Exodus 24:12-18 – The LORD said to Moses, “Come up to me on the mountain, and wait there; and I will give you the tablets of stone, with the law and the commandment, which I have written for their instruction.” 13 So Moses set out with his assistant Joshua, and Moses went up into the mountain of God. 14 To the elders he had said, “Wait here for us, until we come to you again; for Aaron and Hur are with you; whoever has a dispute may go to them.”
15 Then Moses went up on the mountain, and the cloud covered the mountain. 16 The glory of the LORD settled on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it for six days; on the seventh day he called to Moses out of the cloud. 17 Now the appearance of the glory of the LORD was like a devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the sight of the people of Israel. 18 Moses entered the cloud, and went up on the mountain. Moses was on the mountain for forty days and forty nights.
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Psalm 99:1-9 – The LORD is king; let the peoples tremble! He sits enthroned upon the cherubim; let the earth quake! 2 The LORD is great in Zion; he is exalted over all the peoples. 3 Let them praise your great and awesome name. Holy is he! 4 Mighty King, lover of justice, you have established equity; you have executed justice and righteousness in Jacob. 5 Extol the LORD our God; worship at his footstool. Holy is he! 6 Moses and Aaron were among his priests, Samuel also was among those who called on his name. They cried to the LORD, and he answered them. 7 He spoke to them in the pillar of cloud; they kept his decrees, and the statutes that he gave them. 8 O LORD our God, you answered them; you were a forgiving God to them, but an avenger of their wrongdoings. 9 Extol the LORD our God, and worship at his holy mountain; for the LORD our God is holy.
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2 Peter 1:16-21 – 16 For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we had been eyewitnesses of his majesty. 17 For he received honor and glory from God the Father when that voice was conveyed to him by the Majestic Glory, saying, “This is my Son, my Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” 18 We ourselves heard this voice come from heaven, while we were with him on the holy mountain. 19 So we have the prophetic message more fully confirmed. You will do well to be attentive to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. 20 First of all you must understand this, that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, 21 because no prophecy ever came by human will, but men and women moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.
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Matthew 17:1-9 – Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves. 2 And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white. 3 Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. 4 Then Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” 5 While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!” 6 When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear. 7 But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Get up and do not be afraid.” 8 And when they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone. 9 As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus ordered them, “Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.”
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Good morning and welcome to Transfiguration Sunday!
This is the day when we remember that ‘mountaintop experience’ with Jesus and the disciples. It’s also the last Sunday before Lent begins, which means our Wednesday night Bible Study will be off for the next few weeks, while a series of Lenten services and dinners will kick in. It also means fish frys are back, in a neighborhood near you (yaayy!)
All this aside, Lent is a tough time in a lot of ways. It is a passage from death into new life. Lent is a dark season; but when Lent is over, Spring will be here… and it’s good to keep focus on that.
For the past month we’ve been talking about ‘getting to know Jesus’ – that is, what was Jesus like in real life, in everyday situations. In today’s scriptures we get to see the ‘real Jesus’ in a very unexpected way.
In addition to that, today’s scriptures are about bearing witness – sharing what we know with others. The word ‘witness’ comes from the world of law, from the courtroom. A witness is someone who is put on the stand, swears to tell the truth with their hand on the Bible, and is then asked: “What did you see? What did you hear? What can you tell us about (whatever happened)?”
In the book of II Peter, Peter tells us what he saw, and what he heard, and what happened on the mountain of Transfiguration. Speaking about the Transfiguration, Peter says, “We ourselves heard this voice…” – referring to the voice of God the Father – saying, “This is my Son, my Beloved, with him I am well pleased; listen to him!”
This is the Christian faith in a nutshell! Jesus is the Son of God, loved by God, pleasing to God – and God says to us, “listen to him.”
That’s what Peter saw, and that’s what Peter heard, on the mountain of Transfiguration. That’s what Peter chose to die rather than deny.
