One time something happened to three friends of Jesus—Peter, James, and John—that left them speechless. It was something so unusual, so unlikely, so mysterious, that afterward they didn’t even try to speak about it. The incident is called the transfiguration. Jesus took the three of them up a mountain to pray.
Moses and Elijah appeared, and they talked about, of all things, how his life would end. They had fallen asleep, the three of them had, and they awoke in the middle of the strange experience and Peter—you can always count on Peter—Peter starts talking. He says, in essence, “Wow! This is really great. It’s so good that we are here to see this. Let’s construct three sanctuaries here to preserve the moment, to remember the experience.
I submit that part of what this story suggests is that we need to go to the mountaintop now and then. We need some downtime, some empty space, some silence, for the sake of our spirits, not to mention our health and sanity.
Let’s not be too quick to come down from the mountain. Let’s stay there—in the wondrous, mysterious, awe-ful silence for a while and then come down resourceful . Instead of building those three buildings, the disciples came down with Jesus from the mountain and were met by a great crowd longing for their help .
Dr. Willy L Mafuta,
Senior Pastor,
Hopewell United Methodist Church, Hopewell, NJ 08525