in the gym in this building, which at that time was a school,
and then grew to a point where like, hey, we need a building
built a building on court right, which is why we're called court,
right. Presbyterian Church outgrew that
building and then bought this building, the original building.
Yeah. I go even just the boldness to
do like you wouldn't you wouldn't write that as a story
like as a plot line. You wouldn't plan that out.
And I go at every moment, man, there were these faithful
followers of Jesus who knew that we wanted felt called for there
to be like a gospel presence in this general area in in our
city. Which was at that point the
South end of. Guelph, the southmost.
End, which is no longer. Yeah, it has gone much further
South. Oh yeah.
And not in a bad way. Like I don't mean that in a bad
way sense of the term. I I just mean literally it is
gone further developed. Further.
So I just want to be very clear. I lived in the South End for
many years so. Wow.
I just like the the right way to honor the past, I think is by
maintaining the same spirit. Yeah, that that those people had
and some still have. Like that's the beauty of like
45 years is some of the original people who planted this church
are still around to tell those stories.
And so I do think that that's the way we honor it, not by
saying, let's you know, we've got a carbon copy everything
that they did, but by saying, like here were people who were
bold because they believed that the gospel needed to reach this
neck of the woods, like our area of the city.
And so we're going to hold on to that same mentality and be bold
and take risks because the gospel still needs to reach this
part of the city. And that's like that's the
spirit that that I think our church was launched with.
And that's the spirit that's going to keep it moving in the
right direction. So it's not about less about
systems or about programs or about how do we do the things
that we were doing. It's no how do we pray and trust
and listen and lean into where God is calling us to go and be
and do That's we got to hold on. To and to take take holy risks
yeah, like, and I and I don't like that's why out of the the
qualifier of holy risks because I think that you can take stupid
risks, but but that when we are like, you know, just like God,
it seems like God is leading us toward this.
And we're going to take a leap of faith.
And maybe this is a little crazy, but we're going to do it,
you know, and, and, and I think, you know, I think there are some
things that have been happening and will be happening in the not
too distant sure that are like, yeah, this is a leap of faith,
you know, like God is God is calling us to something and it's
not always going to be comfortable.
It's going to be challenging, right?
And and so I'm excited about it, but I'm also someone who tends
to love change. Like an early adopter.
Sometimes OK yeah yeah like when it come when it comes to like
starting something yeah starting something new yeah, I I love to
be a part of that, you know, but I recognize and this is like the
the, you know, the tension of of pastoral ministry is that we we
got to help people on the train, right.
We gotta we gotta help the Peters of the world who are
like, no, let's build a tent and stay where we are.
Let's be comfortable, right, to to help people like Peter that
are, that are in our midst, who are, you know, just as important
to the life of our church. How do we how we help them along
the way? Like we're all on the train
together. Some of us are maybe on the
front end, like looking out the window ready to go.
Several others of us are maybe at the back being like, I don't
want to, I don't know. Where we're going, but the
trains leaving the station, Yeah, I think that's the point,
right? And like, I had a mentor friend
of my who who died. Like that's the line he would
use. Like, hey, we would love to have
you on the train, but the train is leaving the station.
And I think that's like, that's the this moment for Peter here
is it's a moment of recognizing, OK, God's got this plan.
And I can't see all of it. And I certainly can't tell you
exactly where it ends, but it's this moment of all right, God's
the one who's who's driving this thing.
And you know, I guess we're along for the ride.
Like that is kind of this moment for him where he's, he's
wrestling out that tension of wanting to wanting to have a
plan and know it, to understand it fully, and also wanting to
trust God and God's plan and figure it out.
So I think the the main, one of the main things too that they
all have to wrestle with is the fact that like so Jesus has
declared that he's, you know, that that he's the Son of man,
which is like so messianic language.
He has declared that he needs to die and that he will be raised
again, like redemption, resurrections, not like that
wasn't a common thing, common language.
So certainly really new, but they, the disciples don't know
the entirety of it at this point.
Yeah. And so I think they're wrestling
out what you and I, what all of us still continue to wrestle
out, which is, you know, we we see only the pieces that God
unfolds before us to see, like we see what God allows us to
see. And he's writing this big
picture for us. Even just think of our church,
he's writing this big picture for us and we get to see the
pieces that he's unlike revealing to us.
Hmm. It's our job to pray and like I
would like to pray and fast and place ourselves together in in a
position where we can, as he reveals it, we like where we can
see it, where we're ready to grab ahold of it and go and
move. Take the next.
Step and yeah, do the thing, but it's only the next step and we
might not know the 3rd to next step, right?
