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LISTEN TO JESUS ABOUT LIFE'S CLARIFYNG MOMENTS
~Mark 9:2-9~
In-person service at
Second Baptist Church
2412 Griffith Ave.
Los Angeles
William S. Epps, Senior Pastor
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Sunday, February 11, 2024 | |
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2And after six days Jesus taketh with him Peter, and James, and John, and leadeth them up into an high mountain apart by themselves: and he was transfigured before them. 3And his raiment became shining, exceeding white as snow; so as no fuller on earth can white them. 4And there appeared unto them Elias with Moses: and they were talking with Jesus. 5And Peter answered and said to Jesus, Master, it is good for us to be here: and let us make three tabernacles; one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias. 6For he wist not what to say; for they were sore afraid. 7And there was a cloud that overshadowed them: and a voice came out of the cloud, saying, This is my beloved Son: hear him. 8And suddenly, when they had looked round about, they saw no man any more, save Jesus only with themselves. 9And as they came down from the mountain, he charged them that they should tell no man what things they had seen, till the Son of man were risen from the dead. Mark 9:2-9
As I ponder reality, it seems that some are drawn to what is good, just, moral, righteous, and some are drawn by their opposites: bad, unjust, immoral, and unrighteous. Yet people decide what principles and morals determine what they believe and how they act.
“To every man there openeth
A Way, and Ways, and a Way.
And the High Soul climbs the High way,
And the Low Soul gropes the Low,
And in between, on the misty flats,
The rest drift to and fro.
But to every man there openeth
A High Way, and a Low.
And every man decideth
The Way his soul shall go.”
~Oxenham's poem, The Ways
Are you drawn to the high way or the low way?
This incident is recorded in all of the synoptic gospels. (Matthew 17:1–8, Mark 9:2–8, Luke 9:28–36). It is also described in the Second Epistle of Peter who shares the following: 16For we did not follow cleverly devised stories when we told you about the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in power, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. 17He received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory, saying, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”[a] 18We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with him on the sacred mountain. (2 Peter 1:16–18).
Peter, James and John were afforded extraordinary opportunities. It is clear that they were privileged to be in close association with Jesus. They were among the first disciples that were chosen. They were permitted to occupy a special proximity to the Lord. They were privy to what others could only imagine. Life affords us opportunities to have exposure those who with whom we are in close relationship.
Peter, James and John were with Jesus when he was transfigured (an extraordinary moment). What an opportunity to see a one of a kind, once in a lifetime confirmation take place with an unforgettable encounter. Peter, James and John were the only witnesses to something truly astonishing.
Consider what it means to experience a clarifying moment to define your life.
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Monday, February 12, 2024 | |
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On that mountain they see Jesus in a way they have never seen him before. The past, the present and the future all converged with images that left them amazed. Peter made a comment followed by a suggestion. He said, “it is good for us to be here.” That is all you can say about certain experiences. Then, he makes a suggestion. “Let us build three shrines to commemorate the moment.” Then a cloud we are told overshadows and envelops them and a voice is heard saying, “This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased. Listen to him.” The disciples were terrified and fell down on the ground. (Extraordinary experiences can invoke a sense of awe mingled with fear coupled with being knocked off your feet). Jesus touches them and says, “get up and don’t be afraid.” And when they looked they saw only Jesus. This passage turned out to be a defining moment for Jesus and His disciples.
What happens in the past helps to shape the present and how you handle your present determines your future and the cycle begins again.
The passage of scripture gets at this notion of coming to clarity of understanding about the disciple’s place, position and purpose in their relationship to Jesus. Their place was to be with Jesus. He invited them to go with him and they accepted. Their position was in their importance to him. He wanted them to witness what would happen to him. Their purpose was to do something for him. He wanted them to share this later for him. Jesus was transfigured in the presence of the three disciples (cf. 2 Peter 1:16).
The Lord invites us to experience life’s exceptional moments. There comes a time when the extraordinary invades our space and takes us to an unexpected place. It is just difficult to believe what we see. It is as a dream, something surreal. Yet, we are astounded by what we are made to feel. We are amazed beyond belief. Wow! What a time to be alive and witness what we see. Who would have ever thought that this could really be?
