God has a bigger picture, a bigger future, for you.
The Transfiguration gives the disciples a glimpse of what lay beyond. A glimpse of a bigger picture. God’s bigger picture. A glimpse of a bigger future. God’s bigger future.
It was an experience beyond words and understanding.
These three men knew nothing about the planets and the stars, the galaxies and the cosmos. Heaven was above. The underworld below. Their world was flat. They knew nothing of planetary geography or plate tectonics. Of physics or space travel. Of germs or microbes. Their world was small.
The vision they were given was beyond their comprehension. Something that lay beyond time and space. And so they described it in terms that made it understandable to them.
A Transfiguration.
(Poor Peter … he just couldn’t figure it out. He wanted to build some tents – how often when we experience something overwhelming, we feel we need to do something, anything, that feels familiar.)
But the transfiguration was not just an event that occurred 2000 years ago to three disciples on the top of a mountain. The transfiguration is a glimpse into the “beyond” that can inspire you and I – today and every day. It is a reminder that God exists in all times and spaces and
beyond all times and places.
The Transfiguration is an event that continues to occur in every day and age, in every time and place, if we but open our eyes to see it.
And therein my friends, lays the challenge.
We get so busy with the tasks of living – work, chores, paying bills, worrying about debts, worrying about our kids, worrying about our parents – that we have become blind to the existence of God in every place and every moment. And our busy-ness means that we don’t take the time to become aware of God’s presence in the moments of our life.
So, is there a message in all of this for you and I, particularly in this season of Lent? I think so. And the message is simply this –
We need to take time each and every day to be aware of the Presence of God
That same God who transcends space and time is present to us within space and time; We live our lives immersed in God. To be sure, it’s a bit easier to feel God’s presence
when you are here in the church today. If we are honest with ourselves, that’s one of the reasons we come here. To Feel God. To get away from the hustle and bustle out there:
to immerse ourselves in the music, the images, the candles, in the comfort of ritual prayer, and quiet moments of reflection.
It’s easier to sense God’s presence here.
But you and I are called to much greater awareness of God – to feel God’s presence at all times and in all places … to see a much bigger picture. God’s bigger picture.
Lent is a perfect time to practice this increased awareness of Gods presence in our lives. For some of you, it may be taking some quiet moments at the end of each day to reflect on the events and encounters of the day, and asking God to reveal to you where he was in those events, those encounters. For others, it may be taking time during each event or each encounter to ask God to reveal his presence. What he is trying to say to you. What actions he is calling you to. For still others, it may be becoming more aware of the hand of God present in God’s creation. The beauty of a spring morning. The budding forth of new life in the nature that surrounds us.
Whatever way works for you, all of them bring you to a greater, more profound understanding
that you are a life immersed in God.
And like Peter, James and John, you will have witnessed the Transfiguration for yourselves – a glimpse of God’s bigger picture, God’s bigger future, for you.