Isaac and his Neighbours

I want to start this morning with a story about a Swedish missionary couple in the Eastern Congo, in a village named N’dolera.

Synopsis: Swedish missionaries move to Congo with young son in 1921. Mother gives birth to daughter in 1923, but dies following childbirth. Father is broken and bitter, gives up the baby girl to American missionary couple and returns to Sweden. Baby girl (Aina, renamed Aggie Berg) grows up in South Dakota. Her parents left no converts, except for a young boy who brought them chickens. That young boy grew up and eventually brought the village of Ndolera to faith in Christ. Forty years later, Aggie learns of this church and visits her now-alcoholic birth father in Sweden. She shares the story of the boy with the broken and bitter old man, and he discovers that God was with them all along.

          The story feels like hagiography, but it is taken from the daughter’s own story: Aggie Hurst, A Girl Without a Country. You can read from the story taken from the website: https://acsirevivals.wordpress.com/articles/a-sad-defeated-story-david-and-svea-flood/. I have not seen the book, which is out of print, but use the story here for the point made at the end of the sermon.

Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: the patriarchs or founding fathers of the Jewish people. There are a number of stories in Genesis about Abraham and a number about Jacob; Isaac has basically chapters 24 and 26. We think of Isaac mostly as the child offered as a sacrifice in Genesis 22. Abraham agreed to sacrifice his son, his only son Isaac, whom he loved; and God then showed approval for Abraham’s faithfulness by providing a substitute. A strange and difficult story. One wonders what Isaac thought of the whole thing!

 

Chapter 24 is the story of Isaac and Rebekah – very romantic, with Rebekah described as “very fair to look upon.” It is also a story of an arranged marriage in which Rebekah and Isaac had little say about the whole matter. Chapter 26 contains four stories about Isaac. We heard three of them in the reading, but we will look at all four.

 

Genesis 26

 The first story was not in our Readers’ Theatre presentation. It’s a strange scene in which Isaac and Rebekah find themselves near what today is called Gaza. There was a famine, and Isaac moved his family into a region under the authority of Abimelech, a Philistine ruler. Isaac is worried that the men around them will be attracted to Rebekah – remember, she was “very fair to look upon” – so he decided to pass her off as his sister. Abimelech eventually found out that she was really his wife and rebuked Isaac for his lie, and then he told his people to make sure they did not “touch this man or his wife”.

 

A strange story, all the stranger because it parallels Abraham’s actions on two other occasions. In Genesis 12, Abraham went to Egypt looking for food and pulled the same trick with Sarah (Genesis 12), and in Genesis 20, he went to the same area as Isaac in our passage and again passed Sarah off as his sister. I won’t take any time to sort out the various interpretations of this story, but we’ll come back to it and consider what makes the most sense to me.

 

In the second story, Isaac prospers in the land of Gerar, so that his neighbours become jealous of his success. Abimelech now appears afraid of Isaac and asks him to leave his territory. Isaac agrees and leaves.

 

He settles nearby in the third story and starts digging wells, looking for water. The first two wells in which he found water led to more problems. The people who lived there said, “That’s our water! Leave it alone!” So Isaac did. He moved further away and dug a third well. This time there was no quarrel. His neighbours left him alone and he named the well “Room Enough” in honour of the occasion.

 

This story concludes with Isaac seeing God in a vision at a place called Beer-Sheba. God reaffirmed the covenant he had made with Isaac’s father, Abraham, and he stayed there for a while and dug another well. (All these wells remind us that water is life!)

 

Finally, Abimelech reappears on the scene. He has his military commander and his chief advisor with him, so Isaac is naturally concerned that Abimelech may be announcing trouble. Instead, the two men make a covenant to live at peace with each other. As our story might say, “They all lived happily ever after.”

 

Patriarchal Narratives

What do we do with these stories? Well, we don’t say that they show us what we should do in life, that’s for sure. I’m not about to suggest that anyone should pretend that their wives are really their sister. I can’t imagine a scenario in which that would be good advice!

 

In the same way, I can’t just say, “Look how peaceable Isaac was! He avoided a fight and look how God blessed him!” I don’t know if he was really a peacemaker. He may just have tended to avoid conflict. So, what do we do with these stories? If they’re not in the text to tell us what to do, what are they there for?

