Backstage Pass

Readings:
Exodus 24:12-18
2 Peter 1:16-21
Matthew 17:1-9

Audio sermon link: https://fileresource.sitepro.com/filemanager/74/filecollections/422/52932BC0-41A0-D4F6-F90D-F7E83081CC9F.mp3

Today we were given the eye-opening metaphor of witnessing the Transfiguration as being invited backstage to met the great music stars and heavyweights. We are asked to imagine ourselves in that enviable position where we might ask the greats to “play that one song” for a private audience of one. It is a moment we wish would last. We have often heard preachers speak of “mountaintop experiences”. Today we hear about “the backstage experience” we’ll only ever have but once.

In Peter’s case, the excitement yields to the voice in the clouds at whose sound there is real fear. This goes beyond “a backstage moment or meeting with Jesus. He warns Peter not to tell anyone about the meeting ’until this other thing takes place’. Jesus, himself, is setting up the drama of His eventual walk to the Cross – when white gives way to purple, as the Halle, Halle, Halle – luiah is ‘put away’ until Easter, a premonition of the quiet time of Lent.

Yes, Pastor Mohn reminds us, we’re tempted to think of Jesus as the star (recall two weeks back He pushes aside the title of ‘The One’), the star very few ever get to see in concert, the one even fewer get to meet, the one delivered to concerts in limos via back door entries, someone protected by security, always separated from others by the stage curtain.

But, as Pastor Johnson brought front and center two weeks ago, Jesus reminds us the curtain will be torn, so the table can be open to all. Jesus will defy and forego His stardom to say “Come on in, one and all”.

We are suckers for power and stardom. We really need 40 days to ‘get’ the understanding that Jesus’ power is in poverty, exclusion, isolation. Jesus sees the invisible and goes to the place of pain and makes His home there. Jesus’ power is in death turned into life eternal.

We need the shadow to see how the light can transform our lives, so that we can come to a place where we cannot help but give thanks for the light of the world.
This is a very different kind of star, unlike any we have ever experienced. He welcomes us backstage, all of us, because he wants us to know we are all alike, no one better than the other, no one to be excluded - all called to further welcome one another.

Now some would say if just anybody could go backstage, well then it would lose its allure. What Jesus says is that a backstage where everyone is welcome is the only backstage we can accept. And He says “Now wouldn’t that be a place to be?” And then He opens wide the door and says “Come on in”.