St. John’s United Church

We have not depended on made-up stories
in making known to you the mighty coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
With our own eyes we saw his greatness. (2 Peter 1:16)

The police car pulls up to the curb at the scene of the accident. It happened on a busy downtown street in broad daylight. Nothing serious, mind you - just a fender bender. There are a few people talking and exchanging information - no doubt the participants in this event. Other people are milling around the sidewalk watching what is going on. Nobody seems to be hurt and everything has settled down. All that the officers have to do now is take a few statements for their files and send copies of the accident reports to the insurance companies.

As the officers get out of their car, the scene unfolds before them. There is minivan at the corner in the curb lane. The back bumper is slightly damaged from the rear-end impact. Directly, but not too far behind the van, is an older model pick up. On the side of the truck is painted the words “Bruiser’s Plumbing and Heating”. Its front grill and bumper are completely caved in. It seems that the minivan, with its retractable bumpers, has won the battle this day. The officers move toward the little crowd of people. Those who were involved in the accident take a step forward to await their questioning. One is a middle-aged woman who was driving the minivan. Then there are the two young men who work for Bruisers. They are both in their late 20’s and dressed in working clothes. From the looks of them, they’ve had a busy and a dirty day.

Two officers, two parties to the accident. They make the decision that each officer will interview one of the parties. The female officer takes the woman to the van to take her statement. That leaves the cruiser for the male officer and Bruiser’s Boys. Half an hour later, after the statements are taken, the officers meet in the cruiser to compare notes. “Seems pretty straight forward,” he says. “Sure does,” she replies. “Crazy women driver,” he says. “What are you talking about?” she asks. “Didn’t she tell you? Those guys were sitting behind her at the red light waiting for the light to turn green.” “Yes,” the male officer interrupted, “and she must have had her minivan in ‘park’ while the light was red. Then, as soon as the light turned green, she put it into reverse instead of drive. When she gunned the engine, she ran right back smack into the truck. Those guys didn’t have a chance!” The female officer looks at him incredulously. “If that is what they told you, they must have been on a different planet. Do you want to hear what she said?” “Do tell!” “Well, according to Ms. Minivan, she was stopped at the red light behind another car when she looked into her rearview mirror and saw Bruiser’s Crew coming down on her pretty fast. It seems that they should have been paying more attention to their driving rather than to the scantily clad woman who was walking down the sidewalk. She says that she could hear them whistling and hollering at the poor woman out the window. She laid on the horn but to no avail. By the time the driver of the truck looked up, it was too late. There was the squeal of brakes. Mrs. Minivan couldn’t go anywhere. She just put her head back and waited for the crash. Now, what do you think of that?”

The officers’ job is now a little more complicated than they had thought it was going to be. Who is right? Who is wrong? Or does the truth lie somewhere in between?

The Apostle Peter wrote: “We have not depended on made-up stories in making known to you the mighty coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. With our own eyes we saw his greatness.” Peter went to the mountain with Jesus. And what happened there was of such magnitude that decades after the resurrection, it still was of bedrock importance to Peter’s witness for Christ. We know the story. Elizabeth read us the story: Peter and James and John went with Jesus up to a high place, apart from the others. And while they were there Jesus’ appearance before them changed. They saw him stand with Moses and Elijah. As Matthew describes it, “His face shown like the sun, and his garments became white as light.” It was both amazing and confusing.

A story is told about a brilliant magician was performing on an ocean liner. But every time he did a trick, the Captain’s parrot would yell, “It’s a trick. He’s a phony. That’s not magic.” Then one evening during a storm, the ship sank while the magician was performing. The parrot and the magician ended up in the same lifeboat. For several days they just glared at each other, neither saying a word to the other. Finally the parrot said, “OK, I give up. What did you do with the ship?”

The parrot couldn’t explain that last trick! It was too much to comprehend, even for a smart parrot. Peter had the same problem. Peter was frightened and he just said the first thing that came to into his head: “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters-one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”

In life, moments occur that are incomprehensible. The birth of one’s own child is one of those moments. The loss of a loved one is one of those moments. Raging forest fires and devastating tsumanis are such moments. There are mountaintop and valley moments throughout life. We are never ready for them. They arrive unannounced changing us in irreversible ways. But there is one thing they all have in common. They demand that we be silent and listen, and learn from them. Unfortunately, our response is often like that of Peter, babbling absurdities because we cannot understand the significance or the meaning of the moment.

