An Undelivered Sermon for Transfiguration Sunday

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. (Luke 9:28-36 ESV)

The Transfiguration
 by Cornelius Monsma
2006

I have often wondered whether God could have enacted His plan for our salvation somewhat more expediently if He’d waited until the advent of social media. Rather than go through all the trouble of bringing Jesus to us by way of a virgin peasant girl in a Mediterranean backwater, then waiting 30 years to find a dozen working class guys to put through a 36-month seminary program that was mostly on-the-job training, perhaps God could have better coordinated His effort through Facebook. Imagine Jesus online, working his message of love, hope, and truth through the liking and “friending” and “unfriending”—though I can’t imagine that anyone could or would unfriend Jesus, can you?!

But imagine the possibilities for You Tube uploads!  The miracles, the sermons, the search for disciples who would be the caretakers of the Christ’s church on Earth after his death… Oh, yeah, his death… Would Jesus have to die on social media?  Who would really want to watch?  No, I think God got it right the first time, 2000 years ago. God’s entire plan of salvation comes to us through His Spoken Word, captured for all time in Scripture.

Today’s Gospel reading is Luke’s account of the Transfiguration in chapter 9, verses 28-36, which follows on the heels of Peter’s confession of Jesus a few verses earlier as “the Christ of God,” that is, the promised Messiah, after Jesus fed 5,000 people with only five loaves of bread and two fish, one of the more memorable of Jesus’ miracles.  Jesus insisted that his Messianic secret, figured out at last by Peter, remain a secret, that “The Son of Man 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.” So the disciples now have to wrestle with the news that not only is their leader truly the prophesied Messiah, promised by God through the prophets of the Old Testament, but he has just told them that he must BE REJECTED, SUFFER, AND DIE.  What’s going here?!, they must have been asking each other and themselves…What kind of Messiah did God send us, anyway?!

It is with this news now safely locked in the vault (to borrow from Seinfeld) that, Luke tells us, Jesus takes Peter and brothers John and James with him to a mountaintop to pray. While Jesus is praying something so otherworldly happens that all Peter can think to do is pitch tents!  Not only does Jesus morph into a figure so blindingly bright—Matthew reports it was “like lightning” in his Gospel account—that he terrifies the disciples, he is joined by two well-known Old Testament characters, Moses and Elijah, who are also glowing a dazzling white!

Let’s revisit the God-on-social-media idea for a minute or two.  What if we could watch this event, recorded in all three synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, on You Tube?  How many of us would marvel at the special effects?  How many skeptics would attempt to verify the veracity of a video that purports to show not only Jesus who lived 2,000 years ago, but Elijah, who lived almost 3,000 years ago, and Moses, who lived about 4,500 years ago?  Some of us might wonder, but given the amount of difficult to watch—much less difficult to believe—videos on the Internet, I doubt that such a clip would leave the intended impression on viewers like us in today’s world.

But what was the intended message of this scene?  What was the point?  Why did Jesus lead his “inner circle” of disciples, those with whom he was the closest, to the top of a mountain to bedazzle them with such a spectacle?  And why was Jesus joined by Moses and Elijah?

Let’s put ourselves in Peter’s shoes. He knows for sure he and the others are dealing with God’s Messiah, come to save them as promised. He also knows this Messiah has told him and the others that he must die. But what does it all mean? What he does know is that he’s got Moses and Elijah up there with Jesus, and this whole scene has Yahweh God written all over it.  In fact, God’s very presence can be felt in such a way that Peter, no doubt dazed by what he sees, offers to build tabernacles—pitch tents—one each for the three figures; as a Jew he would have been acting in accordance with the Old Testament practice of building a tabernacle to shelter God’s presence. As Peter makes this suggestion, God’s presence manifests itself in the form of a cloud that envelopes all of them, “overshadowing” them, as Luke puts it; in the same manner God’s presence overshadowed Israel in the desert and on Mt. Sinai when Moses received the Commandments, and Mary learned from an angel that the Spirit of the Most High would overshadow her at Jesus’ conception.

So there they are, the TRANSFIGURED Jesus, Moses, and Elijah, along with the disciples in a cloud of God’s presence when suddenly a heavenly voice booms from within it: “This is my Son, my Chosen One, Listen to him!” It’s as though God is intentionally trying to provide the disciples context, which no doubt became clearer in retrospect. Peter, John, and James witnessed a taste of heaven itself in the transfiguration of Jesus into a state of exalted Glory, truly a look beyond this life, this world.  They saw Moses, representing the Law and Elijah the Prophets, and may have been within earshot of their conversation with Jesus about his impending departure—his exodus—from Jerusalem. The Old Testament, the “old” creation, is giving way to the New Testament and a “new” creation in Christ. Most of all, they heard, just as we are hearing today thanks to Luke, God Himself exclaim “Listen to him!”

Like the disciples, once we’ve gotten the point about Jesus’ departure—that is, his suffering and death on the cross in God’s plan for our salvation—it’s time for us to descend back into real life, into a world of sin and despair that still needs a Savior.  And, perhaps, in this techno-savvy culture we are part of we could make use of social media to announce that God’s plan really worked!  That our sins are forgiven, that this broken world still has hope in the Messiah that died for it! Maybe we could encourage our cyber-buddies to “like” this man who lived 2,000 years ago, who gave us a taste of heaven on a mountaintop, bore our sins in death, a Savior who may not “like” us back on Facebook, but will love us forever and always!

“Listen to Him!”  In Jesus’ name.  Amen.