An
edited version of a sermon given at First Presbyterian Church, February 26,
2017, Spring City, TN.
Luke describes what to a Jewish
listener is an experience with the Divine. You can convince yourself of this by
reading the Exodus passage.
Even without that knowledge we
would have to ask how can you go through an audience on a mountain top in the
presence of Moses, Elijah and Jesus talking about his departure from this world,
see the bright shining appearance of Jesus’ face and clothes, have a cloud envelops
you and the voice of God declare, “This is my Son, My Chosen, listen to him!” and
not understand exactly what is going on?
Yet these disciples are so dazed
(their description as sleepy sort of suggests this) that they apprehend nothing
what they have seen and heard, or write it off as a wild mid-night dream, even many
days later.
You might think, having been told in
the previous verses (9:23-27)
not only if they want to become his followers they must take up their cross and
follow him, that to gain their life they must lose it, but that some of them
will see the glory of the Kingdom of God before they die. They didn’t understand they are seeing this here
on the mountain top.
Let’s walk through this story of
the transfiguration to see how its message about understanding touches us
today.
For Luke, prayer and the presence
of Jesus as the working out, or fulfillment of Jewish and human history are two
central parts of the gospel. (If you want to read more on the connection to
Jewish history and prayer, Holladay,
p167-169, and Fitzmeyer,
p244 are places to start.) The first
thing Luke reports is Jesus taking Peter, James and John up a mountain to pray in
the middle of night.
Immediately the three disciples
see a fantastical sight of
the appearance of Jesus changing and his clothes becoming dazzling white. The
same words are used as used to describe the clothing of the two angels at the empty tomb
after the resurrection. The same thing happened to Moses
on Mt. Sinai when he received the Law from God.
Powerful connections to the two greatest
divine acts in Jewish History permeate this scene. We are left to decide that Moses
represents the Law of Jewish history, and Elijah, the Prophets. They are discussing the departure of Jesus from
this life in Jerusalem, using the same word descrbing the departure of the
Hebrews from Egypt, exodus.
Everything is being revealed to
these disciples. You might think the
disciples are having an “out-of-body” experience observing Jesus talking to
Moses and Elijah but sleep fogs their minds.
Beyond hearing Moses and Elijah
talk of this new “exodus’ they behold the “glory” of Jesus. Glory
is a word describing the presence of God.
As Moses and Elijah depart, at
least Peter seems to have enough understanding of the moment not to want it to
end, saying, “Let’s build three dwellings so we can stay here a while.” But
poor Peter does not fully understand. He does not see the divine implication of
the necessary departure of Moses and Elijah as the authority of the Law and the
Prophets to give way to the pre-eminence of the Lord of All. If the Universe is
driven figuratively by a massive gear works, the scene is one of the entire nature
of the gears and Universe changing course.
Even if Peter, James and John
believe they are in a nightmare as a cloud engulfs them as it engulfed Moses on
Mt. Sinai when he received the Law and a loud voice proclaims the
authority of Jesus, “This is my Son, My Chosen, listen to him!,” why don’t they
understand?
Whatever the
reason, as fast as it happened, the command ends it. The three disciples find
themselves alone with Jesus. “And
they kept silent and in those days told no one any of the things they had seen.”
Why were they silent?
How would you
respond to such an event?
Perhaps the
answer is found in Isaiah’s
experience in the Throne Room of the Temple just before the Lord punished
Israel and Judah with defeat by Assyria and the Babylonians for ignoring the
Law. Isaiah’s experience is as surreal and dramatic encounter as the
Transfiguration. Isaiah is seized by a dream in which he sees the Lord on his
throne in a room filled with smoke and attended by Seraphs, bird-like creatures
with six wings covering their face and feet and flying, shouting “Holy, Holy,
Holy, is the Lord of Hosts, the who earth is full of his glory.” The sound is
so deafening it shakes the very doorframes of heaven as if the entire Heaven is
about to collapse. Isaiah can only exclaim, “Woe is me, I am doomed for I have
seen the King, the Lord of Hosts. An unclean man among unclean people.” And
then one of the seraphs touches Isaiah’s lips with a hot coal telling him he is
purified and his sins covered over.
That Isaiah (or
Peter, James and John) have enough wits about them to say anything is
impressive to me. The Lord asked aloud, “Who shall I send?” and Isaiah says,
“Here I am, send me.” Then God gives a terrible message to deliver to the
people. “Make the mind of this people dull, and stop their ears, and shut their
eyes, so that they may not look with their eyes, and listen with their ears,
and comprehend with their minds, and turn and be healed.”
Isaiah
laments, “How long, O Lord?” The Lord says, ”Until the cities are wasted and
the land is utterly desolate. If even a turpentine tree or oak remains it will
be burnt to its stump. In that stump lies the Holy Seed.” The message: “God reveals understanding at
the proper time.”
