February 15, 2026
Readings & Message
EXODUS 24: 12-18
This morning, we’re dealing with some different mountaintop experiences…one in the New Testament and the passage which you are going to hear in a moment from the Old Testament – Exodus…and here’s the major point which I find in this passage…God reveals God’s Word, speaks God’s proclamation, acts as God wishes when God is ready or when God decides that we are ready…we are not going to get instant God on demand…when a congregation is trying to discern some sort of direction, sometimes we just need to wait…when I try to figure out why in the world God has called me to this place, sometimes I just have to wait…sometimes the discipline is about sitting in a cloud and wondering what is going to come out of that cloud at you…and when… so, patience is an underrated virtue…is it not?...
2 PETER 1: 16-21
And now we come to a letter by Peter which is not often used in the liturgical cycle…Peter, at this time, is the head of the ‘church’ in Jerusalem and this is what I glean from this passage…#1—it is a connection between the Gospel and any of the Epistles in terms of the Transfiguration but more importantly, #2 – it is written to people who don’t believe in the Second Coming…it seems to me that there is some real need for reclamation here for rapture groups or televangelists hammer this day-in and day-out…we need to believe in the Second Coming but we need to make it happen within ourselves as we search and identify the face of Christ in all whom we meet…and when we do this, the kingdom is beginning to unfold once more…
MATTHEW 17: 1-9
There is something in the Gospel passage that I have not noticed very attentively before…God says, “This is my Beloved Son…listen to him!”
And every one of the Gospels has the same words: listen to Him! … if this is God’s anointed One, of course we would listen to him…we would hang on every word…we don’t need to be told to listen….do we?...
Well, I’m thinking that maybe we do…actually, I am thinking that one look at the world would tell us that not only aren’t we listening now, but we also haven’t been listening for the last two millenniums…what would it look like if we listened?...really listened?...what would the world look like?...
“COME WITH ME….UP THE MOUNTAIN”
Come with me….up the mountain…come follow me as we search for something new…something different…something which just might change your life…isn’t that what mountain-top experiences are?...seeing the world differently…getting a whole new perspective on things…but there’s a word which may stop you from joining in with me on this quest…and today on this Transfiguration Sunday I’ve got an emotion to suggest what that word may be…and it’s not joy…it’s fear…that’s right, fear…fear to climb up there with me…a fear that you might encounter something which may be unexplainable…when people encountered Jesus, their predominant emotion was not joy…they felt fear…and the people who were reported as being most afraid of Jesus were his own disciples…they were fearful of him…
When Jesus assists his disciples after a night of fishing failure, and they bring in a miraculous catch of fish, they feel fear…when Jesus calms the water and the winds when he’s out in a boat with them, they feel fear… when the women rush from the tomb and tell them that the tomb is empty, they feel fear…and Jesus continually tells them, “Don’t be afraid.”…there was something about Jesus that tended to make those closest to him scared half out of their wits…and we’re still living in such a society…in fact it’s been called the ‘age of anxiety’…I remember the first Sunday I preached after September the 11th in 2001 (almost 25 years ago) and before the service, there were about 20-30 people worshipping which I had never seen in church before…and if you had asked me that day what emotion do you see on people’s faces, I would have answered, “fear”…and to this day, there are still folks who won’t fly on September 11th, they drive, because of fear…they are afraid…
And the doctor calls you after your yearly examination and says, “There’s a problem…we need to have some more tests…I am concerned about something which I saw on the x-ray”…do you feel a sense of relief or of joy?...no…it’s probably fear…even though your doctor may say to you, “There, there, nothing to be afraid of”…but there’s still a huge lump which develops in your throat…
When an alien, unexpected, and unwanted reality invades your life, disrupts your reality, alters the accustomed flow of things, then there is fear…questions such as, “What will happen in my life?...or…what will tomorrow bring?...maybe even will I get to see my grandchildren when I get older?”….fear…it’s debilitating and it can be unbearable…
And yet, this sort of fear is not the sort of fear which Jesus engenders… this fear in the New Testament passage is the fear that comes, not as a part of the vulnerable human condition and not as an aspect of living in troubled times, but rather fear in the presence of Christ…oh we all say that we want a vision of God or we claim that we want God to speak to us or we want ‘proof’ of the reality and the presence of God but when this presence comes face-to-face with us…we become anxious…and the disciples became quite anxious!...and my understanding of this passage has to do with the insurmountable hurdles that we need to get over when we are called to follow in the footsteps of Christ…it’s not a simple road…in fact it can be quite lonely – quite heartbreaking – and very humbling but the end results will be incredible…
Today I would like to suggest that lots of people avoid church, and we can see this by the empty pews, not because they misunderstand what we are about, but they understand all too well…church is about God…church is about the possibility of a threatening though life-changing encounter with the Risen Christ…church is about seeing God’s way and will in our world, and then having to say “yes” or “no” to walking that way…and knowing this scares a lot of people to death…
But I still invite each of you to come and journey with me up the mountain as we seek the face of the living Christ…I’ll try to not be afraid and I’ll try to help you through…we may stumble…and fall… and have moments where we want to turn back and I’ll try to encourage you to keep going…together we can achieve what needs to be confronted for each of us needs to change our fears…into joys…
As you journey into the Lenten season beginning on Wednesday, face that mountain and begin your ascent into something which will change your whole life as you prepare yourself to meet the Living Christ…
Amen…