The Transfiguration of Jesus and our Spiritual Experience of God, Luke 9:28-36 (Last Sunday Before Lent, Year C)

Luke 9:28-36

In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.

I began to pray with all my might for those who had in a more especial manner despitefully used me and persecuted me. I then testified openly to all there what I now first felt in my heart. But it was not long before the enemy suggested, “This cannot be faith; for where is thy joy?” Then was I taught that peace and victory over sin are essential to faith in the Captain of our salvation; but that, as to the transports of joy that usually attend the beginning of it, especially in those who have mourned deeply, God sometimes giveth, sometimes withholdeth, them according to the counsels of His own will.

Longstanding Methodists should recognise that extended quote as coming from John Wesley’s Journal for the date 24th May 1738, the date we sometimes call his conversion.

And I read it today as an illustration of Christian experience. His heart is strangely warmed. Yet on the other hand he then expects to be filled with joy but he isn’t, and he learns that sometimes God gives joy and on other occasions he doesn’t.

This live experience of God is something Wesley emphasised as a way of knowing God and his ways in addition to the classic triad of Scripture, the traditions of the church, and human reason.

And if the story of the Transfiguration is about anything, it’s about Peter, James, and John having a vivid experience of God. I think it gives us a good vantage point from which to consider why God does and does not grant us significant spiritual experiences.

Firstly, a spiritual experience is about grace.

Peter, James, and John are not chosen due to their merits or superior spiritual status. No, they are simply chosen by Jesus to accompany him. No more.

We need to remember, then, that if someone has a profound experience of God they are not to be thought of as somehow better than the rest of us. For those who do have the privilege of such things, it can be tempting to think that they are closer to God than others. But it isn’t necessarily the case. A spiritual experience is not a badge to wear, it’s a gift to receive with gratitude. And like Wesley in his analysis of joy, we may or may not know why God has granted it.

If you want any evidence that Peter, James, and John are not of a higher status than the other disciples, you have only to look at what happens after this incident. They come down from the mountain to find the other disciples failing to cast a demon from a boy. But do Peter, James, or John with their extraordinary encounter intervene and sort it out? No. They are no more competent than the rest of the Twelve. They have not been elevated by what happened on the mountain.

If you are granted some special meeting with Almighty God in your life, do not set yourself up as better than your brother and sister Christians. Instead, appreciate the wonder of God’s grace.

And if you come across someone who has a dramatic appointment with God, then equally do not regard yourself as inferior, and do not be envious. And I know this one: I’ve sat in meetings where speakers have picked out people to give them prophetic words from God, but they never pointed to me. Was God not interested in me? Was I not special to him?

But it is all about grace. God has his purposes. Sometimes we understand them, sometimes we don’t, but grace is at the heart of his actions.

Secondly, a spiritual experience is a glimpse.

What do we make of Peter’s blabbering suggestion to put up three shelters – one for Jesus, one for Moses, and one for Elijah? Even Luke says that Peter didn’t know what he was saying. (Verse 33)

It could be some kind of monument. There are examples in Scripture of people building something to commemorate a particular divine encounter. But the trouble with monuments is we turn them into museums, and we don’t continue with a live, on-going relationship with God in Christ, we just look back with Instagram filters to the past and appoint curators instead of prophets.

I think the New Testament scholar Ian Paul has got it right in assessing Peter’s mistaken suggestion when he writes,

He has not yet understood that this is a momentary drawing back of the curtain, giving him and the other two a glimpse of the heavenly reality of who Jesus really is, but that this is not the end of the story—yet.

‘A momentary drawing back of the curtain.’ Peter, James, and John catch a glimpse of what is to come. It isn’t now, but it’s a sign of what’s to come.

So any Christian who tells us that we should be living in a permanent state of bliss and of heightened spiritual experience is wrong. The end of the story hasn’t happened yet. We know it will come, and occasionally God grants us little foretastes to assure us it’s on the way. But right now we cannot spend all our lives on the mountain in the cloud of glory.

