2-27-14 - Now You're Scared?

Now, this is interesting. In the story of Jesus’ transfiguration, the three disciples watch his face light up like a blazing sun, his clothes gleam dazzling white, and Moses and Elijah appear right in front of them. Peter’s only reaction is to want to build three shelters so they can hang out together. But when a bright cloud comes over them, with a voice in it… suddenly they’re petrified:

"While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, 'This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!' When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear."

We often try to accommodate unusual experiences, until there is too much “unusual,” and our circuits overload. Or maybe the disciples were fine as long as they could see – but when their sight was obscured by a bright cloud that spoke… then they panicked ? OR was it what that voice said, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!” They must have heard the stories about Jesus’ baptism, when a voice from heaven was heard to say almost the same words. Were they overcome by fear because now it was unmistakable – that Jesus was in fact God's Son, holy, divine? Now there was no going back?

True movements of God that we experience with our physical senses tend to be deeply frightening – they’re so far outside our expectation. Many of us encounter God with our spiritual senses; that’s powerful enough. But it's a different matter to perceive the holy with the same senses that engage the rest of life. We can’t pretend to be manufacturing it – we’re either crazy, or in God’s presence – and neither possibility is comforting. I only had one experience even remotely like that, on a retreat once, when I felt a room I was in filled with a presence that was so completely “Other,” it seemed to be God… I’ll never know if it was, because I ran from the room back to where other people were.

It can be hard for us to identify with the shock of recognizing Jesus as God… this is a story handed down to us rather than experienced first-hand. And for many it’s such a familiar story, it can be hard to feel the emotions being related. So let’s think today:

Are there times when you’ve been overcome by the presence of God in a way that scared you? 

Have your physical senses ever been overwhelmed so that you had to rely on spiritual sight? 
Does your expectation of God include experiences that seem supernatural, like this one? 
Do you think the Spirit wants you to be open to more? What are we really afraid of?

Fear is never the end of a holy encounter. Always an angel or someone comes along to say, “Be not afraid.” It was no different on the mountain: “But Jesus came and touched them, saying, ‘Get up and do not be afraid.’ And when they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone.”

Every spiritual experience, no matter how deep or frightening, comes to an end. 

Our perceptions normalize; reality returns. And then we’re left with what?  
“No one, except Jesus himself alone.” Sounds like a pretty good deal to me…

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