Amazing as it may seem, today is our final Sunday before the season of Lent. As you may recall
from past years, this is the Sunday on which we observe that mysterious incident in the life of Jesus
called the Transfiguration. Much ink has been spilled (and in some cases, wasted) trying to make
sense of this event, which is recorded in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke.
A quick survey of religious web sites reveals a pretty wide range of ideas about all this.
You see little airy platitudes about living a “transfiguration life”, whatever that means. You have
people pronouncing confidently that the Transfiguration is an altered state of consciousness, like a
mystical experience or a drug trip or something. (“Aha! It says here that they were all sleepy; this
had to have been a collective hallucination!” That kind of thing.) But as we look more closely at the
Transfiguration, I think we’ll see that there’s a little more to this than meets the eye, and there are
several things that this historical account tells us today as we follow the One on whom this story
centers.
First, to understand the Transfiguration, it helps to set the stage. One very important thing to note
is the verse that comes right before today’s passage. If you’d like to follow along you can find St.
Luke’s account on p. 53 of the New Testament portion of your pew Bible, beginning with chapter 9,
verse 27. Jesus is foretelling his death and resurrection to the disciples and encouraging them to
hold up under the suffering that will come from following him. And he concludes this talk by saying,
“Truly I tell you (that is, ‘what I’m about to tell you is very important’), there are some standing here
who will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God.”
Now, taking these words out of context, there are some who connect the dots and assume here that
Jesus is talking about his Second Coming. You know, that there were some standing before him
who wouldn’t die before Jesus’ return. And people who’ve concluded this can be quick to point out
that Jesus must have been wrong in his timetable, and they use that to discredit his identity, his
authority, and so forth.
But please listen closely: It’s no accident that the Transfiguration story happens immediately after
these words in all three Gospel accounts. Right after Jesus says there are some standing right
there who won’t taste death before seeing the kingdom of God, the Gospel writers describe a
remarkable event in which Jesus’ whole appearance changes. His face changes, and his clothes
become a dazzling, unearthly blast of white light.
The “some standing there” that Jesus was talking about were Peter, James, and John. They were
the ones, who, in their lifetimes on earth, were to see what you might call a “sneak preview” of the
glorious kingdom of God. They’re given a window through which to see into the beautiful
resurrection life that can’t even be described except through symbolic language. In the prophetic
works, including the Revelation of St. John, we hear words about gleaming rainbows, and shining
gems, and brilliant light—Glimpses of eternity in the very presence of God which is promised to
those who believe.
And two rather important people who clearly believe in Jesus make a sudden appearance on the
mountain with him, Peter, James and John. Luke says they appeared “in glory.” I assume by this
that they were looking pretty sharp themselves. With what they’re wearing the Brooks Brothers or
Calvin Klein don’t stand a chance against them. The disciples somehow clearly recognized them as
Moses and Elijah. Do you see the importance of this? We have Moses, the Lawgiver, the One who
delivered Israel from the tyrannical yoke of Egypt. And we have Elijah representing the prophets.
Together they’re talking with Jesus about what Luke calls “his departure, which he was about to
accomplish in Jerusalem.” So we have the law and the prophets standing together, testifying to the
one before them, and to His all important work soon to be accomplished through his departure, that
is, his crucifixion. On the Mount of Transfiguration the law and the prophets are unified in their
witness to the Son of God, sent to save the world from sin and death. In fact this is the culmination
of their work!
And there’s more. Let’s dig a little deeper. That word blandly translated from the Greek as
“departure” is the word “exodon”, which is a variation of the word “exodus.” Is this starting to weave
together for you? The Exodus led by Moses brought freedom to the people of Israel. And now,
1400 years later, Moses steps out of the gleaming light of eternity onto the soil of the mountaintop to
discuss with Elijah and Jesus the freedom-giving exodus that closes the loop on Moses’ work. They’
re talking about the real exodus, the exodus which the crossing of the Red Sea foreshadowed. I
hope that this is all looking to you like a little more than a collective hallucination or a groovy
experience.
Now, I want to make something clear here. I in no way want to discredit genuine mystical
experiences. Our Lord gives these to us from time to time. I call them “Holy Spirit” moments.
