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TheTransfiguration of our Lord, 02/10/2013
Sermon on Luke 9:28-36, by Hubert Beck
Now about eight days after these sayings he took with him Peter and John and James and went up on the mountain to pray. And as he was praying, the appearance of his face was altered, and his clothing became dazzling white. And behold, two men were talking with him, Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory and spoke of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. Now Peter and those who were with him were heavy with sleep, but when they became fully awake they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him. And as the men were parting from him, Peter said to Jesus, “Master, it is good that we are here. Let us make three tents, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah” – not knowing what he said. As he was saying these things, a cloud came and overshadowed them, and they were afraid as they entered the cloud. And a voice came out of the cloud, saying, “This is my Son, my Chosen One; listen to him.” And when the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. And they kept silent and told no one in those days anything of what they had seen. (New English Bible)
AN EXTRAORDINARY DAY
There are several places in and around the city where I live in which, upon turning a corner or topping a hill, a scene unfolds before my eyes that almost takes my breath away. Almost inevitably I will exclaim to my wife alongside me, “Isn’t that impressive? One would never guess how commonplace all that is when one is in the midst of it.” As often as I have had occasion to see these spectacular views of ordinary places, I am constantly amazed at how they still seem to take me by surprise. When visitors come I am always tempted to take them to at least a couple of those unexpected scenes that leap out at one, for they show something of the extraordinary surroundings in which I live daily even though I am largely unaware of them.
An Ordinary Day in the Lives of Peter, James and John
It was something like that on the day described in the text. While Jesus is often said to have gone apart to pray, it was not unusual for him to take at least some of the disciples along with him as we are told only a few verses prior to the ones serving as our text. So when Peter, James and John are invited to go with him “on the mountain to pray,” that was not a sign of anything extraordinary at all.
It was said to be “the mountain,” suggesting they had both seen and probably even been there before. One or perhaps all of them had probably reported this moment to Luke several times over, for he even tells his readers that this was “about eight days after these sayings” – an identification of this moment with the first of three times that would be reported when Jesus specifically told his disciples that he “must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.” In fact, he had asserted that anyone who wanted to be his follower would have to “deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow him,” thus suggesting that what was about to happen to him would be the fate in one way or another of all who claimed him as the one to whom they most wished to devote themselves..
So they trudged up the mountain with Jesus having sayings like these still ringing in their ears. They hardly understood the sayings at the time, of course, for their meaning was still to be played out. They nevertheless reverberated in all their strangeness in their hearts and minds as they willingly climbed the peak alongside him.
Even with these sayings concealed from their full understanding, however, everything still seemed relatively normal and ordinary to them. The mountain was evidently familiar to them. Jesus’ praying was familiar to them. Even their fatigue was familiar to them, for Jesus, who seemed indefatigable in his constant petitions to his Father, was often more than they, themselves, could endure as would later be clear when they went with him to Gethsemane. So there they were, “heavy with sleep” while Jesus set himself apart to pray. It was all so ordinary.
An Ordinary Day Turns into an Extraordinary Day
Something had happened between the time that these three men fell asleep and when they awoke, though! A dazzling transformation in the persona of their master had taken place and two “visitors” had suddenly appeared. Was it their mutual conversation that awakened the three or was it the blinding light that broke through their closed eyelids? Who knows? We are only told that “when they became fully awake they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him.” An ordinary day in the lives of Peter, James and John had become quite an extraordinary day!
There was surely nothing ordinary about the way they saw the same man with whom they had ascended this mountain. Now his face was altered in such a way that Matthew reports it as “shining like the sun” and his clothing was now seen as “dazzling white.” And where did these two men come from, for they had certainly not been with them on the way to this place!?!? And the conversation they overheard! They spoke of “his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem!” They knew they were on their way to Jerusalem, but what kind of “departure” was he “about to accomplish” there? Everything was turned upside down
Still more! They suddenly recognized who these two were, for they had come to realize in a way not told us that these were two of the greatest men of God who had lived long before them representing all those who had kept alive the continuing story of Israel before all who professed the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as their God. As though that were not enough, “a cloud came and overshadowed them, and they were afraid as they entered the cloud. And a voice came out of the cloud, saying, ‘This is my Son, my Chosen One; listen to him.’” Then, equally as suddenly, “Jesus was found alone.” Surely the words used to describe all this fall far short of actually having been there! It was a jaw-dropping, astonishing, incredible – what words can we use to speak of it – moment, passing as it was, in the lives of these three.
Yet, of course, there were still more jaw-dropping, astonishing, incredible things yet to be seen. For those things they would have to leave this mountain, though, and return to the ordinary – which would, in its turn, be interrupted by still other inconceivably amazing things. For now, though, it was enough to shut their mouths for fear that they might be thought to be lunatics.
Had only one person reported all this one could, indeed, question whether said person had dreamed all this up to impress others with some kind of fantasy. But, as Jesus said on other occasions, it is important that an event be held as credible only when at least two or three have witnessed and testified to the same thing. It is very important, therefore, to note that Matthew, Mark and Luke all tell about this moment with some relatively minor variations.