Life is like a laboratory/school where we learn about living. We learn as we go. It is truly on the job training. We realize that this is the main event, not a dressed rehearsal. Shakespeare in the play “As You Like It” shares that all of life is a stage and everyone merely players. We all have our exits and entrances. We play many parts from infancy through childhood to our teen years on our way to adolescence and adulthood returning to where we began. (As You Like It, 2. 7. 139-167). The lyrics of a song of some years ago said, “I can see clearly now the rain is gone. I can see all obstacles in my way. Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind. It’s gonna be a bright (bright) Sun-Shiny day.”
Consider what it means to have an extraordinary moment or
moments that define what you do with your life.
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Tuesday, February 13, 2024 | |
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Let’s look at their experience as it relates to our lives with clarity about life’s clarifying moments.
A clarifying moment reminds us of the past.
Yesterday impinges on our present reality. There is a connection of the past with the present that can bring clarity to what is happening. Here was a moment of confirmation for Jesus about his destiny as it was to the disciples about Jesus’ uniqueness. It was as encouraging for Jesus as it was for the disciples for both came to clarity of understanding. Jesus received confirmation about his destiny and the disciples were witnesses to that confirmation.
Moses was all that anyone could want in a leader. He represented liberation and life principles for living in harmony. Elijah was all that anyone could want in a prophet. He was the epitome of consecration, conviction and courage. There is a convergence and confluence of yesterday’s streams that remind us of times long since passed.
Just like we had what we needed then, we have what we need now. We have want we need in Christ. Jesus shares with us what clarifying moments add to our lives.
From 1619 to 1865, 246 years sweltering under the oppressive abuse of a system that demeaned, devalued, demonized and dehumanize you as a human being.
(1865) Some experts have argued that Reconstruction (1865) laid the foundation for “the organization of new segregated institutions, white supremacist ideologies, legal rationalizations, for violence and everyday racial terror”
(1898) The recession of the late 19th century hit and the US. Knight riders went out in the dark, burning the homes of African Americans who bought their own land. They rode up to Washington to demand change as southern white Democrats rolled back many of the albeit limited freedoms from Reconstruction just a couple of decades before.
The Jim Crow era of segregation forbade African Americans from drinking from the same water fountains, eating at the same restaurants or attending the same schools as white Americans – all lasting until, and in some cases, well past the 1960s.
(1926) As African Americans were shut out of jobs and opportunities during Jim Crow, and as more jobs became available in the north and mid-west, more than 2 million southern African Americans migrated after the first world war. Still, even hundreds of miles away from southern segregation, these migrating Americans were met by “sundown towns”, where black people were not welcome after sunset, and by restrictions on where they could live in cities. Oregon’s constitution, for example, only removed its exclusionary clause, prohibiting black people to enter the state, in 1926.
Consider what it means that the past with all of its abusive atrocities,
an assortment of inequities, and a variety of devaluing of the humanity of African Americans likening them to apes and only three fourths of a person reminds us of what we have overcome with faith, hope and love.
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Wednesday, February 14, 2024 | |
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(1954) In the lead-up to the end of Jim Crow and the civil rights era, the fight continued. For example: only in 1948 did the US military desegregate, by executive order. In 1954, in the Brown v Board of Education ruling, the supreme court ruled that segregation was unconstitutional and schools would have to integrate. Civil rights leaders led anti-segregation marches across the country in the 1960s. In 1964, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act into law. Bussing African American children to white schools in white neighborhoods was deemed constitutional.
(1965) “Slavery was gone but Jim Crow was alive. Almost all southern African Americans were shut out of the ballot box and the political power it could yield,”
wrote Edward E Baptist in The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 attempted to correct this, prohibiting racial discrimination in voting and placing restrictions on a number of southern states if they tried to change voting rights laws. Those restrictions were recently overturned in a 2013 supreme court ruling. The cherished freedom of reproductive rights have been overturned by the supreme court.
(I must remind you once more that due to our lack of turning out to vote in battle ground states we gave the presidency to the one who is running again. A man who was twice impeached, indicted 91 times, convicted of fraud and sexual assault. Someone who wants to turn our democracy into an autocracy; a man with dictatorial ideas who requires ultimate authority. A person who wants to change the constitution to give him impunity for whatever he does as president; would pardon himself, pardon the convicted participants in the January 6 insurrection, and make all of the governmental agencies loyal to whatever he says and requires without any regulations and restrictions to loyalty to the constitution and the American people.)