Sometimes they literally knock us right off our feet. They’re real, and no less genuine than other
aspects of life in Christ. But what I’m trying to say is that the Transfiguration certainly wasn’t
something that was just in the disciples’ heads. And it wasn’t merely a spiritual experience. They
didn’t remember it as such. Rather, it was a real-life, physical, objective event that, if they’d had
present day technology, would probably have made it by now to YouTube. And without computer
graphics or special effects. It was a real experience of the eternal breaking in to the temporal.
Now, I trust we can agree on the historic and spiritual importance of the Transfiguration. It really is
the coming together of God’s message to human beings and pointing right to the person of Jesus.
But there’s a second lesson we can glean from this account that’s also very important. And this has
to do with what happens right after the Transfiguration.
If you have your Bibles open, look at verse 37. Luke writes, “On the next day, when they had come
down from the mountain, a great crowd met him.” And the passage goes on to describe Jesus’
healing of a boy possessed by an unclean spirit. In other words, we go right from the mountaintop
experience in which the very curtains of heaven itself are parted, to the gritty, nuts and bolts work of
the same kingdom of God.
I’d like to suggest to us this morning that this is very much what the Christian life is like. It’s been
said that the life of a soldier is one of interminable boredom punctuated by brief bursts of incredible
adrenaline. That’s not exactly the Christian life, but mountaintop experiences, those times that can
almost seem like a burst of spiritual adrenaline, aren’t the day-to-day norm for most of us.
Thankfully! I don’t think my system could take it if it were. I’m a little over-stimulated as it is! Yet at
the same time I think there’s a danger here. Those of us who’ve had intense or ecstatic experiences
of God’s presence can find this to be a pretty addictive thing. In fact, in observing the lives of some
believers, there sometimes is an element that, back in my hippie days, we used to call “chasing the
high.”
In other words, we find certain spiritual experiences so incredibly powerful that we want to
experience them over and over again. It’s almost like the experience becomes a goal in and of
itself. And again, I want to make it very clear that intense spiritual experiences are a good and joyful
thing. If I had my druthers I wouldn’t mind having them a bit more frequently than I do. They give me
a sense of aliveness, and more importantly, a reassurance that God is alive and well and interested
in our lives. I’m sure that, in addition to their absolute amazement, Peter, James and John must
have come away with a dramatically deeper understanding of who it was they were following.
It might be fitting to liken it to what it would be like if each of us individually were a friend of a king or
a queen. I mean, this arouses images of banquets, and state dinners, and cameras, and paparazzi,
fine dining, the best wines in the world, and all of that, doesn’t it? But I’m guessing that, if we were
really the friend of a king, say, he would also value moments of simply walking with us on a country
road, or enjoying the quiet of a peaceful place as the day begins. And I’m guessing that the kind of
king we’d really admire, the ideal king, would be one who would walk alongside us humbly in civilian
clothes to help us spread the love and charity with which he wants to expand his good kingdom.
There will be state dinners from time to time, and there ultimately will be the mother of all feasts, and
it will last forever. We can look forward to this with absolute assurance because it’s the promise of
God himself. Yet in this life our king, Jesus, wants us to accompany him in the work that comes from
meeting the crowds after we’ve come down from the mountainside. The bottom line is that Jesus
wants us not simply to chase a spiritual high, but to seek Him, because he’s the one who gives us
abundant life, and draws us to follow him in his work.
Jesus uses the word “work” over two dozen times in the Gospels. It was Jesus who told several
parables about the importance of working in the Master’s vineyard. He once said, “Do not work for
food that spoils, but work for food that endures to eternal life.” He said, “The harvest is plentiful, but
the workers are few. So ask the Lord of the harvest to send workers out into his harvest field.”
So whether at any moment we experience the Lord’s presence as staggering and awesome, or as
the humble servant walking quietly beside us, the key is recognizing him, following him, and listening
to him. Because the voice from the cloud, the voice of God the Father, God the creator of the
universe, is the one who told the disciples 2000 years ago and still tells us of Jesus this day, “This is
my Son, my Chosen; listen to him.” Amen.
from past years, this is the Sunday on which we observe that mysterious incident in the life of Jesus
called the Transfiguration. Much ink has been spilled (and in some cases, wasted) trying to make
sense of this event, which is recorded in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke.