That isn’t meant to be an excuse for those of us who want the very minimum experience of God: those of us who want enough of God to be forgiven but not so much that we are challenged; those of us who are happy to give him Sunday but not Monday to Saturday.

But it is to say, let’s keep spiritual experiences in perspective. We can expect they will happen from time to time (although we cannot predict them). But they happen to keep us oriented towards God’s great future. The true fruit of a powerful divine experience is that we live more passionately for Jesus and his kingdom as a result.

Thirdly and finally, a spiritual experience is an encouragement.

The context is important here. Just before this incident Jesus has given his first prophecy to his disciples that he is going to Jerusalem where he will be betrayed, suffer, die, and be raised again.

It’s picked up in the reading, when Moses and Elijah talk with Jesus:

They spoke about his departure, which he was about to bring to fulfilment at Jerusalem. (Verse 31)

His departure? Well, remember there’s an Old Testament book called ‘Departure.’ Exodus! And that’s the Greek word here: exodos. Just as God set his people the Israelites free from the oppression of Egypt in the Exodus, so now his Son will set people free from the oppression of sin by his own exodos at Jerusalem, in his cross and resurrection.

But to face that is terrifying. Nowhere do we see that more clearly than when Jesus prays in Gethsemane. I believe that to help him face that terrible time the Father grants his Son a profoundly close encounter, where he affirms him above all others – even above Moses and Elijah:

A voice came from the cloud, saying, ‘This is my Son, whom I have chosen; listen to him.’ (Verse 35)

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that some of the most vivid accounts of people meeting with God come from the testimonies of the persecuted church. These are folk who need the encouragement to stand firm, even in suffering for the name of Jesus. The spiritual experience is not some heavenly tickling just to make us feel good. Often God makes himself known in the most powerful way to those who most need that encouragement.

Certainly, I can look back on the deep experiences of God I have occasionally had and realise that several of them were clustered around a very dark time of my life. God reminded me he was still there and he still had his hand on my life, no matter what I was going through.

As we conclude, note how the story ends:

When the voice had spoken, they found that Jesus was alone. The disciples kept this to themselves and did not tell anyone at that time what they had seen. (Verse 36)

They don’t go back and boast about it. Maybe they sense what I said at first that these experiences are about God’s grace, not our merit. Perhaps they realised the privilege they’d been granted in being given a glimpse of how the great story ends. They might also have felt encouraged, even though doubtless they still didn’t understand the necessity of Jesus suffering.

But I pray that we’re all open to whatever God is saying and doing when he interrupts normal service with something special.

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What Are You Doing For Lent This Year? A Suggestion.

An interruption to the weekly teaching videos: I wrote this piece for the newsletter at one of my churches. After completing it, I thought the idea in it might be appreciated by other Christians who are thinking how they might spend Lent this year.

The idea isn’t stunningly original, but it’s simple. And it’s a discipline of engagement rather than a discipline of abstinence. See what you think. I’d love to know if you find this helpful.

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Between Christmas-Epiphany and Easter I find the calendar of the ‘Church Year’ confusing. And the culprit is Lent.

Why? Well, once we’ve got past the birth of Jesus and the (slightly later) visit of the Magi, we then usually go to the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry at his baptism, having ignored the temptations, because we’re saving them for Lent. We then skip through the early and middle parts of his ministry, right up to the Transfiguration on the Last Sunday Before Lent. But then, instead of heading towards Jerusalem, we jump back to the wilderness temptations for the beginning of Lent and follow Jesus’ example of fasting and self-denial for forty days right before the end of his ministry rather than at the beginning. And while we’re doing it, we do another quick run through his public ministry.

As the introduction to one famous TV comedy show used to say every week, ‘Confused? You will be!’

Is it any wonder that many experienced Christians still don’t get a grip on the great biblical narrative when the church organises things in such an inconsistent way, and has done for centuries? In my weekly videos and sermons this year I’ve tried to bring some semblance of order to the post-Epiphany/pre-Lent period by concentrating on the Lectionary Gospel passages about the early and middle part of Jesus’ ministry, so that we can keep the story building. But once Lent kicks in, the continuity will go to pot.

