1 Kings 19:9-18 | Psalm 27 | 2 Peter 1:16-19(20-21) | Mark 9:2-9

As we close out this season of Epiphany and head into Lent which is a direct shot then to Good Friday and Easter, you realize that this is a major turning point. The word Epiphany literally means "a revelation." God's self-revelation. We do not reveal God, he reveals himself to us. So Epiphany is about that season of revelation, following Christmas, to the Gentiles. Not just to the Jews but to the non-Jewish world, the Gentile world. This last unbelievable description, in the sense that it is so dramatic and spectacular, of Jesus and who he is before he sets his pace to go to Jerusalem and die on the cross. It is an unbelievable "revelation" to us today.

First of all he is transformed, transfigured. That is he becomes iridescent. So it is like the sun shining out of him and even his clothes are glowing. And then Moses and Elijah talking with him. Moses who represents the whole of the law and Elijah, the prophets. The summation of the Old Testament, the law and the prophets. They were not coming to give Jesus advice because he was the Lord. They were talking with him about the death he would accomplish in Jerusalem. And then the voice from heaven, "This is my son, my beloved, listen to him." So Peter, James and John were not left to their own imagination to try and interpret what it was they had just seen. They were told who it was they were looking at. "This is my son, me beloved, listen to him."

That is what we are going to do here this morning. Jesus has come to meet with each one of you. If he chose, he could put himself before you full of iridescent glory. But he is here nevertheless.

The Father says, "Listen to him. He is going to speak to you, listen to him."

We are going to take life scenario words that he has spoken and listen to what he has to say, as if he was saying them to you face to face on the mountain this morning.

So before we turn to those lets bow our heads and pray:

Lord Jesus we do pray that you would make yourself known to each of us. That this would not just be a service with words said and music sung and a baptism exercised, a Holy Altar gathered to but that we would meet with you. You are the Lord. Thank you heavenly Father for the affirmation that Jesus is your son, your beloved, your only begotten. The command to us to listen to him. Take my lips now and speak through them. Take our minds and think through them. Take our wills and bend them to your own. Take our hearts, Lord Jesus, and set them on fire with love for you that we too might be transformed. We pray this for your name sake, Amen.

The three words from Jesus to you today. First of all, he described why he came. Listen to him. "I have come that you might have life and have it in all its fullness." That's why he came. Sometimes we tend to think that he came to deprive us, to case us in. He came "that we may have life and have it more abundantly," as the old translation said. That is what he said. Listen to him. All of us long for that life.

I think you've heard me say that I was not raised to go to church. I am not a son of any congregation. My father committed suicide when I was age seven. My mother tells me he was an Atheist. As a family we never went to church and did not own a bible and never prayed. We never said the "Lord's Prayer", "Now I lay me down to sleep", we said nothing. I remember as an adolescent walking home from school in Oxford, England, asking a couple of questions, "Why am I going to school?" I gave myself the answer of to get a better education. "Why do you want a good education?" I asked myself. "So you can get a good job." This was all in split second timing in my head. It was not out loud as I am speaking to you. "Why do you want a good job?" "So I can get good money." "Why do you want good money?" "So you can live comfortably and securely." That was it I told myself. "That's it?" You mean this mind, this brain, this personality everything that is going on in my life is just so I can have a good job and live securely? I knew this was a lie. I knew there had to be more.

Then I ran into a friend in Oxford and got into a conversation with him and he turned out to be someone who knew Jesus personally and did not mind talking about it. He said those very same words quoted from Jesus, "I have come so you may have life and have it in all its fullness." There was something that rose in me and I said, "That is what I am looking for." I did not know what he was talking about but the spirit of God was obviously stirring me and when I heard those words I knew that it what it is. That is what I want. Whatever it is this life in all it fullness and abundance, that is what I am looking for.

It is wonderful to have these Jazz players here in worship. It is refreshing to me. And it is great to see you smile while they are playing. As Episcopalians maybe even to get a little motion into it. It is really astounding. But what you are dramatizing in all this when the music hits it is all expressions that there is a life out there that you need to live. These are just symbols of it. So that is the first word, which is why Jesus said he came. Listen to him. You may be looking in the wrong place. You may have been ignoring, knowing what he said but doing nothing about it. This morning he is speaking to you and you heard him.