 

One thing they do is remind us how different the world of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was from our day. Consider his statement, “She’s my sister.” In our culture, we know what that would mean. But different cultures reckon kindship in different ways. For example, I grew up in Zimbabwe. In Ndebele culture, my father is David, and Arthur, and Joel – and for that matter, my father’s first cousins on his father’s side could also say they are my father. We call this “the extended family.” It’s a lot more complicated than we’re used to.

 

Further, in our culture, the acceptable marriage partner never includes our biological sister. Again in Zimbabwe, I once asked my students if a man could marry his mother’s brother’s daughter. They all agreed strongly that they could not. Except for two students in the back who said, “In our clan, your mother’s brother’s daughter is the preferred marriage partner.” Okay. I don’t understand it, but I heard what they said.

 

So let these stories remind you that the world of the patriarchs was different from ours, then remember that God came to these people – however strange they seem to us, and God made his covenant with them. In the same way, God comes to us today – to everyone, whether we like the way they live or not, and God is ready to make them part of his family also.

 

But that is a side issue. More significantly, Isaac’s actions make sense if you remember something important about the patriarchs. They were immigrants, and in this chapter, Isaac was moving because of a famine (and probably a drought). That would make him both an immigrant and a refugee in our world. Refugees make choices that we may not approve of. They do whatever it takes to keep out of trouble and feed their family. If they are afraid their women might be taken, they might lie about them. If they are afraid that they might be attacked, they move to the next place. They don’t act like the people who have power in the land, because they know that their status is uncertain. They keep their eyes open, checking for any threats to their existence.

 

Consider the stories in Genesis 26. Isaac and his family move, looking for food. They live in tents, moving from one place to another, always on the alert for threats. When the people in their new home start asking questions about their family, they conceal their true relationships until the local people figure it out for themselves.

 

These are the actions of a family leader who does not trust anyone outside of his immediate family. I think he makes a bad choice here, but it’s an understandable choice. It reminds me of the refugee family we know, living in Cape Town. The husband made a bad choice and moved to Germany, hoping to find asylum for his family. Instead, he is stuck in Germany. He made a bad choice, but refugees live with pressures we don’t know. I can understand that he heard of a possible open door and took it.

 

The stories about Isaac digging wells also fit the pattern. He and his men dig a well and find water. The local people say, “That’s ours!” So Isaac moves away and tries again. Same thing happens. So he moves and tries again. This time no one chases him from the good well he dug. Why didn’t he stand up for himself and for his family? Well, migrants often have little power. If you decide to fight for yourself, you can get in worse trouble quickly. At one level, Isaac just acted prudently.

 

So, these stories fit a pattern that marks them as migrants without a lot of power. The Children of Israel always remembered their origin as a migrant powerless people. At the feast of the first fruits, recorded in Deuteronomy 26, the priest recited the following words: “A wandering Aramean was my ancestor; he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien, few in number, and there he became a great nation, mighty and populous.” They became populous, but they started out as wandering nomads, living in tents, moving from place to place like the people we sometimes call gypsies.

 

What do We do with This?

So, what do we do with these stories? They do have lessons for us, even if we realise that we don’t simply do what Isaac did. I suggest two simple observations that may help us as we move forward in our lives together.

 

The first is that Isaac faced difficult choices, and he may have felt that he had no choice. But, in fact, he always had a choice of what to do. Sometimes he chose wrongly – I think his choice to present Rebekah as his sister was wrong. Sometimes he chose wisely – I think he did well to avoid fighting over the wells he had dug. But each time he found that he did have a way forward.

 

We also sometimes feel like we have no choice. We are facing some hard decisions over the next few months – looking for a pastor; looking for a building; figuring out who we are and who God wants us to be. At times in the past month, I have felt as though we were trapped, with no way out of the situations we were facing. But, in fact, we had choices and we have found a way to move forward. We’ll get some of our choices right, and we’ll get some wrong; but remember that we have possibilities ahead. In fact, we have a lot more ability to choose than Isaac the migrant refugee did! We’re not stuck, and God will make a way for us.

