Shut Up!

 

Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters— one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.” (He did not know what to say, they were so frightened.) Then a cloud appeared and enveloped them, and a voice came from the cloud: “This is my Son, who I love. Listen to him!”

—Mark 9:5-7

I love Peter! Impetuous, he always wanted to help. And sometimes, he spoke without doing much thinking. Maybe we today, eager to please God, speak out entirely too often or too soon.

The scene of the Transfiguration almost makes us laugh. Three frightened fishermen, two patriarchs of the Faith, and the Son of God meet on a mountain. Jesus was clearly the star of the moment with dazzling clothes, brilliant on which to look. This was the sight Moses longed to see when he walked the earth. God told Moses he would never look on His face. But now, Jesus made that possible.

This moment deserved the kind of “fall on your face” worship that Isaiah gave to the Lord in his vision of the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, with the train of his robe filling the temple from Isaiah 6:1. Instead Peter began babbling about building huts to live in!

Sometimes when we don’t know what to say, wisdom would dictate we say nothing! Sometimes we attend worship services like this, too. Our minds race ninety miles an hour thinking of tasks to be done, people to talk to, or ideas to help in some situation that has developed. We do not take the time to be quiet before God and listen.

Ecclesiastes 5:1-3 gives us sound advice.

Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. Go near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools, who do not know that they do wrong. Do not be quick with your mouth, do not be hasty in your heart to utter anything before God. God is in heaven and you are on earth, so let your words be few. As a dream comes when there are many cares, so the speech of a fool when there are many words.

Teachers of elementary students (and parents) know that excited children often prattle about nothing when they are excited. They do not want to sit still. They do not want to listen. We act much the same way before God and we need to repent and change our response to Him.

Unlike Peter, we need to take the time to rehearse in our minds Who we worship and Who we serve. We need to allow those thoughts to humble us in such a way that we bow in humility and wait on Him to speak to us.

We should listen to His voice in the Scripture, in prayer, in songs, and in the nature He has created. Once we have heard His voice and see Him high and lifted up, only then can we respond in true worship and have anything to say to Him.