Sermon:
March 2, 2003
Sunday Night Alive!  

Scripture:
Mark 9:2-9

For many families, this is the last evening of midwinter break. The ski hills have been busy. I have heard of trips to Montana, Colorado and Vermont. Snowboard pipes are well worn. Snowmobile trails were run. There was even enough snow for the cross country ski and snowshoe crowd. If you’ve never tried it, snowshoeing is really a fun way to get out in the woods. It takes a certain rhythm. At first you feel like you’re walking in mud. You have to learn how to step. (Aspen likes to stand on my shoes.) 

When Bron and I last went out, we saw the largest tree I have ever seen. It was a white pine, our state tree. About a year ago, the stately giant came down in a storm. We snowshoed to it this winter to get a picture with the kids. Literally, I had to lift McKenzie up to sit on the trunk of this fallen giant.

Now pine is a soft wood, not the best for fires. When you come in off the slopes and want a crackling fire to warm up to, it will warm you up, though. I brought a piece of cord wood this evening, because our text points to a very important truth. If you’ve ever burned wood in a fireplace or wood stove, you know not all wood burns the same. I’m not talking about if the wood is hard or soft, how fast it burns or how much heat it puts off. I’m talking about how, on the one hand, there is well-prepared wood: cut, split, seasoned. It’s been under cover, so when it’s time to start the fire, it’s ready. 

And then there are the alternatives. This last summer, in backpacking with a group of high school kids along the Pictured Rocks, we had a problem. Each night the campers built a fire. We had to gather wood, so we would all go out to scavenge. On one of the first nights, one of the kids “found” a limb. I say “found” because you don’t take anything that’s not down, and what he brought back was so green you could see where he tried to rip the leaves off. It was practically dripping. If you’ve ever tried to start a fire with green, unprepared wood, you know it’s a pretty hopeless case. Short of using lighter fluid, it just won’t start. 

At the same time, there were many birch logs on the ground in the woods. In the fall you can see their white bark on the forest floor, but the log will be rotten. It crumbles/smushes in your hands. 

A few years ago at the cabin, we thought we’d move an old wood pile and save the wood. It had been there on the ground at least five or ten years. I learned real quick that just because you see what looks like cord wood in the pile (or bark in the woods), that doesn’t mean you have burnable wood. If wood is left unused for too long, pretty soon all you have is spongy rot. It doesn’t matter how much work went into preparing it. It will never be used for a fire like it was intended. 

Seasoned cord wood is a powerful fuel. It can warm a room or a whole house, but it has to be prepared, readied and then used. 

Now what does wood have to do with our text tonight? What does it have to do with the Transfiguration?           

Shortly before Jesus went up the mountain with Peter, James and John, he asked the disciples: “Who do the crowds say that I am?” 

They answered: “Some say you’re John the Baptist. Others say Elijah, still others that you’re one of the prophets from long ago.”                       

Then he asked them straight: “But, who do you say that I am?” 

This time Peter answered: “You are the Christ, the Messiah of God.” Peter, like a dry piece of firewood, was ready to ignite! He was ready for what God was about to reveal. 

We’ve all been in a situation where we missed seeing something or didn’t recognize what was right there in front of us, because we weren’t ready to see it. The ones who read our x-rays, sonograms and CAT scans can see the most minute indicators, because they’re looking for them. Interior designers can bring colors together—what I would see as the worst colors in the world—and make them work. They turn out beautifully because they know what to look for.           

This coming Wednesday is Ash Wednesday. It’s the beginning of the Lent. The Lenten season is a time where we get ourselves ready, prepare ourselves, that we might recognize God in our midst. It’s a time when we take an introspective inventory of where we are. You might say, to inquire as to what kind of wood we’ve become. Because when God’s presence touches us, we want to be ready to ignite, ready to burn in a life-changing, life-giving way. 

You see, God changes things. Moses’ face was transformed by a holiness that radiated from his encounter with God. Jesus shone like a flash of lightning. I’ve never seen the effects of lightning first hand, but I understand it’s hot! Very hot! 

Our Lord said, “Seek and you will find.” If we earnestly seek to encounter God and open ourselves to his presence, if we desire to recognize him and prepare ourselves to do so, he will not leave that thirst, that preparation, unanswered. He takes what we have prepared and, by the Holy Sprit, begins a fire that ignites our souls.

The disciples Peter, James and John were never the same after this time on the mountain. That’s the way it is with God. When God’s presence is recognized, when the fire is lit within us (personally within ourselves), within the church, and in our community, we are never the same again. 

This Lenten season, as we come down off the mountains of snow, as midwinter break draws to a close, we might be tempted to look at the old wood pile and think: “There it is, all is well.” Yet Lent reminds us that to encounter the living God, we must prepare to be in the presence of a reality which truly transforms. To ignite with the fire of God is to be filled with wonder, to see with new eyes, to be amazed. “Jesus, was it you all along?”