When Peter does finally quit talking nonsense, a cloud appears, envelopes them, and the voice of God gives this instruction to Peter, James, and John: “This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to Him!” It was a moment of divine clarification for all eternity, and Peter – along with James and John - was privileged to hear it. No wonder this time on the mountain with Jesus was bedrock for Peter’s witness. He knew that Jesus was the glorified Son of God because he had seen it with his own eyes. He had witnessed the Transfiguration of Christ on the holy mountain. He didn’t have to depend upon made-up stories. He knew that it was true and he was going to testify to that truth. For he, along with his two friends, had caught a glimpse of the Resurrection and the Kingdom of God right here on this earth.

The same can be true for you and for me. Mountaintop experiences in our faith journey become those moments of revelation that give us something to hold on to for the rest of our lives. Any experience in which we recognize the Living God can be a transfiguration. It may take place on the summit of a mountain, or as we kneel in prayer on a wooden floor at sea level. It can happen in the midst of a service of worship where God becomes dramatically real to us, and we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that Christ is our Living Lord and Savior.

For our truth is this: Jesus Christ, through the power and presence of the Holy Spirit, continues to be at work in our world today. We may not always know why. We may not know how. We may not be able to explain it in rational or scientific terms. But we still know it to be true. We have seen it with our own eyes. We have seen the greatness of Christ in the transformation of the lives of people who receive him as Lord and Saviour. The truth is that we have seen God - and we will continue to see God - at work in many places.

It is Thursday afternoon at the food bank. The volunteers are ready. The shelves are stocked. Clients are beginning to line up outside the door. Over the course of the afternoon, twenty or thirty people might come through the doors, all of them looking for a food order which will help them make ends meet. You might ask, “Why do these volunteers give up their time to bag groceries for other people?” They are there for all sorts of different reasons but the truth for all of them is that they care about other people. Their willingness to give of themselves without reward testifies to the truth that God is at work in the lives of these people.

I have seen God at work in a family gathered together in the funeral home. It’s 1:30 in the afternoon; they’ve left themselves half an hour to view Grandma’s body. She was the family matron and will be sorely missed. As the family members look into the casket, memories come to each of them. But the thing that they remember most is Grandma’s faith. She was a faithful Christian and she passed on that faith to her family. Her quiet example of faith now gives them comfort. In seeing her live and watching her die, the family knows that her testimony was true. God is at work. We see it in the peace and hope of this family that testifies to the truth that God is at work in the lives of these people.

I have seen the truth testified in a father and his son sitting together in a room. It is the first time in years that they have been together. They had been at odds when he was growing up, fighting with words and, sometimes, with fists. It has not been a good relationship. In fact, the boy ran away from home while still in his mid-teens to wander and roam. His journey had taken him to many places - in fact, to many countries around the world. He had finally found that for which he was looking in a hostel in Germany run by the Roman Catholic Church. There, a priest had taken an interest in him. They had talked for hours about life and about faith. The young man had shared his feelings of anger that he harboured towards his father. The priest had told him of another Father, a heavenly Father, who is everything a father ought to be. In this Father, in God, the young man had found forgiveness and reconciliation. In doing so, he had also found the ability to forgive and to be reconciled to others. And so, years after leaving home, he sits, once again, with his earthly father believing that they can mend their broken relationship. His presence in this room testifies to the truth that God is at work in the lives of these people.

But what is the truth about the accident? Let’s go back to the scene of the fender bender. Whose fault was it? The male officer gets out to see if there were any witnesses and to have a look at the vehicles one more time. The other officer sits in the cruiser doing some paper work, when she hears a call come over the radio. It seems that a woman has just called in to complain that she was being harassed by two men making some rather rude comments at her out the window of a pick-up from Bruiser’s Plumbing and Heating. The officer looks at the two men still standing on the sidewalk near their truck. Now, at least, she knows the truth. Bruiser’s Crew was at fault. Returning from his walk around the vehicles, the other officer leans in the window and says: “Well, at least we know now how it happened.” She looks at him: “You heard the call on the radio, did you?” “No. What are you talking about?” he asks. “I was just over at the minivan. It must have stalled when it hit the truck. It’s still in reverse.”

Like the things of faith, we still can’t explain exactly how the accident happened. We just know that it did. We don’t always know how God is at work - or why - but with our eyes, we can see that God is, indeed, transforming the lives of people. Our experiences testify to the truth that God is at work.

We have not depended on made-up stories
in making known to you the mighty coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
With our own eyes we saw his greatness.

And for that we say, “Thanks be to God!” Amen and Amen.

Acknowledgements: Kim Gilliland; Brett Blair; Frank Luchsinger; Robert Beringer

A meditation preached by the Rev. Myra Garvin at St. John’s United Church, Brockville
February 6, 2005 – Last Sunday after Epiphany – Transfiguration A