So I have a suggestion. Make your Lent discipline one in which you read all four of the Gospels. At two chapters a day, you will get through them all in Lent, and that will be less than ten minutes’ reading each day.

Here is a suggested pattern. Because there are four documents to read – not strictly Four Gospels, but one Gospel and one Jesus according to four different writers – you will get a better flavour of each if you read them separately. I recommend that you begin with Mark. It was almost certainly the first to be written, it is the simplest, and Matthew and Luke clearly depend on it for some of their material.

Once you’ve read Mark, then read Matthew, the most Jewish of the Gospels, followed by Luke, the most Gentile of the four.

Finally, read John. Most scholars think it was the last to be written. John’s style and material are very different from the other three. While people puzzle about that difference, a worthy theory is that John expected his audience at the very least to know the content of Mark, so he sees no point in repetition.

Now this approach isn’t without its own problems. Mark, Matthew, and Luke will take you on a similar shaped story culminating in just one visit to Jerusalem by the adult Jesus. John, on the other hand, writes of three visits that Jesus makes to Jerusalem during his ministry. But you will get more of the ‘big story’ of Jesus’ life and ministry.

As I said, this is not a demanding discipline to try. There are actually forty-six days in Lent (because the Sundays are additional to the forty days). If you begin on Ash Wednesday, you will spend eight days in Mark, fourteen in Matthew, twelve in Luke, and either ten or eleven in John. You will finish around Good Friday or Holy Saturday, just in time to celebrate Easter.

I encourage you to try this. And if you do, I would love to hear how you get on. Please give me some feedback about how it goes for you. Let’s do something that engages deeply with Jesus this year.

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Interview With Jo Acharya, Author of ‘Refresh: A Wellness Devotional for the Whole Christian Life’

In recent times I have of course mainly just posted my Sunday sermons here on the blog. But a year or so ago, I interviewed Christian author Liz Carter about her book Treasure in Dark Places. The reaction to that interview was so positive, not least from church members asking me where they could buy Liz’s books, that when the opportunity came along to interview Jo Acharya about her new book Refresh: A Wellness Devotional for the Whole Christian Life, I couldn’t pass it up.

Hi Jo, welcome. Would you like to introduce yourself to the readers of this blog, please?

Thank you so much for having me on your blog David! I’m Jo, and I’m a writer and music therapist. I live in Sussex with my husband Dan and we also help to lead a small group at our church for adults with learning needs. I write a regular blog and also write ‘easy read’ Bible study and faith resources for Christians with learning needs, both on my website.

You’ve written a devotional book that’s just been published entitled ‘Refresh: A Wellness Devotional For The Christian Life’, and it has a different approach from many typical books of personal devotions. Do you think the Christian devotional book has become a stale format that needs re-inventing?

I don’t think the traditional devotional format is stale, but I do think there’s room for creative variations on the theme. One of the reasons I wrote ‘Refresh’ was to offer gentle encouragement to people who are struggling with their health, life circumstances or even their faith itself. I have cystic fibrosis and know how hard it can be to keep up with a daily devotional, so I decided to give ‘Refresh’ just one devotional each week, which makes it flexible enough to work through at the reader’s own pace. The other advantage of that is that it allows the reader to stay with a topic for longer rather than rushing onto a new reflection each day, which I think gives it a chance to sink in and have a deeper impact.

I note from a recent piece in Christian Writer magazine that you’re a big believer in ‘simple writing’. Have you written this book in a way that is accessible to all sorts of people, or does it have a specific narrow focus?

You’re right that one of my passions is making the Bible easy to understand, particularly for people with learning needs. ‘Refresh’ is for a general audience, but I have tried to use relatively simple language to make it accessible for people who aren’t confident readers as well as some with very mild learning needs. My next project is to adapt ‘Refresh’ into an ‘easy read’ edition which will use very simple language and be suitable for people with mild to moderate learning needs. Hopefully that should be out later this year, so I’m excited about that!