The question then becomes: can we believe what Peter saw? And, for that matter, can we believe our own eyes and ears when God touches our lives?
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I am amazed these days, particularly in the past few years, the number of people I have had conversations with, who are completely and totally convinced that they can tell me that I don’t know what I know – that I haven’t seen things my eyes have seen, and I haven’t heard things my ears have heard. They tell me life experience means nothing. These people would walk right up to Peter and say to him, “no, you didn’t see that.” They’d offer no evidence – they just say “no you didn’t”.
To give a real-world example:
A couple years ago I was visiting my brother in Virginia. While I was there, I got into a conversation with a woman in the lobby of the hotel where I was staying. Conversation turned very quickly to religion – I don’t remember exactly why, she might have asked what I did for a living.
Anyway she was quoting the Bible in some rather unusual ways. When I asked which Bible she was reading, she said “oh, King James of course”. She didn’t tell me this, but I gathered very quickly she was attending a conservative nondenominational church with a pastor who was teaching the people that the King James Version was the only legitimate Bible. (I’ve talked with pastors like this myself on many occasions, and they do not budge on this particular doctrine.)
So I tried to explain to her that the King James Bible is very old English, it’s kind of like Shakespeare, and people don’t talk like that any more, and the meanings of some of the words have changed since the 1600s. But she wasn’t able to hear that. She kept insisting that we can’t change the meaning of one word of the King James Bible.
I finally pointed out that the Bible was originally written in Hebrew and Greek and had been translated into English. And at this point she looked at me like I had just turned into Satan himself. She started shouting: “that’s not true, that’s not true…” and she ended the conversation. She was actually scared of me – afraid I was trying to lead her away from God.
It breaks my heart that people who claim the Christian faith live in this kind of fear. God never intended us to live in fear. We should be loyal to God, yes – but to fear the unknown? Or historical research? We can bring anything to God in prayer, and God will lead us.
But we live right now in a time where people no longer believe common knowledge is true.
Along those same lines, I can’t tell you how many times in the past few years I’ve said something like “I’ve saw such-and-such happen…” and a person will answer, “no you didn’t.” If what I said doesn’t agree with “their truth”, I couldn’t possibly have seen what I saw. The dissonance is mind-boggling.
Ruth Anne Reese, a theologian from Asbury Theological Seminary, recently wrote about a similar experience. Speaking about the Transfiguration, which we just read about, she writes that the apostle Peter’s very first claim is that we believers “do not follow cleverly devised myths”. (This refers to both apostles and everyday believers.) In other words, we haven’t cooked up these Bible stories on the sly. She writes:
“In our own time, a whole vocabulary has developed related to the narratives we encounter. We use words like “alternative facts,” “misinformation,” and “fake news,” and arguments unfold over who is telling the truth and what kind of bias they have.”
What Professor Reese is describing does not include the times when people are simply mistaken. She is also not including cult-like practices like the Internet rabbit holes people fall into sometimes. This is simply an inability to discern foundational truths.
I say all of this as an introduction to the Transfiguration, and to what Peter has to say about it, because let’s face it – the Transfiguration is a miracle of epic proportions! It is an act of God. And one of the first things Peter says is: “we did not follow cleverly devised myths.” Apparently the charge of ‘alternative facts’ is not limited to our generation.
Peter continues, saying:
“we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we have been eyewitnesses of his majesty.”
Peter also says, “we ourselves heard the voice come from heaven.”
When the disciples went up that mountain with Jesus, they were not seeing things, or hearing things, that weren’t there. And Peter died rather than change his story.
So then what was that story? Here’s what Peter shared: Jesus and the disciples, and the crowd that was always with them, were traveling in the region of Galilee.
One day Jesus asked Peter, James, and John to join him on a walk up a high mountain. We don’t know which mountain this was; the Bible doesn’t say. But it would not have been in or near Jerusalem, it would have been somewhere in the north, because that was where Jesus was teaching at the time. This mountain was also not near the seats of power – God’s power tends to show up in places humans don’t expect.