 

The second lesson is that God is the only one who can actually give us success. We make our choices, and we do our best, but only God can bring success. Isaac kept on refusing to fight. He kept on digging new wells, and God honoured his efforts by giving him water for his immediate needs and a covenant with Abimelech for his long-term needs.

 

As we make our choices, we trust in God for their success. Trusting God in the process means that whether we grow or decrease, we are in God’s hands. We pray the Lord’s Prayer, “Give us what we need for today, physically and spiritually.” Then we make our choices, knowing that we are in God’s hands.

 

A Concluding Thought

 I know that we sometimes feel trapped, as though there is no way to move forward. That feeling can lead us to make more bad choices, like Isaac saying that Rebekah was his sister and not his wife. My word to you this morning is that God can make a way where we see no way. That is why I began with the story of David and Svea Flood. David Flood saw no hope, but God used even their pathetic failure to plant a church in Ndolera.

 

While I was writing this sermon, we received news of Julie’s application for refugee status in Canada. The Canadian High Commission in South Africa has denied her application. We are grieving, and I acknowledge that I feel trapped and don’t see how we can help her. So we turn to God, and we ask God for a way forward.

 

We will make our choices as we stand with Julie and her family. Our choices may work, and they may not. Far more important, we commit Julie and ourselves into God’s care. Only God can make a way for us in this world and in the next. We do not despair. We do not give up. We continue to live as people of peace, digging new wells, looking for the next step God wants us to take. And we trust God to build our house. We trust God to give us what we need for today and for tomorrow.

 

Think again of David and Svea Flood. Their experience illustrates our human inability to overcome the situations we face, and it reminds us of God’s great ability to bring life through our efforts, however weak we feel.

 

People in the world around us turn to violence and force to get their way. We trust God instead. As the Psalmist puts it, “Some trust in men; some trust in horses; but we trust in the Lord.”

 

 

13 August 2023

Steinbach Mennonite Church

Genesis 26: 12-33

 

Easter Sermon

We began our service with the words with which Christians have marked the resurrection for two thousand years: “Christ is Risen!” “He is risen indeed!” We say these words, and we mean them; but this has been a hard week. Two funerals, and the echoes and ongoing loss of at least two other deaths. We have lived in the pain of Good Friday for more than just a day. Grief and loss are all around us, and the affirmation of Jesus’ resurrection takes energy that we barely have and faith that we only partly feel. The words are nevertheless true. Christ is risen! Jesus has conquered death! We are able to live with hope and joy because he died and rose from the dead.

Matthew 28

Our text tells the story. The disciples had lost everything. They had watched their Lord and friend killed on a Roman cross. They had buried him in a grave that Joseph of Arimathea had made, presumably intending to use it for himself or other members of his family. Jesus had to be buried somewhere, and Joseph offered his grave, cut out of a rock. Jesus was laid there on Friday evening, and then all observed the Sabbath. We assume that the disciples grieved silently on the Sabbath, hiding from the crowds. And then on Sunday morning, early – before others were up and about – some women went to the grave.

Matthew names Mary Magdalene and “the other Mary” (27:56 – mother of James and Joseph, or mother of James and John), but Luke adds “and the other women”. So, a group of women led by Mary Magdalene and the mother of some of the disciples. These women went to the grave to grieve, to see where the body of the one they loved lay. How often have you or I gone to the grave of someone we love. My mother died in May 1991. This past week, my older sister sent me a picture of the plot and headstone where she and my father lie buried. We remember, and they were grieving and remembering.

Then something none of us has ever experienced happened. There was an earthquake. The stone blocking the grave was rolled away. An angel appeared and sat on the stone, frightening the guards who were supposed to keep people away so that they fled. The angels spoke to the women, “Be not afraid. Sing out for joy. Christ is risen, Alleluia!!” John 20 tells us that Jesus had a special word for Mary, but Matthew notes only that Jesus then appeared, that they worshipped him, and that he sent them to the disciples to tell them that he was alive.

History or Principle?

Some people suggest that this only a good story, meant to help us keep hoping in the face of dangers and troubles in this world. Are they right, or did it really happen? John Dickson is an Australian historian who has written a little book called Is Jesus History? He notes that there are rules for historical inquiry by which we can tell how likely a story is to be true. By the cannons of history, he suggest, the New Testament is histoprically accurate.

