Mountaintop Experience

Biblical Text: : Luke 9:28-36

The text is the Transfiguration. Liturgically the transfiguration is the end of the season of Epiphany. It stands as the ultimate revelation by signs and wonders of who Jesus is this side of the cross. As such it is the picture of the glory of God and direct experience of God now. It is a seeing. The problem is that seeing this side of the cross is without meaning. We might experience God, but what does that experience mean? Any direct experience of God can only be understood through or on the far side of the cross. Jesus is our Passover lamb first before we are brought to the promised land. This sermon is a meditation on all the ways that we desire and seek to see, when what we are bid to do by the voice of the Father is listen. We do not know God by seeing. We know God by listening to his voice.

Doctrine, Mission and the Experience of God

Biblical Text: Luke 5:1-11

Those first two points have unfortunately become a polarity in the church. Yet they go together. One grows out of the other. The life of faith finds its start and its proof in obedience to the Word. The text is the amazing catch of fish, but you never get to the catch if Peter is not obedient twice to the Word of Jesus. But both the faith and the mission rest on the experience of God. This sermon attempts to experience along with Peter that presence of God through obedience to the faith and the call to mission.