We might know one, but that's the constant challenge for the
disciples is like they're called to take the next step without
knowing 10 steps down the line, and we're called to take the
next step without knowing 10 steps down the line.
We see what God allows us to see.
It's our job to position ourselves to be ready to receive
it. Trust that it is God's calling
and leading and then go and do it.
Not like human hair and make a committee and try to decide
like, is this God or not? Like we got to be ready to to do
the thing, but that's it. We don't need to know like 3
days after Jesus's death, he's going to rise again.
Like the disciples are going to wrestle all of that out, and
then it's going to happen, and then they will look back and
they'll tell it as good news. Yeah, but they've got to be
ready. We need to wrestle it out and we
need to position ourselves to be ready as well.
Yeah, I, I think it's in Psalm 119.
This is that kind of the famous line, you know, thy word is a
lamp unto my feet. And, and like a number of years
ago, I really thought about like that image that's there is that
it's, you know, they didn't have flashlights back in back in
those days. But the difference between a
lamp and a flashlight, right? You know, if you have like a, a
really bright, you know, one of those like, you know, like
police officer flashlights, they can see like hundreds of
hundreds of meters away, right? Versus a lamp, which in the dark
of night allows you to see maybe a step or two ahead of you so
that you're not going to like step on something or fall into a
pit or whatever. Right.
And, and I've often thought about our walk in that same way
of, of like God shows us just enough to take the next couple
steps. And the, the, the rest of it
future facing is, is faith. And it's.
Yeah. Yeah, it's a great analogy.
And also, just like I think good to say, hard to live out.
Hard to live out. Yes.
Yeah, Yeah. Any other thoughts on this
passage? Anything you didn't get to say
on Sunday that you want to say no?
Probably a lot we're going to pick up.
So just to say like the transfiguration passage ends in
36 verse 36 and then in 37 is like immediately the next day
when they came down from the mountain.
So I think the, the one thing that I would say in preparation
for that is we all know that mountaintop experiences do end,
hmm. And in many ways, like need to
end and we need to come back down the mountain and, um, we
need to, you know, call it re enter real life or whatever
language you would use to describe that moment.
And I think the beauty of this mountaintop experience, Jesus is
mountain top experience is that it's I quoted Fred Craddock when
when I was talking about this is it's not this beautiful,
picturesque, calm, peaceful, sit by the quiet lake like, you
know, happy, whatever moment it, it is filled with conversation
about the most real life thing you could imagine, right.
And that's Jesus death like the realest, rawest, most painful
piece about life. That's the mountaintop
experience. And I think what the what Luke
wants us to see. I think what God is doing in
this moment is like this is the this is, this is, this is Jesus
descending the mountain. This is God descending the
mountain. To lift humanity up, right.
So like, we, we talk about not some people, not we, we don't, I
don't talk about this, but you know, some people talk about
religion as this like ascent up a mountain.
And I think the weakest argument or the weakest, like example is
like, well, every different religion is just a different
side going up the same mountain. And I go like, why does
Christianity still in my mind? Like why is it still such a
powerful example of a religion that is so different from any
other? And I can't remember.
This is not like I I was not the person to come up with this.
I've heard other people say it, and it's because for once,
religion isn't about humanity ascending a mountain in an
attempts to find God. It's about God descending the
mountain to lift humanity up. Yeah.
And like this is that moment and Christianity where like Jesus
goes up the mountain, God's presence is there and they
discuss his death and then he descends to do it, like to
actually accomplish what he set out to accomplish, to die, to be
raised to new life and to lift humanity up out of the mess,
like out of sin and to redeem and to restore.
So it's no longer like think about like Peter, James and
John. I'm like these dudes last human
beings to ascend a mountain to meet with God.
Like from here on out, it's like it's all about God descending
the mountain and being with humanity.
And so that's what we're going next week is like the descent
and what that means and what immediately starts to happen.
But I just think it's such a hopeful image of, you know,
Christianity is just absolutely not the ascent of mind, ascent
of intellect, ascent of effort or will.
It is God's intentional dissent. I love.
That and Like this captures that beautifully.
That's so good. Well, that sounds like a really
good place to to close out. I agree.
So we are back kind of it's now the fall season, we're back in
the swing of things. And so we're excited to continue
on in Luke and we will do that September moving forward.
If you have any questions, if you something comes to mind from
today or from Sunday, you can send it to
questions@courtrightchurch.org. And we usually check that before
you record just to make sure that if if someone has sent
something that we can do our best to include it in our in our
discussion. But other than that, we hope you
have a fantastic week and we'll see you next time.