Dickson tells of an Australian judge, well respected for his ability to sift evidence in the courtroom, who spent the last years of his life evaluating the evidence of the New Testament to see if it would have made a trustworthy testimony in his courtroom. The judge himself was agnostic about the existence of God and expected to find that the story of the resurrection was a story designed to give hope, not the record of what actually happened. His conclusion was that by all the canons of history, the record of the resurrection is trustworthy. The gospel writers recorded truth faithfully. Jesus lived, and died, and rose from the dead.

If that is true, the passage we read this morning is not just a story meant to help us hope in the darkness. It is instead the reminder that death itself has been defeated on the cross. Jesus walked the path of life that every one of us walks. Jesus came up to the end of his life, knowing full well that his ministry would end on the cross. He died, and then God raised him from the dead.

The World We Live In

When we look around, we see great beauty and goodness, and we see all kinds of danger threatening to overwhelm us. When we look at the beauty, we can believe that God is Creator. We see love and delight in the way that people help each other and the enjoyment we have in a good friendship. But then a friend dies, or a family disintegrates, or a storm system destroys our home. We see the problems of our world, and we wonder what hope there is for the future.

What is reality? Is reality the friend who helped me out when I needed a friend? Or is reality the friend who stabbed me in the back and destroyed my hopes? Is reality the beauty of the Rocky Mountains or the Great Plains, or is reality the possibility that we have already passed the point of no return with climate change?

In short, which is stronger – good or evil? Who wins – God or Satan? Our head says that God and good are stronger, but sometimes we wake up in the night and we’re not so sure. Let me tell you something: There is no shame in doubting the goodness of our world. The problems we face are real, and we take them seriously. Let me tell you something else: Our fears and our doubts are not the last word. The women came to the tomb full of fear and doubt, and then the angel rolled away the stone and dispelled their fear, and they worshipped the risen Jesus.

We should perhaps not be too surprised at this resurrection story. Where does a tree growing in your yard come from? It came from another tree that dropped a seed – perhaps an acorn – as it got older. From that acorn another oak tree grew in its place. The analogy is imperfect, but it shows a pattern in which all of us participate. Where did I come from? My parents have died, but they gave me life and I am here. When I die, my sons and their wives take my place. Where did they come from? From me and Lois, just as we came from our parents. I trace this pattern of dying and continuing in one’s children back six generations in North America – I am the son of David, the son of John, the son of Peter, the son of David, the son of Martin, the son of Johann Heinrich Kleimenhagen, the first of our family to come to Canada from Germany 240 years ago.

There’s death and new life for you. Every one of us is a testimony to new life coming out of the death of our parents. This is a basic pattern in all of created nature. Jesus simply took this basic truth of reality to a new level and promised each of us that our own deaths likewise are the door to new life with him.

What Does This Mean for us Today?

I grew up in the Brethren in Christ Church in Zimbabwe. When I taught in Zimbabwe in the early 1970s, there were about 5,000 members of the BIC Church there. Then came the Liberation War, and the people suffered greatly. The mission schools were closed, and those who could moved from their rural homes into the cities. At the request of the church there, the BIC missionaries who remained were brought back to North America in 1977.

I remember my last General Conference there in August 1974. A missionary named Luke Keefer preached a sermon on the filling of the Holy Spirit. After the sermon, pastors and deacons, leaders of the church pressed to the front of the church building singing, “Woza Moya Oyingcwele” (“Come, Holy Spirit”). I was one of them, singing and praying for God’s Spirit to fill me. When we were all finished singing and praying and searching together, the man beside me asked, “Have you been filled with the Spirit?” I said, “Yes.” I asked, “Have you?” He said, “No.” I met him again two months later, and he told me with great excitement that he had now been filled with the Spirit. What he and so many others in the church received was the presence and power of God to endure the Liberation War. When the war ended and the churches reopened, the church that had been 5,000 members was now 20,000.

What did the resurrection mean for the church in Zimbabwe? It meant that the darkest days of the war were only the prelude to the light of the resurrection. Even today, when Zimbabwe still struggles with economic problems that make life increasingly difficult, the resurrection reminds us that the darkness lasts only for a night, and joy comes in the morning.