What they saw and heard surely had impressed itself upon them, even though we are told in the account before us today that they maintained silence about the event. It was more than they could digest at the time. This moment, along with the sayings of Jesus eight days before this, needed time before they could even begin to understand what was going on around them.
So there they were – three people all seeing and reporting the same thing. What they saw there, however, like the impressive views of the town and area in which I live and which I wish to show to visitors, lasted but a few minutes at most. There was surely nothing ordinary any more, though, about the way they saw the same Jesus with whom they had climbed this mountain. Peter wanted to make both the place and the vision permanent by erecting “three tents, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah.” But that which Peter proposed, Luke tells us, was only because he had no idea of what he was really saying. He was still groggy from the sleep from which he had been awakened. The vision presented to them was, indeed, a momentary vision – not a permanent monument to God’s glory. Jesus insisted that they must return to what at least seemed for the moment to be the ordinary out of which still more extraordinary things would eventually emerge.
The Extraordinary Day Considered Anew by the Three Disciples
It is difficult to immediately comprehend what is happening when one is caught up into such an unpredictable moment as this, so while they maintained their silence they must have thought back many times over to this day and began to realize more and more, as further episodes in their continuing journey with Jesus took place, what this day had meant – both to them and to the one with whom they walked.
Being well versed in Jewish history, the three could not have failed to eventually recognize the significance of that which they had just seen. God had revealed his presence in clouds and light from time immemorial. The cloud hovering over Sinai; the pillar of cloud that led the children of Israel through the wilderness by day; the temple filled with smoke in the vision of Isaiah when he was called to serve God; the cloud that filled Solomon’s temple at its dedication … clouds everywhere – and God both hid and revealed himself in them. Lightning on Sinai; the pillar of fire that led the children of Israel through the wilderness by night; Isaiah’s assurance that “the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shined.”; the psalmist’s clarion voice “in your light do we see light”; light breaking apart the darkness of the original creation – God had both hidden and revealed himself in and through light ever since the formation of the earth.
Above all, the presence of Moses, the one to whom God had revealed his law by which Israel was to be known, and Elijah, the prophet to whom tribute was paid at every Passover Meal with a place of honor in case he should pass by – the two great representatives of everything that the testament of old had passed on to God’s people. There they stood, the Law and the Prophets, the very ones by whom that testament was named among the Jews of their time and to which Jesus constantly appealed as the great witness to who he was and what his task and mission was intended to be. While they very likely did not recognize all this when they first woke from their sleep and saw the awesome scene that first baffled them, as they reflected on it and rehearsed it over and over in their minds, they undoubtedly came to know very well what they had seen.
And what they heard! “A voice out of the cloud, saying, ‘This is my Son, my Chosen One, listen to him!’” Everything they had seen was confirmed by that voice from the cloud of God’s presence. This one whom they had recognized as being extraordinary in many ways was far more extraordinary than they could ever have imagined before this. Only a short time before this Peter had confessed, when asked who he and the other disciples considered Jesus to be, that he was “The Christ of God.” But even that confession paled before the eyes and ears of these three on this mount as this scene unfolded around them! That which was not immediately apparent to them must have become increasingly impressed on their hearts and lives as they descended from that mount, setting out on the final leg of their journey to Jerusalem and the events that still laid before them.
What words could ever really quite describe the effect of this moment for them – or for us? Words have been spoken in many and various ways in attempts at catching the full effect of that which transpired on that mount – and they will undoubtedly continue to be put together in many other ways throughout the rest of the history of the church – but none can quite capture just how deeply significant the events put before us in this text truly were. It is beyond words!
The Extraordinary Day Prepares for Still Greater Extraordinary Days
Even though Peter had confessed him to be “The Christ of God,” I would suspect that he had not realized, when making that confession not long before they came here with Jesus, how astonishingly true that confession really was. But now a “voice coming out of the cloud, saying, ‘This is my Son, my Chosen One, listen to him!’” spoke far more clearly still about the one with whom they were on this mountaintop. It was a word preparing them for that which lay ahead when they went down again to that ordinariness from which they had come – an ordinariness that would become still more extraordinary as they neared Jerusalem and began to feel the tension rising that eventually led them to Gethsemane and the cross. The memory of this vision and this voice surely paved the way to those increasingly difficult days that now laid just ahead of them.
But it also must have made it still more difficult to live through those days, for if Jesus was, indeed, the “Chosen One” of God, how could the unjust actions taken up against him be carried out without the one who claimed this man to be so “Chosen” not have come to his rescue? Here on this mountain where Moses and Elijah had appeared with him in such glory they could only have envisioned far brighter days ahead. It was simply beyond their imagination at the time to understand that this man was “Chosen” to assume the sins of the world in his body hanging on the cross. God’s redemptive love for the world was still seen only dimly in spite of the light surrounding the bright glory of this mountaintop – but it was precisely because Jesus was who the Father said he was that his death would prove to be so powerfully salvatory in its effect! Were a man to die as a mere mortal for his sins – or even for another man’s sins – it would only affect that one man. When God’s Chosen dies, he dies as the one in whom all humanity is caught up in the redemption worked out in that dying. It, like the vision on this mount, is a truth beyond our human words. But it was the Word of the Lord made flesh who was placed on that cross – and that was not only a voice that Peter could not imagine at the time – it was a vision from which he eventually hid his face as one whose sins he was sure were even greater than that cross!