A quick survey of religious web sites reveals a pretty wide range of ideas about all this.
You see little airy platitudes about living a “transfiguration life”, whatever that means. You have
people pronouncing confidently that the Transfiguration is an altered state of consciousness, like a
mystical experience or a drug trip or something. (“Aha! It says here that they were all sleepy; this
had to have been a collective hallucination!” That kind of thing.) But as we look more closely at the
Transfiguration, I think we’ll see that there’s a little more to this than meets the eye, and there are
several things that this historical account tells us today as we follow the One on whom this story
centers.
First, to understand the Transfiguration, it helps to set the stage. One very important thing to note
is the verse that comes right before today’s passage. If you’d like to follow along you can find St.
Luke’s account on p. 53 of the New Testament portion of your pew Bible, beginning with chapter 9,
verse 27. Jesus is foretelling his death and resurrection to the disciples and encouraging them to
hold up under the suffering that will come from following him. And he concludes this talk by saying,
“Truly I tell you (that is, ‘what I’m about to tell you is very important’), there are some standing here
who will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God.”
Now, taking these words out of context, there are some who connect the dots and assume here that
Jesus is talking about his Second Coming. You know, that there were some standing before him
who wouldn’t die before Jesus’ return. And people who’ve concluded this can be quick to point out
that Jesus must have been wrong in his timetable, and they use that to discredit his identity, his
authority, and so forth.
But please listen closely: It’s no accident that the Transfiguration story happens immediately after
these words in all three Gospel accounts. Right after Jesus says there are some standing right
there who won’t taste death before seeing the kingdom of God, the Gospel writers describe a
remarkable event in which Jesus’ whole appearance changes. His face changes, and his clothes
become a dazzling, unearthly blast of white light.
The “some standing there” that Jesus was talking about were Peter, James, and John. They were
the ones, who, in their lifetimes on earth, were to see what you might call a “sneak preview” of the
glorious kingdom of God. They’re given a window through which to see into the beautiful
resurrection life that can’t even be described except through symbolic language. In the prophetic
works, including the Revelation of St. John, we hear words about gleaming rainbows, and shining
gems, and brilliant light—Glimpses of eternity in the very presence of God which is promised to
those who believe.
And two rather important people who clearly believe in Jesus make a sudden appearance on the
mountain with him, Peter, James and John. Luke says they appeared “in glory.” I assume by this
that they were looking pretty sharp themselves. With what they’re wearing the Brooks Brothers or
Calvin Klein don’t stand a chance against them. The disciples somehow clearly recognized them as
Moses and Elijah. Do you see the importance of this? We have Moses, the Lawgiver, the One who
delivered Israel from the tyrannical yoke of Egypt. And we have Elijah representing the prophets.
Together they’re talking with Jesus about what Luke calls “his departure, which he was about to
accomplish in Jerusalem.” So we have the law and the prophets standing together, testifying to the
one before them, and to His all important work soon to be accomplished through his departure, that
is, his crucifixion. On the Mount of Transfiguration the law and the prophets are unified in their
witness to the Son of God, sent to save the world from sin and death. In fact this is the culmination
of their work!
And there’s more. Let’s dig a little deeper. That word blandly translated from the Greek as
“departure” is the word “exodon”, which is a variation of the word “exodus.” Is this starting to weave
together for you? The Exodus led by Moses brought freedom to the people of Israel. And now,
1400 years later, Moses steps out of the gleaming light of eternity onto the soil of the mountaintop to
discuss with Elijah and Jesus the freedom-giving exodus that closes the loop on Moses’ work. They’
re talking about the real exodus, the exodus which the crossing of the Red Sea foreshadowed. I
hope that this is all looking to you like a little more than a collective hallucination or a groovy
experience.
Now, I want to make something clear here. I in no way want to discredit genuine mystical
experiences. Our Lord gives these to us from time to time. I call them “Holy Spirit” moments.