I have lived in four countries – Zambia, Zimbabwe, the USA, and Canada. Each one of them has its problems and failures. I wonder sometimes if we have any real future. Human sin and conflict make life look almost hopeless. But Jesus rose from the dead, and his resurrection reminds us that no problem, no conflict in this world is hopeless. The war in Ukraine? Fears of climate change? Duelling judges in the United States? Politicians who care more about lining their own pocket than doing public good? They are all here, and Christ died to redeem each one of them. The resurrection is our evidence that Jesus can and will heal the world.

A friend of mine, Patrick Franklin (former theologian at providence Seminary), wrote the following Easter meditation:

What difference does the Resurrection of Jesus make? Christian belief in the resurrection is misunderstood and misguided if taken to imply a kind of escapist pipedream optimism, which distracts us for a short time … from the troubles, challenges, and sufferings we face in the world. … But this is not what characterized the earliest Christians who were witnesses and devotees of the Risen Jesus and whose experience of the Resurrection radically altered their existence. For them, the Resurrection meant that death does not have the last word, and therefore its instruments and servants – fear, despair, lies or untruth, sickness, poverty, egoism, apathy, hatred, violence, and the preservation of self and tribe by any means possible – are exposed as deceivers and destroyers. …

The Resurrection led the early Christians not into escapism and disengagement, but to enter villages and towns ravaged by sickness and plague to care for the sick and dying. To share their own resources – “everything they had” – among them “so that there were no needy persons among them” (Acts 4:32-35). …

The Resurrections means . . .

- That we will have conflict, but we are not to make enemies or return evil for evil.

- That we will face suffering, sacrifice, and death, but we are not to give in to despair or escapism. …

- That we will face the ‘will to power’ in our politicians, leaders, institutions, traditions, histories, fellow human beings, and – if we’re honest – in ourselves! – but we can also embrace the Spirit’s power to will the Good, the True, and the Beautiful, and to love our neighbours … as we love ourselves …

- That we will feel alone, disconnected, divided, alienated, misunderstood, and hated, but we are not to become jaded, resentful, and suspicious, but to fix our vision … on the reconciliation that Christ [has] achieved, that we have been made brothers and sisters in Christ (whether we like each other or not), we are the Body of Christ, the household of God – a family defined not by blood ties and ethnocentric and xenophobic tribal loyalties, but by the “new birth,” by baptism, by love, by faith, and ultimately by the saving, reconciliatory act of God, our common Creator …

This holy Easter weekend, I choose … to align (and re-align) my vision – my faith, hope, and love – to the Risen Lord in light of the Resurrection of the Son of God. May the new creation that is dawning in him – by the Spirit’s presence and power – dawn more fully and powerfully in me; may it dawn more fully and powerfully in the church …; and may it dawn more fully and powerfully in the world, that we in all our created, beautiful diversity and multiplicity might be one in Spirit and in Truth. … 

So Also for Us

We have experienced our own struggles and hardships these past weeks, and all this is true for us as well. We come to see Jesus, and we find him risen from the dead! We come with our fears and frustrations, and he gives us new life and strength to forge ahead.

Thirty-two years ago, my father-in-law died on Easter Sunday. I remember the phone call. We were visiting my parents from Easter Weekend, and my mother woke us up early in the morning to say that Lois’ Dad had just died of cardiac arrest brought on by his cancer. We got up and packed and drove immediately to her home to be with her mother and family.

We had the funeral service and imagined her father singing in the choir in heaven. After the service, we drove to the cemetery. After the words of committal, they lowered the casket into the grave. As it was being lowered, I saw our younger son start to sing. He was about four years old, and his favourite song was “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.” I stepped over to stop him, since I thought that was really not appropriate, and then I heard what he was singing. A song from Sunday School, “One, two three, Jesus loves me. Number four, more and more. Five, six, seven, we’re all going to heaven. Eight, nine, ten, he’s coming back again.”

I stepped back and let him sing. He had it right. Because Jesus lived and died and rose from the dead, we also live and die – and rise with him. And Jesus says to all of us, as he did to the women that morning, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers and sisters to go back home; there they will see me.” Or, as we sang it this morning, “Be not afraid. Sing out for joy. Alleluia! Christ is risen!”

