Subscribe
Transfiguration Sunday
January 23, 2008
We are headed to the celebration of Transfiguration Sunday on Feb. 3 and then on to the celebration of Ash Wednesday on Feb. 6. Some of us have our attention focused on the upcoming Super Bowl on Feb. 3 ... and I encourage you to not fuss at your people because they are more excited about that upcoming football game than they are about coming to church to celebrate either Transfiguration Sunday or Ash Wednesday!
I want to encourage you to be so prepared to present a worship experience on Transfiguration Sunday that demonstrates what it is like when God shines his favor on those who love him God and worship him in Spirit and Truth. I want this day to be a day for which you prepare by surrendering yourself to the power of the Holy Spirit -- so that you may experience the presence of God as Peter, James, and John obviously did on that mountain.
You see, every Sunday needs to be packed with power for those who come to worship God. The week has been long ... trials have come ... temptations have been placed in our way to entice us to be unfaithful ... someone denigrated us this week ... and we have had experiences that have tried to change our testimony. We need to see God in the preacher. We need to hear the voices of angels from our choirs. We need ushers to welcome and usher us into the presence of the Lord most high. We need acolytes that carry in the flame of the Spirit and the presence of the Christ. We need Sunday school teachers who teach as if they were the very voice of the Teacher. We need a welcoming face sitting next to us in our pew or chair that says, "I’m glad to be here with you today as we are touched by the hand of God."
And when we leave our worship experience, even if someone says to us, “Tell no one about the vision," we will experience the words of a gospel song: “I said I wasn’t going to tell anyone, but, I just couldn’t keep it to myself.”
And when you go to Ash Wednesday after a worship experience like that on Transfiguration Sunday, no one will have to remind you that “you are dust and to dust you shall return.” No, you won't need the reminder because you will know that what you experienced last Sunday was divine and could have only come from the hand and touch of the Creator. The ashes will remind you of our common beginning and our common destiny. It will remind you that all is in the secure hands of he who loved us so much that he hung, bled, and died for our sins and transgressions. The joy comes when we understand that this was a willful act. That is, God made a choice to send his only son. The Son made the choice to die for these dust-made creations, and the Holy Spirit has made the choice to live within us and empower us to serve and please God.
I
dream of a transformation for the people of our churches that will
demonstrate to a disbelieving world that Jesus is God’s son and the
lover of our souls. I pray that it will be so for you on this
Transfiguration Sunday and on this Ash Wednesday.
Bishop Swanson's "The Call" Column
When life gets complicated
Here is a picture all too familiar to most families. A young boy dismantles a clock. He wants to see what makes it tick, and if possible make it tick again and even better than before. As he tries to reassemble the clock you might hear him say with some frustration, “It’s kind of complicated. There are more pieces left over than I know what to do with.”
While we can laugh at the boy’s frustration and plight, we could make similar statements about our grownup lives. Life has a way of getting complicated. There are more parts to it than we know what to do with.
“The Prince and the Pauper” by Mark Twain is the wonderful tale of a prince who wanted to get away from his complicated life of royalty to live a simple life among the peasants. The prince was soon to discover that regardless of where he lived or in what conditions, life is complicated. There is inside every person a deep desire to escape from the responsibilities and challenges that overwhelm us. It’s like drowning in a sea of demands. Alfred Tennyson writes of the Duke of Wellington:
Foremost captain of his time, Rich in saving common-sense, And, as the greatest only are, In his simplicity sublime.
“As the greatest only are” is correct. The greatest souls often baffle us because they possess what I call “the simplicity of heart.” We find this quality in the one figure who stands head and shoulders above all, Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus understood and committed his life to one principle that helps us navigate the broken pieces of life. This simple carpenter encountered the complexities of life and rose to triumphant heights. The writer of Hebrews reports that Jesus said it this way: “Here I am! I have come to do your will.” It is in seeking to stay focused on God’s will, God’s purpose for us, that we overcome life’s complexities.
I once wrote in one of my old sermons, “Whenever you find well integrated personalities you find individuals with a dominant purpose in life. Whether it is a Napoleon with a purpose for conquest ... a Marcus Garvey with the purpose of saving his people, or a John Wesley with the purpose of evangelizing England and the world, you will find some dominant purpose as the integrating factor.”
Jesus said it this way: “First, seek the kingdom of God and God’s righteousness.” When life gets complicated, try to identify your organizing principle. If the principle isn’t “seek God first,” then I would consider that your life is complicated and confusing because your base is off center.
It is only as we seek to do God’s will that
life makes sense, frustrations disappear, problems become
possibilities, anger gives way to hope, and dead ends become a trail to
success.
