Remembering the Most Important Moments in Your Life…

Our lives are made up of thousands upon thousands of moments, the majority of which I fear are not particularly memorable and are thus quickly forgotten and never recalled again. Even the memorable moments are sometimes lost until something brings them back, perhaps a picture, or a smell, or a friend’s recollection. But there are some moments that because of their importance or intensity are so fixed in our memories that we will, barring neurological damage, always remember them, and not only can we recall them, but we do recall them on a regular basis because of the impact that they had on us. The day we were married, the day we were converted, the day we lost a loved one, the day we were injured or wounded.

I was privileged to see one of those moments being recalled in Walmart near the checkout line the other day, as two old men, both of them sitting in those electric scooters, and one of them crying, leaned across to hug one another. I learned from what they were saying and what one of the men was saying to his wife, that the last time they had seen each other was in Vietnam as they were both being medevaced from a firefight. The man who was crying said, “I was so scared, I thought I was gonna die, but you took my hand and you told me I was gonna make it. And that kept me going, that kept me going.” That moment had made a “forever” impression on that man.

Now imagine not just having one or two of those incredibly intense life-changing “forever moments”, but dozens and dozens, and you have an idea of what it was like to be one of Christ’s Apostles. How could someone ever forget, for instance, going from thinking they were about to drown in the midst of a raging storm on the Sea of Galilee, to having Jesus rebuke the storm and having it stop dead in a heartbeat? The three years that the disciples spent with Christ were filled to the brim with moments like that. But of all those intense moments the Apostles were privileged to be part of and record, two in particular, the Transfiguration and the resurrection had perhaps the deepest impact on their theology. Three privileged apostles; Peter, James, and John, the inner circle of that inner circle, were taken up on a high mountain with Jesus (Matt. 17, Mark 9, Luke 9) and for a moment perceived just a fraction of his divine glory and then saw him speaking with two of the greatest figures from the Old Testament, Moses and Elijah, and then beheld him being suddenly engulfed in the glory cloud and heard the voice of God the father Himself saying, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear Him!”

To say, as Mark does, that they were greatly afraid at that moment, is probably one of the great understatements of the bible. It’s probably a good thing that Jesus chose young men to be his apostles, because I imagine an old man might have had a heart attack at that moment!

This event fixed itself so profoundly in the memories of Peter and John that it became a key event in their writings to the church.

As John began to write His own gospel account, many years after the Resurrection, this event was still burning in His memory so that he wrote: John 1:14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

Peter also wrote about the importance of the Transfiguration. Just prior to his death, Peter recalled his time on the mountaintop as one of the most important events proving that Jesus is the Son of God and the Messiah. In 2 Peter 1:15 he wrote:

This event coming as it did just after Peter had answered Jesus question in chapter 16 “But who do you say that I am?”with “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” was a blessed confirmation that what Peter had confessed was true. That was probably one the reasons that Jesus had taken them with Him up on that mountain that day, rather than going alone – that and of course making it possible for us to read about it and have our own faith in Jesus confirmed as well.

I hope you’ve had your own life-changing forever moment with Christ (I had mine in 1993 while listening to Christian radio on the way to work) but if not, then I hope 2020 will be the year you do!