Resurrection Sunday 2023

Steinbach Mennonite Church

Beginning Thoughts

1. God wants all people to be reconciled with God and with each other. God wants this reconciliation so much that Jesus died – and rose from the dead – to accomplish it. We live in the reality of this cosmic shift from death and alienation to life forever with God.

2. Text: Matthew 28: 1 to 10.

The Resurrection of Jesus

28 After the Sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. ² And suddenly there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. ³ His appearance was like lightning and his clothing white as snow. ⁴ For fear of him the guards shook and became like dead men. ⁵ But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. ⁶ He is not here, for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he^[a] lay. ⁷ Then go quickly and tell his disciples, ‘He has been raised from the dead,^[b] and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.’ This is my message for you.” ⁸ So they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy and ran to tell his disciples. ⁹ Suddenly Jesus met them and said, “Greetings!” And they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshiped him. ¹⁰ Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers and sisters to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”

3. Remembering the resurrection of Jesus can become routine with annual Easter celebrations. Can you see with your inner eye what really happened that first Resurrection Sunday? How does what happened re-orient our lives and help us to live in a world where death appears to be in charge?

On Top of the Mountain

We could go in many different directions with the account of the transfiguration. We could explore the role of the three disciples who went up the mountain with Jesus. Why was it Peter, James, and John? It’s an interesting question: What do we do with the inner circle? But we’ll leave that question aside. 

 

We could ask why Matthew emphasises mountains so much. The Sermon on the Mount is a key example, and the transfiguration is another. Just a comment: The text from Exodus 24 reminds us that Moses received the Law on top of Mount Sinai. Matthew emphasises the mountain to remind us that this event is important. 

 

The Law, Torah, was God’s word. It was a written account of God’s word for God’s people. God’s word written (J.C. Wenger’s term for our written Scripture.) Jesus himself is also God’s word – God’s Word living (Wenger’s term for Jesus.) John’s gospel highlights this understanding of Jesus, saying that the Word of God is one with God and made flesh in the person of Jesus (John 1). 

 

Matthew uses a different term to make a similar point. Jesus is “Emmanuel – God with us” (1: 23). In Jesus, God enters human existence, just as God entered the lives of God’s people in Torah, the Law of Moses. 

 

God’s word, you must understand, is not simply “what God says”; God’s word is active and effective. Listen to Genesis 1: “In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth. The earth was formless and empty, and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the deep. God said, ‘Let there be light,” and there was light.” God speaks, and reality changes. God’s word is God’s action, so Jesus brings God into human existence in a way that changes reality. 

 

This discussion of Matthew’s emphasis on mountains takes us closer to what I want to talk about this morning. Why did they go to the mountain top? How does the mountain top function in our lives today? 

 

On Top of the Mountain 

When we refer to “a mountain top experience”, we usually mean some sort of incredible amazing ecstatic experience. The mountain top is not where we live each day. We live daily down on the prairie. The plains of Manitoba might represent daily life – walking steadily through the tasks and actions of each day. But every once in a while we take a trip and climb up the Rockies – just to see the view. Wouldn’t want to live there, but “it’s worth the trip.” 

 

For Peter, James, and John, the transfiguration was a real mountain top experience, literally and symbolically. They saw Moses and Elijah transfigured with Jesus. They recognized that this was special, these three shining with what is called the shekinah glory of God. They wanted to stay there,  but in a moment the whole thing was done, and daily life resumed. 

 

Have you ever had a mountain top experience like that? I don’t mean a repetition of this event in Matthew 17, but I mean a moment in which God came to you and you knew that this was a special time. Let me tell you two stories. 

 

Some Stories 

The first is a story of something happening as we worship together this morning: Asbury University is the scene of what many people are calling a revival. Here is a description from a seminary theologian across the street at the seminary.

Most Wednesday mornings at Asbury University are like any other. … But this past Wednesday [February 8, 2023] was different. After the benediction, the gospel choir began to sing a final chorus—and then something began to happen that defies easy description. Students did not leave. They were struck by what seemed to be a quiet but powerful sense of transcendence, and they did not want to go. They stayed and continued to worship. They are still there. 

