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Sermon - Reverend Jack Arnold -
Time and Action
Church of the Faithful Centurion - Descanso, California
Today’s
sermon brought the Collect, Epistle and Gospel together and is partly contained in the forewords above.
This
Transfiguration is in many ways a strange event, certainly the like of which
the world had never Certainly an exception to Ecclesiastes 1:9’s
The thing that hath 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.
For this truly was something new with the Son!
Consider
the words from the Collect, wherein we ask God who … grant that we, being delivered
from the disquietude of this world, may be permitted to behold the King in his
beauty …
The Collect
does not take us where I, at least, would think it would. We are asking to have our souls be able to
withdraw from the noise, clamor and evil of the world which Bishop Cranmer
summarizes as the disquietude of this world. To withdraw means
to separate, more on that later. But to
where? To where we might let our souls behold the King in his beauty. To behold
the King in his beauty is to know the Peace of God. That Peace which replaces the disquietude
with quietude. To be at peace and rest,
something we long for and can only achieve with God’s help
via the Holy Ghost.
That leads
us into Peter’s words as he nears the end of his time here on earth. He is at peace with what counts
and separated in many respects from the disquietude of the world, set aside, or in another word,
holy. He tells those who have depended
on him for guidance he will soon be leaving them for home; they must carry on
with the initial guidance he and his companions have given them. He reminds them they have been given the
truth and the light of our Lord Jesus Christ, not a bunch of what he calls cunningly devised fables which were
designed to keep them subject to the ways of this world. He reminds them, and us, this Lord Jesus
Christ whom we follow was called My
Beloved Son out loud by God Himself at His baptism and again on the Mount
at the Transfiguration when we were specifically commanded to listen to him and
by inference follow him. For what good
is listening only?
This, of course, leads to Luke’s account
of the Transfiguration. Luke the
Physician is often Luke the
Historian and this is one of those cases.
Jesus went up to a mountain; interesting he did not go to the temple, is
it not? He took Peter and John and
James, those to whom he was closest, and went up to pray. He knew where he was going, He always
did. While He prayed, His appearance and
clothing changed. This is the outward
transfiguration. You can be sure when He
left for the mountain, his clothing was not white and glistering, for in those
days nothing was. There he met with Moses
and Elias, not dead but alive. They
talked of the upcoming crucifixion, but once again Peter’s presence
was slipping away as he fell asleep, much like he would at Gethsemane. When Peter awoke, he suggested making three tabernacles or monuments to
Jesus, Moses and Elias. That must have
amused Jesus to no end. Then came the
Cloud of God and the VOICE! This is my beloved Son: hear him. Then,
there was just Jesus and his band.
So, what to make of this?
And when the voice was past, Jesus was found alone. And they kept
it close, and told no man in those days any of those things which they had
seen.
Action
counts. For by their actions ye shall
know them.
Heaven is
at the end of an uphill trail. The easy
downhill trail does not lead to the summit.
The time is
now, not tomorrow. The time has come,
indeed. How will you ACT?
It is by
our actions we are known.
Be of God - Live of God - Act of God