Is that a clue to the continued
lack of understanding of Peter, James and John?
Their lack of understanding persists
because on the heels of coming down from the mountain in silence they encounter
a man who son is possessed with a demon (today we say he had epilepsy), and the disciples could not heal the
him. In one of the few times in Luke, Jesus shows his impatience with the disciples who
should have enough faith to heal the boy, and heals the boy himself.
Everyone was amazed at this
healing but Jesus goes further with his disciples to say, “Let these words sink
in, The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into human hands.” They still don’t
understand because the meaning “was
concealed from them, so that they could not perceive it and were afraid to
ask.
Why did Jesus intentionally hide
the true from them? What else is afoot? Unlike the disciples, we know that “betrayed
into human hands” means Jesus shall be crucified in Jerusalem by Rome and we
know how this all ends on Easter.
Until now in Luke’s account Jesus
has been conducting his ministry in Galilee. He has been teaching and training
his disciples for their ministry as he proclaimed the good news to the people
of Galilee. He has sent out successfully
first twelve, and then 70 disciples with instructions to take no food or extra
clothes and only stay with people who welcome them, healing and teaching. They
return reporting success. They are ready.
Yet here, Jesus has twice revealed
his future to the disciples and revealed to them his identity but they still
don’t understand and they do not seem to be able to remaster their healing
powers. Everything is set for the next journey to understanding.
In a few short verses at the end
of this chapter, as he days drew near for him to be taken up, he sets his face to go to
Jerusalem and begins that fateful journey to the cross. The journey we will
undertake during the season of Lent beginning this Ash Wednesday.
The disciples are so close to the exodus
of Jesus, yet they do not understand at all what the future holds for them. All
this talk of dying to gain life, of Jesus being handed over to humans, it makes
no sense even if it could be understood.
These disciples have been blinded
by the bright light of the glory of God on the mountain top, not by darkness
and evil. Let me ask you, in most
ways do we ever really understand things as they happen?
Have
you ever had an “Aha!” moment? You have thought or dwelled on a problem, perhaps
trying to understand why your spouse does things a certain way, what is bugging
your best friend, or what is going on in politics, and just cannot get it
figured out? And then later, while you are asleep or driving somewhere with your
mind on something entirely different, or especially when you face the same problem
yourself, that moment hits you, “Ah…I get it!”
That
“aha moment” is especially aggravating when it teaches you a lesson - when you
think, “If I had just known that, I could have done something different!”
That
is what is going on with James, Peter and John. Soon they will rue, “If I had
just known how short a time we were going to have with Jesus I would have….paid
more attention…,had more faith…, stayed awake….”
Learning
something as an after the fact lived experience, rather than having it
described to you beforehand, has a peculiar power. In the case of Peter, James
and John, we might wonder if they would have had such faith afterwards to
spread the gospel and be attacked for it, if they knew how the story unfolds.
Perhaps being blinded by the light was a blessing for them as much as a burden.
I
wrote in my last post that I believe there is nothing new under the sun. Does
that mean we, every generation, are forever faced with this necessity of
rediscovery? …of finding God?
Presbyterians
believe we are called to God by God. When God calls us, it is only a matter of time
until we understand why and to what we are called. How can we search for that
calling, for understanding, for salvation before we are called?
The
answer lies in the mystery of the Holy Spirit and that voice in the cloud, “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!” Every
generation until the final day must seek the same encounter with the Holy
Spirit to understand the meaning of these words, “This is my Son, My Chosen,
listen to him.”
After the resurrection, the risen
Lord stood in a room in Jerusalem with the disciples as said, (Luke 24:44-49) “These
are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything
written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be
fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he
said to them, “… repent-ance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his
name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these
things. So stay here in Jerusalem until you have been
clothed with power (HS) from on high.”
Only sitting on a
couch watching a TV evangelist, or on a pew listening to a sermon may not be
the best way for the Holy Spirit to find you. I will not say it won’t work, but
remember we now know what Jesus meant at the beginning of Luke’s gospel (4:16-21), when “He stood
up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled
the scroll and found the place where it was written: ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon
me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me
to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let
the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor...’ Then he
began to say to them, ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’”
A Christian’s place is out in the world. That is
where we find the poor and hungry, whether they be spiritually or economically starved. That is where we find those enslaved by the
world, blinded by its light and lure. It is where we find everyone who thirsts
for the grace we share. When we go out into the world spreading Christ’s grace
and love, not hate and judgment, we are far more liable to discover the Holy
Spirit in those persons with whom we share grace. The one helped becomes the helper. We are far
more likely to hear that call and far more likely to understand how valuable and
irreplaceable God’s grace when we don’t look for peace but share it. The
experience of discovering God’s grace as a shared experience with others
changes you forever. I wonder if that is not that what God intended all the
time?
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