Here I AM

Caleb pushed the car door open with his leg, slid off the seat, and bounded for the blue slide. “Watch me, Dad!” Up the steps he went and slid down on his tummy, landing on the sand at the bottom. He ran, rested, then climbed and slid again. Too soon, his Dad said, “Okay, Caleb, it’s time for us to go now.” “But Dad, we just got here.” “Would you like to stay and play longer, Caleb?” “Yes!” he shouted. “I don’t blame you. But get in the car. We need to go home and clean out the garage and mow the yard.” “But, Dad, that will take a long time. I want to play!” “Yes, Son, it will take time, and it’s hard work too. But we’ll come back out to the park this afternoon, as soon as our work is done.” “Promise?” “I promise. We’ll be back before you know it!”

On the mountain of glory.

A sustained heavenly visit has appeal.

It did for Peter, James, and John. Who could blame them? When we remember the context (Peter’s confession and Jesus’ passion prediction), we can understand their desire to remain. Whatever Jesus meant about being killed, about denying oneself, picking up one’s cross, losing one’s life, and the like, standing in heaven’s company with Moses and Elijah seemed better.

It would for us too . . . especially if the last word we heard from the surgeon was cancer, or from the boss, “We’re going to let you go.” Just as we are prone to rely on worldly diversions (spending time in the workshop, at the lake, watching videos, riding motorcycles, golfing, shopping, antiquing, snowmobiling, gardening, crocheting, etc.) to avoid the painful realities of life, surely we’d welcome a heavenly interruption by the likes of Moses and Elijah for the same reason.

How powerless life’s problems seem when we allow our imaginations to converse with the one who crossed the Red Sea on dry ground and who stood before I AM on holy ground, or to sit beside the prophet and ask him to describe the chariot of fire, or to recall the looks on the faces of the 850 prophets of Baal and Asherah (1 Ki 18:19) when the fire came down and licked up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones, the soil, and the water in the trench. A sustained heavenly visit does have appeal.

For Jesus, securing eternal glory for us had greater appeal.

He must go back down the mountain. For Jesus, Moses, and Elijah, the discussion this transfiguration day was not a recounting of the exodus from slavery in Egypt or of the prophet’s signs and miracles. They were talking about Jesus’ “exodus” (Lk 9:30–31), about his delivering us from sin and Satan through death. Although the disciples did not understand what Jesus “plainly spoke” to them at the time of Peter’s confession, Jesus himself knew.

There is but one plan of salvation, and he was it. The blood of thousands and thousands of lambs sacrificed for hundreds of years means nothing, and the Spirit of death cannot “pass over” our sins if the blood of the Lamb of God is not poured out for us.

Jesus would descend from the mount of glory not to provide people with problems, one more temporary diversion, but to reach the crest of Calvary, curing people of life’s problems, even of sin, death, and hell, for all eternity.

Jesus leads his disciples back down the mountain with him. His followers were to have been strengthened by the heavenly meeting — receiving a blessed glimpse of what heaven looks like — for what was now to come: Jesus’ suffering and theirs. Through the eyes of faith, we too partake in a heavenly meeting when we eat his body and drink his blood “with angels and archangels and with all the company of heaven.” So do we need strength from Jesus’ real presence among us.

Following Jesus is not a passive or nonparticipatory life. It’s highly interactive. No synergism or works righteousness here. No merits for salvation earned or given. It’s just that Jesus’ followers follow. Bearing the markings of his life literally (sometimes unto death) and figuratively (by the crosses they bear) is not uncommon.

The pains suffered by first-century Christians are well documented. Scripture itself tells us of Paul, Peter, James, and Stephen. Tradition speaks of the other apostles and martyrs (see Foxe’s Book of Martyrs). In recent months, greater attention has been given to the millions of Christians who are persecuted around the world today. If we are not directly persecuted for our faith, then as life’s situations (Coronavirus, illness, divorce, trouble with children, loss of job, old age, loneliness, finances) cause suffering or hardship, it becomes suffering for Christ’s sake when we endure and respond in faith.