And the specific theme of ‘wellness’: did this come from all the concerns about mental health we’ve seen during the COVID-19 pandemic?

I actually began writing the book before the pandemic, when the importance of mental health and wellness was already gaining attention. But these last two years have only intensified the need to address those issues, and even many of us who haven’t struggled in those areas before have had to cope with increased stress, anxiety, illness or bereavement, as well as losing access to some of the things we usually do to look after our wellbeing. I know for myself personally the experience of lockdown and shielding has exposed all the things I was putting my hope and joy in that weren’t God! And it’s pushed me to try and realign my heart to focus on him more and hold the things of this world more loosely. ‘Refresh’ explores a lot of basic aspects of life including the practical, emotional and spiritual, and I do believe it has a lot to say to those who have suffered during this pandemic.

I see that Patrick Regan, the founder of the Kintsugi Hope mental health resources, has endorsed the book. Has his work been a particular encouragement to you?

Yes, I found Patrick Regan’s book ‘When Faith Gets Shaken‘, which tells his own story of trusting God through suffering, really helpful to me personally. One of the big bees in my bonnet is about encouraging people to open up to God and be real about all the emotions they are feeling, and not hide from him. That’s something Patrick really emphasises in his work as well, and I’m so grateful for his kindness in endorsing my book.

With the rise in mental health issues being reported to doctors, we are seeing increased use of therapies such as Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. Do you think that your wellness devotional has something to offer in helping people reframe their circumstances and get out of their downward spirals?

I hope so. It’s certainly not a replacement for individual support like therapy, pastoral care or medication, but one area where I think ‘Refresh’ can be useful is in helping readers to identify areas where they might need that extra support. The questions each week probe a little bit into how the topic might relate to them personally and in the introduction I suggest that if particular questions are hard or painful to think about that might give clues as to areas that might be worth exploring further with someone they trust. Of course many readers won’t need further support, and for them I think ‘Refresh’ can be helpful for self-reflection, and an opportunity to discover in prayer areas where God wants to bring change or healing.

As an amateur photographer myself, I’m intrigued and pleased to see that you’ve involved your husband Dan in creating images for the book. How did that come about, and what do the images contribute to the book?

I think the aesthetic side of a devotional journal like this is really important. I wanted it to be a beautiful product that it makes you want to engage with it. So I needed some visual elements, and since I happen to be married to a talented photographer using his images seemed like the obvious choice! Dan’s photos represent each topic (usually in a somewhat abstract way) and they’re all quite different in style which I love. Images often communicate quicker than words and on a more emotional level so I think they give the book it’s feel. The book is also printed in full colour throughout which just makes it lovely to use and work through.

Is there a particular theme in the book that you think is especially relevant to our lives today as we continue to navigate the uncertainties and restrictions of the pandemic?

I guess the major theme weaving through the book is that God really wants to be involved in our whole lives, whatever they look like. For some of us our lives may have looked very different during this period, and we might have felt a bit lost in our faith too without the regular routine of in-person Sunday worship. Things may be beginning to return to normal for a lot of us now, but we still have that opportunity to keep inviting God into our lives outside of church. He really cares about our mundane everyday activities, our joys and our pain, and he wants to join us in all the messiness of life. So I hope ‘Refresh’ will be an encouragement to do that.

Thanks for taking part in this interview, Jo. Can you finally tell the readers the publication details of the book, please?

Jo Acharya

‘Refresh’ is published by Malcolm Down Publishing and it’s available now in all good bookshops. You can also get signed copies from my website, ValleyOfSprings.com/store.

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Jo Acharya is a writer and music therapist. Her first book, ‘Refresh: a wellness devotional for the whole Christian life’ is available from all good bookshops. You can read more of Jo’s writing and buy signed copies of ‘Refresh’ at valleyofsprings.com, and you can follow her on social media at facebook.com/valleyofsprings and instagram.com/valleyofsprings.

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