Epiphany is nearly over, Lent is drawing near. Our somewhat brief season of celebration of our Lord’s divine nature draws to a close with this most unique of events in the Scriptures. Here, and here only do we see Jesus demonstrate His full divine glory, and even that only for a fleeting moment. Yet more important than seeing Jesus’ glory is learning why it was important for His disciples then to see Him as He really was, so we also know who He is.
And, to get our last glimpse of glory we join Jesus, Peter, James and John a couple years after He had called them from their fishing boats. After a while of Jesus preaching and teaching and healing, we end up here on the mountain to see Jesus. And what a sight it is! “And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light. And behold, there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him.” (Matthew 17:2-3 ESV)
This is not the average sort of thing you expect to see when up on a mountain. Certainly, Peter, James, and John would not have expected to see this. But they needed desperately to see this, for needed to be reminded once again of who Jesus is.
Hadn’t Peter just confessed, only a week earlier, that Jesus was “the Christ, the Son of the Living God”? And so Jesus is! See His face shining like the sun. Not just a reflection of the glory of God, but the actual, genuine article. The light shines from within Jesus out to these disciples. And Jesus’ clothing–white as light! This is before chlorine bleaches and extra-whitening detergents. This is something the disciples had never seen. White as light.
And this begs the question, how would you react if you found yourself in a similar situation? Now, granted that none of us are going to experience this particular Transfiguration as Peter, James, and John did, it’s a bit of an abstract question. But imagine that someone you know suddenly started to emit light–how would you react?
Then to make the situation even more strange, suddenly Moses and Elijah start speaking with Jesus. We don’t hear how the disciples knew that this was Moses and Elijah; just that they knew. Moses, the great law-giver and the chosen of God to deliver God’s people from Egypt into the promised land. Elijah, the great prophet who had sternly warned Israel to turn from her ways, the prophet who had done many great signs and wonders, then passed the ability down to his successor Elisha. The Law and the Prophets are here represented with the Word made flesh. The Law which Jesus had come to fulfill, the prophets who had foretold the coming of the Messiah, now beheld their master.
Peter, so overwhelmed by what he saw and heard, did what he did best. He blurted out the first thing on his mind. Peter, always wanting to take the offensive, always wanting to do something for the Lord. He can serve as a warning and a reminder for us in a couple of important ways.
First, Peter wants to do. It isn’t enough for him simply to be there. It isn’t enough to have this glimpse into heaven, to get to see two of the greatest figures in the history of his nation. No, he wants to add his bit to it by building these three booths. He does ask Jesus’ permission, but left to his own opinion, those shelters are as good as built.
In the same way, we like to add on to the salvation God wants to give us. He gives us forgiveness of sins, and indeed all we need to support this body and life. He gives us His holy and precious Word, and yet we so often clamour for more. We want to do stuff for God without first checking to see what He has already given us to do.
You might have noted that we don’t ever hear the name of this mountain. I think that’s important, too. Just like the mountain of the Ascension. Otherwise, people would be going to the mountain all the time to try to have the experience, and miss the point of what Jesus was trying to do.
Jesus didn’t let Peter build the tents. Jesus didn’t want us to be building great monuments in His honour. It’s the sort of thing we like doing, mind you. If you want a church to work hard, get a building project going. But Jesus doesn’t want us focussing on the building and doing all the time. Hear again God the Father speaking, just as He did at Jesus’ baptism: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.” That’s what we’re supposed to do. Listen to Him. Notice what God says. Not, “Here’s Moses, Elijah, and Jesus; listen to them” but “This is my beloved Son. Listen to Him.” Not, “This is my beloved Son–go ahead and do stuff for Him” but “This is my beloved Son; listen to Him.”
How hard it is for us busy, doing people just to listen! Yet this is what God the Father tells us to do, to listen to Jesus. Listen to Him. On one occasion, Jesus was at the home of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, and Martha was scurrying about doing the necessary housework while Mary was listening to Jesus. And Jesus commended Mary for choosing the right thing! Listen to Jesus. Listen to His Word. Don’t just listen to the parts you want to hear and work around what you don’t. Again, Peter is a good example of what not to do. The preceding stories to our Gospel for today say a lot. Peter had confessed that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God not too long before, and then when Jesus tried to detail for the disciples what He needed to do to be the Messiah, Peter had rebuked him. And Jesus said, “Get behind me, Satan! You do not have your mind on the things of God but on the things of man.”