 

I teach theology across the street at Asbury Theological Seminary, and when I heard of what was happening, I immediately decided to go to the chapel to see for myself. … I saw hundreds of students singing quietly. They were praising and praying earnestly for themselves and their neighbors and our world—expressing repentance and contrition for sin and interceding for healing, wholeness, peace, and justice. … 

 

They were still worshiping when I left in the late afternoon and when I came back in the evening. They were still worshiping when I arrived early Thursday morning—and by midmorning hundreds were filling the auditorium again. I have seen multiple students running toward the chapel each day. 

 

By Thursday evening, there was standing room only. Students had begun to arrive from other universities: the University of Kentucky, the University of the Cumberlands, Purdue University, Indiana Wesleyan University, Ohio Christian University, … and many others. (From the website of Christianity Today) 

 

This observer expressed his concern about such “revivals”:  

I come from a background … where I’ve seen efforts to manufacture “revivals” and “movements of the Spirit” that were sometimes not only hollow but also harmful. I do not want anything to do with that. And truth be told, this is nothing like that. There is no pressure or hype. There is no manipulation. There is no high-pitched emotional fervor. 

 

To the contrary, it has so far been mostly calm and serene. The mix of hope and joy and peace is indescribably strong and indeed almost palpable—a vivid and incredibly powerful sense of shalom. The ministry of the Holy Spirit is undeniably powerful but also so gentle. 

 

The second example comes from a Canadian theologian named John Stackhouse. Stackhouse used to teach at the University of Manitoba and is now at Crandall University in New Brunswick. Reflecting on a revival taking place at Asbury University in Kentucky, he writes: 

I thought of revival today in the life of a single individual—my grandfather—many years ago. An alcoholic binge drinker, forty-year-old Grandpa and a buddy drunkenly piled their car into a tree in their little Ontario town and then staggered home of a Saturday night. The next morning, Grandma bundled the kids off to church while her morose and abashed husband sat in the living room, nursing his hangover. 

 

Grandpa recalled Scripture verses he had memorized as a child and repented of his sin, giving his life to Jesus. Instantly, he was cured of his alcoholism and did not drink again until his death at 96. Two weeks later, he stopped a two-pack-a-day habit of smoking unfiltered cigarettes. 

 

Those of us who have wrestled with addiction know how astonishing is this testimony. But here’s what even the Holy Spirit apparently couldn’t correct in Grandpa all at once: his bad temper. No, it took several decades of caring for his beloved wife as her multiple sclerosis worsened to soften and reshape this man’s soul. By the time she died, he was a different, sanctified person. (Taken from www.johnstackhouse.com) 

 

Stackhouse’s point is that you don’t measure a mountain top experience by that moment. You measure it by long-term change (what he calls “sanctification”) worked out over a lifetime. His grandfather experienced revival in his living room as he nursed a hangover. Then he descended from the mountain top on to the vast prairie of his wife’s long illness, and God made him holy over a lifetime of love and care. 

 

Some Thoughts 

I could tell other stories – including my own, but you get the point. Mountain top experiences are meant to lead to faithful living on the prairies. A changed life lived out over a lifetime tells you what the mountain top was worth. So, a real change of life is necessary, not just a brief experience, but that’s not the whole story. Jesus was preparing Peter, James, and John for the dark days that lay ahead. He tells them not to talk about the transfiguration; they were to wait until he had died and been raised from the dead. He was giving them something to carry them through a darkness greater than any of us have ever known. 

 

Many of us have walked through times of great distress. Jesus’ gift of this experience for his disciples is for us as well. My Uncle once told of his wife’s battle with Hodgkin’s Disease. He woke up one night to find that she was not in bed. He got up to look for her and found her sitting in the living room. She said to him, “Arthur, go back to bed. You can’t do anything.” I don’t know what he did at that moment, but I do know that God came to her in those last weeks of her life. In one of their last conversations, she said to him, “Arthur, 52 is so young to die, but looking back over my life, I wouldn’t change a thing.” God had come to her and reminded her that her life was in God’s hands. God comes to us in our darkness. 

 

A word of caution: Some might hear this word as a burden, as a heavy requirement: “You must feel God’s presence!” No! We cannot manufacture God’s presence, just as we cannot and should not try to create a revival, a mountain top experience. I am suggesting something else entirely. 