Second life situation word is this. Again it is Jesus speaking. He took the cup and when he had given thanks he blessed it and said, "This is my blood of the new covenant which is shed for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins." What Jesus was simply saying during that Passover meal with his disciples was that his blood was going to be shed sacrificially on the cross for the sins of the world. It was put into personal terms at the Last Supper for you and for the sins of the whole world. That is Jesus' description of why he died. In another place he says, "I am the Good Shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep." The thing that destroys our life and drains us of anything that looks like or sounds like God and gives us God's pleasure, is sin. The Bible makes it clear that our sins have separated us from God. We do not enjoy the life of God, joy of God and the very thing for which he made us. Here is Jesus saying, "I have come so that you may have life and this is the price I am willing to pay that you may have life."

We all acknowledge we are sinners. We know we have a problem. It was in a big West Coast church when a preacher was making that point by saying, "Is anyone here perfect?" An old gentleman stood up in the back of the church and the preacher looked at him and said, "Are you perfect, sir?" He said, "No. I am standing up for my wife's first husband." Only in somebody's mind is someone perfect. We know it is not true.

Jesus came to deal with that. Hear him, listen to him. He is speaking to you. He loved you enough to die for you on the cross. To get rid of the mess and forgive you.

The third life situation word is this. He said this, "I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me though he were dead yet shall he live. And whoever lives and believes in me will never die." Jesus said that. He says it to you this morning. Listen to him. "Whoever believes in me will never die," he said. So believing in Christ is not to just get the mess of the past forgiven and life abundant and overflowing here but heaven when it is all over. To be with him forever. Jesus gives us that opportunity to come to him and believe in him. And know then for sure that heaven will be our home.

My brother died about eighteen months ago of a heart attack. Younger than I am. I remember the day he wrote and told me about reading a New Testament that we had placed in his hands at age forty, he had resisted all my approaches to him to take the Lord seriously. I was ordained and my other brother told him about it and he said, "I thought he had more ambition than that." I wanted to share about the Lord with anyone who would listen. I was after my brother. Age forty he was reading the New Testament and he had an experience that I have never had. He was reading his way through Matthew, just like God had spoken to the disciples and told him who Jesus was, he spoke to my brother. My brother heard audibly these words, "Jesus is my son, and he died for you." I have asked the Lord to speak to me like that but he never has. But my brother went upstairs to his bedroom and knelt by his bed and wept. He said he wept for the wasted years. For he now knew that Jesus was alive and it was real. When Peter wrote, "He was there. When we told you this we were not giving you some clever myth. We were eyewitnesses of his majesty and glory. We heard that majestic voice speaking to us." "This is my beloved son, Listen to him."

When it says, "Whoever should believe in him will not perish but have everlasting life," let me put it in these simple terms. We had a tragedy hard on the heels of 9-11 in Western Pennsylvania where I live. Flight 93 went down in a field as you know and there is a monument there. In Somerset County. In that same county immediately after we also had a mining disaster. Q Creek Mine had nine miners trapped underground. Remember they brought huge drill bits to locate them and one brok, then another. Would they survive? Amazingly they drilled right into the cavity where under the earth where they were trapped. They lowered a canister open-sided and all the men had to do was step in and be strapped in and be hauled back up through that hole in the ground. I remember as I went to church that Sunday and saw the headlines on the paper, "Nine alive." All of them survived. I spoke of it that morning, "Can you imagine that rescue operation. That is what God has done for us. Jesus came in exactly where we were." To believe in him by stepping into that canister of life. The Bible speaks of being "In Christ." To be in him is to have everything I have just described. Then I said, "Did you hear of the one who said he was not going to get into the canister? He said I got myself into this mess, I will get myself out." Do you remember hearing about that? Did that make the news over here? Of course it didn't. It never happened. It would be ridiculous and equally ridiculous of you to say, "I do not need Jesus." You need him and he knows you need him. Listen to him and believe in him.

Let us pray:

Lord Jesus, thank you for loving us. Thank you for coming to speak to us. Thank you for personally face to face, right now in this prayer, visiting with us. We have heard what you have to say. We are listening to you, Lord Jesus. We see ourselves now stepping into you and fold us with yourself. Make us your very own and cover us with your own innocence and righteousness. Grant to each of us that life for which you came to bring. Forgive all our sins. Grant to us Lord, to know we really are forgiven. As we step into you Lord, give us the assurance that we have eternal life. That Heaven is our home. One day we will see you and be like you. Thank you Lord Jesus for loving me. Amen.

The Rev. John Guest