Not so, of course! For in that cross the one standing transfigured on this mountain would be the one by whom and through whom death itself along with all the sin of the world that had brought death into its midst would be transfigured and transformed in the resurrection. There could be no resurrection without a death, though – and so from this mountain Jesus went from one mount to another named Golgotha.
This moment must have been one of preparation for Jesus also, though. At his baptism the Holy Spirit had “descended on him in bodily form, like a dove, and a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.’” The voice had spoken especially and specifically to Jesus, embracing him as the one appointed to be, as John called him, “The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” Months and years had passed since then, however. Now, as that Lamb of God was about to make the last leg of this journey to the cross the Father, in affirming him as his “Chosen One” before the three gathered there with him, also confirmed for him that the path that had been set before him in his baptism had been successfully traversed to the point where another baptism was about to take place – the baptism of death.
This final leg would be difficult to pass through and he needed all the strength and affirmation the Father could give him. His plea for relief in Gethsemane proved the difficulty of the journey. But the cross was the proof of the strength that the Father gave him to complete what had begun already at his birth when the angels spoke of God’s glory in bringing the Prince of Peace to the earth in the human form of this man momentarily transfigured before the eyes of the disciples on this heap of the earth he had come to redeem.
That Extraordinary Day in the Midst of Our Ordinary Days
We cannot leave this scene, of course, without asking for words of some kind to give this place a meaning for us today. As was the case for the three with Jesus, words are too poor to either fully comprehend or explicate what is to be taken from this surprising vision of Jesus on this extraordinary day. Yet it demands some kind of response. It is not a moment for us to merely observe and experience with awe and wonder. It asks for us to engage its meaning in some significant way.
First and foremost, it calls on us to worship this one of whom the Father not only speaks but makes vividly clear is his “Chosen One.” When we stand in such immediate glory as was seen on this mount is to see Jesus as the one who brings forth the words of praise John heard the living creatures crying out in the revelation granted to him years later: “Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.”
It is not surprising that Peter said, “Master, it is good that we are here,” for he saw with new eyes the one with whom he and the others had been walking the last couple years. Our presence in this sanctuary today is in a very small way a signal of that same thing: “It is good to be here.” In this place we hear the word of the Lord Sunday after Sunday, pour the life-giving waters of baptism and eat and drink the bread and wine in which this Jesus standing alongside Peter, James and John promises to be present for our forgiveness and salvation. That is what “coming to church” is all about – to join the company of those whose lives have been claimed by God to be his own in praising and worshiping him. He invites us to be here. It is good to be here.
But it is also good to leave here, as they had to leave the mountaintop, to give our lives to others as he gave his life for us. Jesus refused to stay on the mountain, to bask in the glory revealed there. It is well that we consider this scene on this day, for it is a transitional scene from Jesus’ broader ministry to the much more specific service of giving his life in our behalf. This coming Wednesday is the start of the season we call Lent when we leave Epiphany, the Season of Light and Manifestation of God’s Glory, in order to join Jesus in the trek to Calvary. On this journey we can never forget how Jesus continually made it plain that to follow him was not merely to follow him through the good times of healing the sick and opening the eyes and ears of the blind and deaf, but it is to also follow him to the cross. There we learn that following him is not an easy road to salvation. It is the very difficult road of denying the significance of our very own selfhood in the interests of recognizing that we are, in all actuality, servants of God – and that means servants to all those he has placed near us.
As he will wash the feet of the disciples, he calls on us to figuratively wash the feet of our neighbor. As he will suffer in behalf of others, he calls on us to suffer with those around us in their tears and tribulations. As he will die in behalf of the world, he calls on us die to our self-interest in order to be a brother or sister whose interest is in those around us, seeking their welfare as this glorified man manifested his greatest glory in giving himself for us.
So we are led on this day from the glory of this mountaintop experience to another mountaintop experience – from the dazzling white clothing of the transfigured one to the stark nakedness of the cross. We hear Moses and Elijah speaking with this transfigured one of “his departure which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem,” and we follow him there. So let us, beginning this Wednesday, again undertake that six week journey to the cross where the crown on this man will be one of thorns and the dazzling whiteness clothing him here will become bloodied with our sins.
A Last Word Concerning This Extraordinary Day
Many, many years after this extraordinary day Peter returned to it in memory as one of those “turning days” we all experience, days when things old become new things and things only dimly recognized earlier become things brought sharply into focus. He put it this way: “When he received honor and glory from God the Father, and the voice was borne to him by the Majestic Glory, ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased,’ we ourselves heard this very voice borne from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain. And we have something more sure, the prophetic word, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.” (2 Peter 1:19) We do well to pay attention to this “more sure prophetic word” today just as the Father said on this mountain: “Listen to him!”
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.