In the early 1900s, jokesters all over discovered “Do you know” jokes. A “Do you know” joke went something like this. “Do you know Arthur?” someone would ask. Then the person would likely respond, “Arthur who?” Then the first person would say, “Arthurmometer” and scamper away. It is said that these “Do you know” jokes were the precursor to a type of joke that we are far more familiar with…the Knock-Knock joke. We all know how Knock-Knock jokes go, right? I say, “Knock knock,” and you respond…”Who’s there?” “Tank” “Tank who?” “You’re welcome!” Or this one: “Knock knock.” “Who’s there?” “Shore.” “Shore who?” “Shore hope you like bad jokes.” Knock knock jokes became so popular in the mid 1930s that you would hear them on the radio, as you’re walking down the street, and even read them in the newspaper. Composers even wrote entire orchestra numbers dedicated to the knock knock joke. If you’re interested, look up “The Knock-knock Song” by Vincent Lopez on YouTube sometime. Perhaps my favorite knock knock joke of all time goes like this: “Knock knock.” “Who’s there?” “Interrupting cow.” “Interrup….” “MOOOOO!”

  I love that joke because it’s ridiculous, and even more so because it is surprising, not in the person hiding behind a door, jump scare sort of way, but more like how painter Bob Ross always liked to describe mistakes. “We don’t make mistakes, just happy little accidents.” Surprises can sometimes be scary or frustrating, but they can also be holy interruptions. Sometimes those interruptions simply serve to remind us of what truly matters in life. It’s so easy in life to get caught up in what we think or want or believe or do, and we forget about what really matters. We forget about WHO really matters. So sometimes we need a holy interruption from God.

Today is the last Sunday before we enter into the season of Lent and begin our journey toward Easter. This Sunday is known in the church as Transfiguration Sunday. The idea of the transfiguration of Jesus comes from the passage that we just read from Matthew 17. In the story, Jesus takes three of his disciples with him up the mountain. And when they got up on the mountain, Jesus was “transfigured before them.” Jesus was transformed. In an instant, Jesus became something different to those disciples. When they go off together in this smaller group, Peter, James, and John see a fuller picture of who Jesus really is. That can happen when you are one-on-one or in a small group with someone. You get to see more of that person’s true personality come out. That can be a good thing or it can be a bad thing. Luckily, for the disciples (and for us), Jesus was shown to be even greater than they expected. Peter, James, and John were surprised with a holy interruption.

Now, I don’t know why they went up on the mountain initially. Perhaps they wanted to pray. Perhaps they just wanted a break from the pressures of leadership. Or perhaps they wanted to go up to the top and look out over the beauty of the land. Whatever the reason, when they followed Jesus up onto the mountain, I doubt they had ‘watch Jesus be turned into a blinding lamp’ or ‘come face to face with Moses and Elijah’ on their bingo cards for the year. This was an unexpected surprise  for them, a holy interruption. God met them in a surprising way at a surprising place.

In the passage we read from the book of Exodus, we see a similar experience. God invites Moses to come up the mountain and have a seat in God’s holy waiting room while God prepares stone tablets for him that contain God’s law and commandments for God’s people. Before heading up the mountain, Moses put Aaron and Hur in charge because they didn’t know how long they were going to have to wait up there. As they were going up, a cloud covered the mountain. I had a similar experience when I hiked up Pikes Peak 30 years ago. We made it all the way to the top only for there to be clouds completely obscuring our view. It was still amazing, but also a bit disappointing. For Moses and Joshua, they ended up staying atop the mountain for a week, and the clouds never parted. On the seventh day of waiting, God called to Moses from the cloud, and the text says that Moses entered the cloud and went up the mountain. Now, that part confuses me a bit because I thought he and Joshua were already up on the mountain. Maybe they were going up every morning and returning at dusk every evening. The text doesn’t really clarify. However that worked, on this seventh day, God calls to Moses and it seems that Moses goes up the mountain by himself this time. Once there, God appears to Moses like a devouring fire, and Moses then stays upon the mountain for 40 days and 40 nights.

If Moses and Joshua had been going up and down the mountain every day for six days and then on the seventh God called only Moses to go up, and then God kept Moses there for 40 days and 40 nights, I imagine that came as a bit of a surprise…both for Moses himself but maybe even more so for the people of Israel. Had gone up the mountain and didn’t return…for 40 days. I imagine they were starting to wonder if he had died up there. But Moses spent that time learning from God what was to be the law of this new people of God known as the Israelites.

These two stories have some differences, but I find within them some common themes that I think apply to most of what we might consider holy interruption. First, these holy interruptions often reveal to us some sort of  truth. For the three disciples, it was revealed to them that Jesus was truly the chosen one of God. He was God’s prophet in the line of Moses and Elijah, but even more than that he was God’s Son. Peter, James, and John clearly already thought Jesus was someone special. They had given up their comfortable lives as fishermen to follow Jesus everywhere he went. But this surprise encounter with the presence of God, showed them a deeper truth about who Jesus was. Similarly, when Moses went up on the mountain of God alone, he knew that God has chosen the Israelites as God’s people, but this experience revealed God’s deeper calling of who God wanted the people to be and how God wanted them to live in the world.

A second theme of holy interruptions is that the truth revealed to us is not really a new reality, but rather a better understanding of the reality in which we exist. Like the writer of Ecclesiastes tells us, “There is nothing new under the sun.” What feels new to us is often just a new understanding of an already known truth. When Alexander Graham Bell invented the first telephone, he didn’t create something out of nothing. He didn’t wave a magic wand and completely transform reality. He utilized truths he already knew in a different way and ended up with a surprising result. Jesus was always the Son of God, he wasn’t magically transformed into that when we went up the mountain, but the disciples gained understanding of that truth while they were on that mountain.

The final theme of holy interruptions is that they leave us forever changed. Peter, James, and John would never see Jesus in a different way. He would always be the Son of God. The people of Israel would thereafter follow the commandments of God laid out in the Ten Commandments. I think that is often why change is hard and why we have to experience it either over an extended period of time before it fully takes effect or why the experience has to be some momentous that we can’t ignore it.

I don’t really do very well with interruptions. Many times I simply try to ignore them. When I can’t ignore them, I sometimes get frustrated, even angry at times. April can probably attest to that. The least likely scenario when I am interrupted is for me to embrace that interruption with joy. Change is hard because it makes us face our fears. It forces us out of our comfort zones. And it is not something we can control. Holy interruptions are difficult because they go against the expectations we have based on our previous experiences.

When following God, life is going to be full of these holy interruptions. God may be the same yesterday, today, and forever, but our understanding of who God is is constantly changing and evolving. If it’s not, then we are probably ignoring God’s holy interruptions or being unwilling to fully give up control to God. I think that is the primary cause of division in the church. Some are more willing to embrace new understandings of who God is while others cling really hard to the past and the comfort of what they already understand about God. That doesn’t mean that all change is good but we need to be careful not to ignore or deny change because we simply don’t like it or don’t want to be uncomfortable.

When God comes down and interrupts our lives, may we be open to the truth which God wishes to reveal to us in those moments. And may we embrace those holy interruptions as Peter, James, and John did, with a desire to dwell in that moment and fully take it in. And may we not seek to control the understanding we are given but willingly share that truth with others.

Knock Knock (Who’s there?) Orange (Orange who?) Orange you glad this is my last joke And that God’s holy interruptions are better than the punchline of a joke for they reveal a truth that transforms, not only our thinking, but our understanding of who God is. May we experience God’s holy interruptions with openness and joy. Amen.