 

Peter, James, and John did not know what was coming. They just followed Jesus when he took them out for a walk. John Stackhouse’s grandfather was not expecting to meet God that morning as he sat nursing a hangover, but God showed up! Asbury University held a regular chapel time, and God took over. 

 

You see what happens. If you make having a wonderful experience a new law, it becomes a burden and obstacle. Instead, I am suggesting something else. Relax. Let go. Anticipate. Trust God to give you what you need. 

 

What should we do? What we are already doing: read your Bible; pray; sing hymns or worship songs; join in a care group; go to work; play and laugh with your family. Do so expecting God to come in. 

 

A further word: It may be that the present darkness is so deep that you can’t hear or see God in any way. C.S. Lewis writes of the sense that the doors of Heaven are closed against us, “bolted and double-bolted” as we hammer on the gates of Heaven (in A Grief Observed). He notes that his own loss was so devastating that he was like a drowning man who can’t be saved until he stops fighting. He recalls also that God’s renewed presence was simple and undramatic. It just happened. 

 

That’s what I want us to grasp. Wait for the Lord. Wait expectantly. Wait with anticipation. Don’t try to manufacture something. God knows what we need and will give us what we need. We walk through the prairies knowing that the mountain top is only a moment away, always in God’s timing. 

 

There is no promise here to make life easy. Only the promise of God’s grace to carry us through. Peter, Paul, and Mary used to sing a song about an escaping slave. It goes like this: 

 

One night as I lay on my pillow, Moonlight as bright as the dawn/ I saw a man come a walking, He had a long chain on./ I heard his chains a clankin’, They made a mournful sound,/ Welded around his body, Draggin’ along the ground. 

He had a long chain on ... 

 

He stood beside my window, He looked at me and he said/ “I am so tired and hungry. Give me a bite of your bread”/ He didn’t look like a robber, He didn’t look like a thief/ His voice was as soft as the moonlight, A face full of sorrow and grief. 

He had a long chain on ... 

 

I went into my kitchen, Fetched him a bowl full of meat/ A drink and a pan of cold biscuits, That’s what I gave him to eat/ Though he was tired and hungry A bright light came over his face/ He bowed his head in the moonlight, He said a beautiful grace. 

He had a long chain on ... 

 

I got my hammer and chisel, Offered to set him free/ He looked at me and said softly, “I guess we had best let it be.”/ When he had finished his supper, He thanked me again and again./ Though it’s been years since I’ve seen him, Still hear him draggin’ his chain. 

He had a long chain on ... 

 

We see God’s presence as a bright light came over the escaping slave and he prays “a beautiful grace”, and we see God’s presence as he continues to carry the chain, “I guess we had best let it be.” God does not simply remove the pain, but he walks with us all the way to the cross and into the resurrection that follows. And he gives us grace and an awareness of his overwhelming wonderful presence to carry us through as well. Whether we are students at Asbury, afraid of the hate and polarization engulfing their country. Or an alcoholic weeping in his living room as his family goes to church. Or you or me. God invites us each one to follow him and experience his love and care and grace and peace. Amen. 

 

 

 

Steinbach Mennonite Church 

19 February 2023 

 

Texts 

Exodus 24:12-18 NRSV

¹² The Lord said to Moses, “Come up to me on the mountain and wait there; I will give you the tablets of stone, with the law and the commandment, which I have written for their instruction.” ¹³ So Moses set out with his assistant Joshua, and Moses went up onto the mountain of God. ¹⁴ To the elders he had said, “Wait here for us, until we come back to you. Look, Aaron and Hur are with you; whoever has a dispute may go to them.” 

¹⁵ Then Moses went up on the mountain, and the cloud covered the mountain. ¹⁶ The glory of the Lord settled on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it for six days; on the seventh day he called to Moses out of the cloud. ¹⁷ Now the appearance of the glory of the Lord was like a devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the sight of the Israelites. ¹⁸ Moses entered the cloud and went up on the mountain. Moses was on the mountain for forty days and forty nights.

 

Matthew 17:1-9 NRSV

17 Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves. ² And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became bright as light. ³ Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. ⁴ Then Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will set up three tents here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” ⁵ While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!” ⁶ When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear. ⁷ But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Get up and do not be afraid.” ⁸ And when they raised their eyes, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone. 

⁹ As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus ordered them, “Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.”