Sometimes they literally knock us right off our feet. They’re real, and no less genuine than other
aspects of life in Christ. But what I’m trying to say is that the Transfiguration certainly wasn’t
something that was just in the disciples’ heads. And it wasn’t merely a spiritual experience. They
didn’t remember it as such. Rather, it was a real-life, physical, objective event that, if they’d had
present day technology, would probably have made it by now to YouTube. And without computer
graphics or special effects. It was a real experience of the eternal breaking in to the temporal.
Now, I trust we can agree on the historic and spiritual importance of the Transfiguration. It really is
the coming together of God’s message to human beings and pointing right to the person of Jesus.
But there’s a second lesson we can glean from this account that’s also very important. And this has
to do with what happens right after the Transfiguration.
If you have your Bibles open, look at verse 37. Luke writes, “On the next day, when they had come
down from the mountain, a great crowd met him.” And the passage goes on to describe Jesus’
healing of a boy possessed by an unclean spirit. In other words, we go right from the mountaintop
experience in which the very curtains of heaven itself are parted, to the gritty, nuts and bolts work of
the same kingdom of God.
I’d like to suggest to us this morning that this is very much what the Christian life is like. It’s been
said that the life of a soldier is one of interminable boredom punctuated by brief bursts of incredible
adrenaline. That’s not exactly the Christian life, but mountaintop experiences, those times that can
almost seem like a burst of spiritual adrenaline, aren’t the day-to-day norm for most of us.
Thankfully! I don’t think my system could take it if it were. I’m a little over-stimulated as it is! Yet at
the same time I think there’s a danger here. Those of us who’ve had intense or ecstatic experiences
of God’s presence can find this to be a pretty addictive thing. In fact, in observing the lives of some
believers, there sometimes is an element that, back in my hippie days, we used to call “chasing the
high.”
In other words, we find certain spiritual experiences so incredibly powerful that we want to
experience them over and over again. It’s almost like the experience becomes a goal in and of
itself. And again, I want to make it very clear that intense spiritual experiences are a good and joyful
thing. If I had my druthers I wouldn’t mind having them a bit more frequently than I do. They give me
a sense of aliveness, and more importantly, a reassurance that God is alive and well and interested
in our lives. I’m sure that, in addition to their absolute amazement, Peter, James and John must
have come away with a dramatically deeper understanding of who it was they were following.
It might be fitting to liken it to what it would be like if each of us individually were a friend of a king or
a queen. I mean, this arouses images of banquets, and state dinners, and cameras, and paparazzi,
fine dining, the best wines in the world, and all of that, doesn’t it? But I’m guessing that, if we were
really the friend of a king, say, he would also value moments of simply walking with us on a country
road, or enjoying the quiet of a peaceful place as the day begins. And I’m guessing that the kind of
king we’d really admire, the ideal king, would be one who would walk alongside us humbly in civilian
clothes to help us spread the love and charity with which he wants to expand his good kingdom.
There will be state dinners from time to time, and there ultimately will be the mother of all feasts, and
it will last forever. We can look forward to this with absolute assurance because it’s the promise of
God himself. Yet in this life our king, Jesus, wants us to accompany him in the work that comes from
meeting the crowds after we’ve come down from the mountainside. The bottom line is that Jesus
wants us not simply to chase a spiritual high, but to seek Him, because he’s the one who gives us
abundant life, and draws us to follow him in his work.
Jesus uses the word “work” over two dozen times in the Gospels. It was Jesus who told several
parables about the importance of working in the Master’s vineyard. He once said, “Do not work for
food that spoils, but work for food that endures to eternal life.” He said, “The harvest is plentiful, but
the workers are few. So ask the Lord of the harvest to send workers out into his harvest field.”
So whether at any moment we experience the Lord’s presence as staggering and awesome, or as
the humble servant walking quietly beside us, the key is recognizing him, following him, and listening
to him. Because the voice from the cloud, the voice of God the Father, God the creator of the
universe, is the one who told the disciples 2000 years ago and still tells us of Jesus this day, “This is
my Son, my Chosen; listen to him.” Amen.
What Happened on the Mountaintop?
Luke 9:28-43
Luke 9:28-43
February 14, 2010
Fr. Dan Tuton
Fr. Dan Tuton
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