Consider what it means that the struggle continues as the cycle of life
continues as the Bible reminds us, “the thing that has been, it is that which
shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is
no new thing under the sun.” (Ecclesiastes 1:9)
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Thursday, February 15, 2024 | |
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A clarifying moment provides understanding for the present.
We don’t know what to say or to make of what we are experiencing. We recognize that it is good for us to be here. However, we are at a loss for how to commemorate the moment adequately. There are times when we are dumfounded by what is happening. In our confusion we misunderstand and misinterpret what it all means. Then, we are overshadowed by what simply overwhelms us and knocks us off our feet. We fall down. We cover our face. We want to hide because we are feeling disgraced. A cloud enveloped or overshadowed them. Peter assesses the situation incorrectly as his response demonstrates and thus he becomes afraid and falls down.
In those moments when we make a fool of ourselves the Lord alleviates our sense of failure, bids us to get up so that we can move ahead and get beyond what caused us to fall. Jesus says, arise. Get up.
Peter didn’t know what to say, and attempted to commemorate the occasion in a less than desirable way. He was reducing one of the most memorable moments of his life
in a way that diminished its true significance. He had a real sense of history. However, wanting to capture the splendor, he rashly suggested erecting three memorial tabernacles or booths—one for Jesus, one for Moses, and one for Elijah. In our excitement we can say inappropriate things. We too run the risk of misunderstanding what memorable moments mean. We can be deeply moved as was Peter by certain occasions and commemorate what is exceptional - a one of a kind, once in a lifetime occasion in a way or ways that minimized there importance.
The Trump presidency is sandwiched between the first black president and the first black female vice president - wrapped around political history’s bookends. This angers and incites violence by a group that longs for the "good old days." Even though they were not good days for everyone. Imagine wanting to do what is good for you, irrespective of the misery you inflict on others.
Think of how often we commemorate extraordinary moments in history inadequately. Too often we are easily diverted from the realization that the moment is for us to move forward with energy, excitement and enthusiasm to fulfill the purpose for the present, unafraid as we have done before with commitment, courage, and conviction propelling us forward with faith and hope.
Consider what it means for the present crisis we face about the appropriate response in the strife with truth and falsehood, for the good or evil side which continues in perpetuity against that darkness and that light.
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Friday, February 16, 2024 | |
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A clarifying moment gives us hope for the future.
What we have now is enough to take us where we are going and beyond. They are told to listen to Jesus.
We do not have to be afraid of trying even though we fail. We don’t have to be afraid of failure for we can rise above our mistakes. We don’t have to be afraid of the future even though we are uncertain in some instances and certain in others about what is going to happen. Jesus alleviates our doubts and fears. Jesus gives us the courage to face life in all of its grim reality, with all of its twists and turns, ups and downs, ins and outs and you name it. Only Jesus can give us what we need to go in faith trusting God. What lies ahead while yet to be determined, requires that you embrace the possibilities and potentialities on the distant horizon and go forthright speed ahead.
Conclusion
When the ecstasy of our extraordinary encounters and experiences evaporates only Jesus remains to remind us that in the final analysis that he is the only authoritative expression of who God is, how God is and where God is at work in the world. Only Jesus connects the divergent dimensions of life together completely. Only Jesus expresses the intentions of God for life entirely. Only Jesus directs us to the purpose of God for our lives fully. Only Jesus.
Consider what it means that you are engaged and invited to participate
in perpetuating where the Lord is present in the world, how the Lord is in the world and where the Lord is at work in the world.
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Saturday, February 17, 2024 | |
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Lift Every Voice and Sing by James Weldon Johnson
Lift every voice and sing / Till earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty; / Let our rejoicing rise
High as the listening skies, / Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us,
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun / Let us march on till victory is won.
Stony the road we trod, / Bitter the chastening rod, / Felt in the days when hope unborn had died; / Yet with a steady beat, / Have not our weary feet
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed? / We have come over a way that with tears has been watered, / We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered, / Out from the gloomy past, / Till now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.
God of our weary years, / God of our silent tears,
Thou who has brought us thus far on the way;
Thou who has by Thy might, lead us into the light, / Keep us forever in the path, we pray. / Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee,
Lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee;
Shadowed beneath Thy hand, / May we forever stand.
True to our God, /
True to our native land.
Consider what it means that the Negro National Anthem captures the past, present and the future expectation of our lives.
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