Followers of Jesus will not allow the quality of life, money matters, or worldly comforts to dictate our outlook or decisions. Rather, we picture ourselves coming down the mountain, not alone, but with Jesus saying, “Here I am with you,” and we know that his glory will prevail.

Jesus’ followers know that he says, “I am here to strengthen you through suffering.” Illustration: Ten-year-old Warren answers the essay question “Why do Christians suffer?” “Suffering makes Christians become broken and weak, but this allows our negative qualities to drain out and make space for God’s righteousness” (The Voice of the Martyrs, November 1998).

And “I am here with you in suffering to use you to witness to others.”

Pastor Richard Wurmbrand knows about Christ’s strength for him in suffering and about witnessing. Before his release in 1964, he was tortured for 14 years in communist Romanian prisons for his involvement with the Christian underground. He suffered the first three years in a cell 30 feet underground in total darkness and quiet. Dirty, watery soup and daily beatings were customary. He did not know if his wife and son were alive. The Lord sustained his life and used him to bring Christ to both fellow inmates and torturers. (Read Wurmbrand’s firsthand account, In God’s Underground, edited by Charles Foley [Bartlesville, OK: Living Sacrifice, 1968].)

At one time, Rev. Wurmbrand survived on an hour of sleep per night, with no bed and a guard clicking open and shut the spyhole in the door each minute or so. His interrogator threatened him constantly, saying, “Don’t you know I can order your execution tonight?” Wurmbrand spoke of Christ. He told this torturer to put his hand over Wurmbrand’s heart. If it beat rapidly from fright, the man would know there was no God and no eternal life. If it beat calmly, indicating Wurmbrand was at peace, then the interrogator would know there is a God and eternal life. Instead of putting his hand on Wurmbrand’s chest, the interrogator struck his face saying, “Can’t you see that . . . your savior, or whatever you call him, isn’t going to open any prison doors?” Wurmbrand replied, “His name is Jesus Christ, and if He wishes, He can release me” (pp 39–40).

Another day, Wurmbrand etched the name Jesus on his cell wall in hopes of comforting those who might follow him. He was punished by being put in the “carcer.” Built into the wall like a cupboard, the carcer was 20 inches square and just tall enough to stand in. When the guard pushed him into the carcer, he immediately jerked forward because his backside was pierced by spikes protruding through the back of the carcer. He was pierced again by a similar set of spikes set in the front of the carcer. The entire cell was studded with spikes. He notes, “My legs began to ache. . . . When I collapsed, lacerating myself on the spikes, they let me out for a rest, then put me back. . . . I spent two days in the carcer” (pp 56–57).

I will come back here again (to the glory of heaven).

I am the one who keeps his promises.

I am here to take you back with me. Therefore, “our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us” (Rom 8:18).

When I am with you in heavenly glory, it will be without end.

Conclusion: Caleb loves playing at the playground. He didn’t like going home after only a few minutes, but we went and worked together in the garage and yard. By working with me, he wasn’t earning a trip to the park. He just knew the work had to be done. His father had made a promise, not a deal, with him. We were going to work and we were going to play. That night, when we arrived back home, Caleb said, “That was fun, Dad. I like playing. But I don’t like the interceptions.” “You mean the interruptions?” I asked. “I just wish we didn’t have to leave,” he said. “I know what you mean, Caleb. That’s why I’m looking forward to heaven. We won’t ever have to leave.”

That’s the way it is for Jesus’ followers. We work and witness and even suffer for Christ. We are not earning a trip to heaven. We just know he has work for us to do. By his own work and witness, death and resurrection, he earned our trip to heaven. We follow him because he says, “I am with you here on earth, and I am taking you to be with me in heaven,” and we know that in heaven there will be no more “interceptions.”