FEBRUARY 22, 2009  SERMON ARCHIVE

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! Amen. In today's Gospel from St. Mark chapter 9, we read:

"Suddenly, looking around, [Peter, James, and John] no longer saw anyone with them, but Jesus only."

Dear Christian friends,

As you know, our nation's economic hardships have been seeping their way into our own town whether it be Mason City, Nora Springs, Clear Lake or whatever town you are from. Several companies around us have announced new rounds of layoffs, causing the total workforce reduction to increase in Cerro Gordo county daily. And it is only February. Stating the obvious, if more and more jobs are lost, even Mason City could suffer a blow from which it might not recover

Many local businesses are cutting their employees' hours. Foreclosure notices are stacking up in the pages of the Globe. This rising flood has begun to lap at the toes of more than one person in these pews. Others are already up to their knees or even higher. There is good reason to be afraid: the economic forecast promises that eventually everyone is going to get wet. Like a flash flood, you can hear it rumble and crash as it heads this way.

Add to this the more "standard" fears you feel all the time about the future: Where will my children end up? What will happen if my wife or husband should take leave of me? How long can I keep my health? What harm or hardship might come to me or to those whom I love?

Beyond such general or universal fears as these, you probably can add a list of your own particular fears, which plague you most especially.

Dear friends, today's Gospel is a very good Gospel for your fears. This Gospel is an especially good medicine for those things you fear that are right over the horizon, roaring in the distance but not yet fully upon you.

In today's Gospel, Jesus had not yet gone down the road to Jerusalem, to suffering and the cross. It was just over the horizon. It would soon swirl all around Him and His disciples. The forecast was very dark.

Six days before today's transfiguration Gospel, [Jesus] began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again. And He said this plainly (Mark 9:31-32).

The warning that Jesus so plainly spoke to His disciples was somewhat like receiving a pink slip or getting diagnosed with a deadly disease. There was no mistaking the fact that terrible hardship was on its way and it was coming soon. Suffering and cross were not yet fully upon them, but the storm clouds were clearly gathering right over the horizon.

So in today's Gospel Jesus lovingly gave His disciples good and powerful medicine against their fears for the future: We read in the text:

After six days Jesus took with Him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. And He was transfigured before them, and His clothes became radiant, intensely white, as no one on earth could bleach them. And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, and they were talking with Jesus. And Peter said to Jesus, "Rabbi, it is good that we are here. Let us make three tents, one for You and one for Moses and one for Elijah." For he did not know what to say, for they were terrified. And a cloud overshadowed them, and a voice came out of the cloud, "This is My beloved Son; listen to Him." And suddenly, looking around, they no longer saw anyone with them but Jesus only.

Marvelous things happened on that mountain:

Light flashed brightly from Jesus' face and clothes, Famous prophets appeared in shimmering glory, God the Father spoke directly out of an overshadowing cloud- and not one of these amazing things did one single thing to calm the disciples' fears, "for they were terrified." So afraid were these disciples through this entire display that Peter had no idea what to say, and so he babbled nonsense.

The marvelous things that happened in this Gospel-the light, the voice, the cloud-these things were not meant to calm the disciples' fears. These amazing things were meant only to focus the disciples' attention-and to focus YOUR attention-on the ONE THING that calms all fears: Jesus only.

"Suddenly, looking around, they no longer saw anyone with them, but Jesus only."

Today's Gospel deliberately isolates Jesus so that His disciples will focus their attention upon Him and Him only. Imagine yourself at the theater, watching a lively play. The lights swirl on the stage, the actors dance enthusiastically, and the music pulses with energy. Then everything suddenly falls silent and dark, with a spotlight centered on one single person. The silence, the darkness and the still will all focus your attention directly upon this one person.

That is the point of today's Gospel, dear saints: Jesus ONLY.

Yes, visible light beamed from Jesus' face "and His clothes became radiant, intensely white, as no one on earth could bleach them." But the light quickly shut off again, leaving Jesus standing there with a face like the face of any other man and with clothing unremarkable.

Moses and Elijah momentarily entered the scene, but then they were swept off the stage again, leaving but one actor on the mountaintop upon whom we might focus our attention.

God the Father's voice spoke from the cloud, but then His voice fell silent again after it told us the One to Whom we must listen from now on: "This is my beloved Son; listen to Him."

That is why this Gospel is such good medicine for your fears, whether your fears are rooted in your economic position, your family status, your health, or in anything else. Today's Gospel is good medicine for your fears because this Gospel teaches you to look at Jesus and Jesus ONLY as the calm for all your fears.

The future was dark and terrible for these disciples. Everything they experienced in today's Gospel terrified them further , except for when "they no longer saw anyone with them, but Jesus only." So it must be also for you, that you find your calm for all your fears in Jesus only.

Comfort for your fears will not be found in an intense or emotional experience, such as the disciples had when Jesus "was transfigured before them, and His clothes became radiant." If the intensity of your experience were truly to be the calm for your fears, we would need to turn our sanctuary into a soundstage or a theater, complete with strobe lights and pyrotechnics and a big screen with PowerPoint radiating from it.

But those things only take the focus off from Jesus. Sensation and emotion are not the answer and today's Gospel takes the intensity of experience off the table.

Comfort for you fears will not be found in amazing visions or voices from heaven, either. That is what separates us from the Pentecostals.

In today's Gospel God the Father even took voices from heaven out of the equation for you, because He only spoke long enough to say, "Listen to [Jesus]." Jesus Words'-that is to say, the New Testament-Jesus' Words are now the way you are to listen to your God.

Comfort for your fears will be found in Jesus only: plain-Jane, unbecoming, no-longer- brightly shining Jesus.

Comfort for your fears will come from the Jesus who comes to you unspectacularly; the Jesus who comes to you clothed in unsophisticated Words and common bread and wine, just as unremarkable as He was on the mountain after all had gone silent and dark.

While in the vision and the voice and the cloud, the disciples were terrified. When did their terror cease? When did divine calm rest upon them?

When "suddenly, looking around, they no longer saw anyone with them, but Jesus only."

This unremarkable Jesus is the Jesus who went with them down the mountain...

This unremarkable Jesus is the Jesus who would bear the brunt of their suffering and pain....

This unremarkable Jesus is the Jesus who would stand in their place and shoulder their load.

This unremarkable Jesus is the Jesus who would "...suffer many things.and be killed, and after three days rise again" so that His beloved disciples might know true rest and comfort from every fear.

This unremarkable Jesus is YOUR Jesus, too, dear friends.

This is the Jesus who knows exactly what lays just over the edge of your horizon.

This is the Jesus who has already fully acted to guard and protect you from every danger that should flood your way.

Be it the economy, be it storm or tempest, be it family strife or division, be it death itself.

This is the Jesus-Jesus Only-the One in whom you shall not be overcome.

Christ Is Risen.