When they got near the top of the mountain, Jesus’ appearance changed. Peter says he was ‘transfigured’. This was a complete and dramatic change of appearance. Jesus’ face shone, his clothing became dazzlingly white (which was a rare thing – people didn’t have bleach back then, so white clothing was never really completely white. This would have been a supernatural white.)
Just as suddenly, Moses and Elijah were there, and they were having a conversation with Jesus. This conversation is also a miracle, because the three men didn’t speak the same language! Moses lived around 1500 years before Jesus, and he spoke Egyptian and wrote in hieroglyphics. Elijah lived around 900 years before Jesus, and he spoke ancient classical Hebrew. And Jesus spoke Aramaic. Granted, Jesus knew some Hebrew – most people back then spoke three or four languages. And maybe Elijah was the translator – we don’t know. But the fact that they were able to communicate with each other is itself a miracle.
As their conversation went on, Peter offered to build some shelters – probably so they can get out of the direct sunlight and into something a bit cooler. But God had a better idea, and God sent a cloud which “overshadowed” them. And from this cloud a voice was heard, saying:
“This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!”
This is God’s voice they’re hearing. God knows how to speak our language, no matter what country we’re from. Have you ever noticed that? God speaks to us in English; God speaks to Russians in Russian and to the French in French and to Puerto Ricans in Spanish and to Kenyans in Swahili. God speaks to us, as we are, where we are. And somehow God made it possible for Moses and Elijah and Jesus to understand each other.
And on hearing the voice of God, the disciples fell on their faces, overcome by fear. But Jesus came to them, touched each one, and said, “Get up and don’t be afraid.” And they looked up, and the cloud was gone, and everything was back to normal.
Except for one thing: from that point on, ‘normal’ had been redefined. Jesus tells his disciples not to tell anyone what they’ve seen until after he’s been raised from the dead – and the disciples don’t quite understand what he means by that, not yet anyway. But Peter and James and John have a lot to process – and not a lot of time to process it in. They didn’t know it at this point, but they only have about 40 more days until Jesus would be taken from them and nailed to a cross. And once that happened, life would never be the same.
For us, too, sadly, our walk with the ‘real Jesus’ between Christmas and Lent must come to an end for now. Next week we start our journey with Jesus to the Cross.
Meanwhile I hope we can take away from this time with Jesus a knowledge of…
- How well Jesus knows us
- How much Jesus cares for us, and knows exactly what we need, and how we need to receive it.
We also know that…
Jesus teaches objective truth. If there is no such thing as objective truth, then there is no point in bearing witness, and we are wasting our time here. We are wasting our time standing up for justice because if there is no truth there can be no justice. We are wasting our time standing up for love because if there is no truth relationships are just a way of getting what’s good for ourselves.
But praise God there is objective truth. And God is that truth. So when we talk about faith – faith is not some pie-in-the-sky thing. As the writer of Hebrews says:
“Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, and of things not seen.”
Just because we can’t see the wind doesn’t mean we can’t see the leaves that are being blown around by it. We don’t have to see the wind to know that it’s there. Same with faith and the Holy Spirit. Jesus said:
“The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” (John 3:8)
CS Lewis once said:
“I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not [only] because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”
So Peter writes to us in his second letter, shortly before his own crucifixion, that “we do not follow cleverly devised myths… but we have been eyewitnesses of his majesty.” Peter says that God said, “This is my Son, my Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” And Peter says, “We ourselves heard this voice…” with our own ears – this voice from heaven.
And now that Jesus has died and has risen, Peter can speak freely. He tells us:
“Be as attentive to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.”
So don’t let anybody tell you that your eyes haven’t seen what they’ve seen, or that your ears haven’t heard what they’ve heard. We stand with Peter and James and John – and we bear witness to what we know. AMEN.
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