Peter was simply trying to make it work out best for Jesus. How could dying be in the best interests of the Messiah? It didn’t make sense to Peter, so he tried to talk Jesus out of it–and received that sternest of rebukes. Peter wanted to make the moment on the mountain last–and received the word from the Lord of what he was to do instead–listen to Jesus.
Hearing the voice of the Father has what could only be termed a powerful effect on Jesus’ disciples. They fall flat on their faces in sheer terror. Why? Hadn’t they just seen Jesus in all His glory? Yet this was different. They knew that nobody could see God’s face and live. Having heard God’s voice, they must have figured death was near. They were keenly aware of who they were. They weren’t priests. They were fishermen from Galilee. And the voice, although it had told them who Jesus was, scared them. It scared them because they were aware of their inadequacy before God. They were aware of their sin. They were aware of their weakness. They were aware, and it drove them to the ground in fear.
Yet see what Jesus does. He comes to His frightened disciples and bids them have no fear. He comes to his trembling followers and lifts them up. And they saw “no one but Jesus only”.
I think part of the problem with our cultural lack of respect for God has to do with the fact that we are looking for God rather than being content to find Him where God has promised He will be found, in His Word. It’s too easy, and as such, too hard to listen to Jesus only. Much like Naaman, the Syrian army commander, complaining that what Elisha told him to do to be healed of his leprosy was too trivial. It seems like there should be more to being a Christian than listening to God’s Word and living according to what God’s Word says. Like, maybe having special emotional or spiritual experiences.
Mountain-top theophanies don’t happen very often. The Scriptures only record a handful of such events, and we have no promise from Scripture that any of us will ever have such an experience for ourselves. But so often we aren’t content to listen to the Word. Perhaps the Word of God points out one of our sins and makes us uncomfortable. Perhaps the Word of God, which is what the Bible is, speaks in terms which don’t fit well into 21st Century Canada, contradicts common opinion, and as such, we’d rather ignore it, and elevate our opinion over God’s Word. Or perhaps we like the idea of listening to the Word, but we want to do it on our schedule, when it’s convenient. We can’t be bothered bringing friends and neighbours to listen because listening isn’t our own top priority. Maybe we’re even a little ashamed of the Word.
And when we do listen to the Word, so often we listen to it with an eye for what we can do, what we should achieve. We listen to it as a book of morals rather than the power of God unto salvation, the power of life itself. It is a sad truth that many churches have gone from listening to the Word to instead judging the Word–taking, for example, the Scripture’s statements on sexual immorality of all kinds and saying that those words don’t apply to our modern situation.
And yet we are invited to listen to God’s Word precisely so that we can see Jesus, and see Him only. That’s the key to a transfigured life. To see Jesus only. But to see Jesus only is hard. We want to see other things, we want to look to our own ways and means. We want to build, to make big plans, to do the huge things and Jesus calls us instead to listen to Him.
To see Jesus only is to see that only Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. To see Jesus only is to realize that “I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him.” To see Jesus only is to realize that even once you are saved, all the energy for following God, all the good that we do, flows from God and His Word working through us, not from our own good intentions or abilities. To see Jesus only is to look at the Word not to prove a point but to have the Word work whatever He wills on us. To see Jesus only is to trust Him as your Saviour, Lord, and to let yourself be wholly under His design and under His plan.
As we turn the seasons of the church year, keep Jesus only as the centre of your Lent. Come to our special midweek services and grow in Him, hearing His Word, the Word which kills and makes alive, the Word which tells us of Jesus, but more importantly, gives us Jesus. Build your hopes and your life on Jesus only. For He is the God-man, the Word made flesh, for you, that you can be His own, both now and forever. His transfiguration is to show us who He is, and to point out the importance of listening to Him. Listen to Him, and live! In Jesus. Amen.
Last updated February 2008 by the webmaster.