Transfiguration

Luke 9:28-36; Exodus 34:29-35

Transfiguration Sunday

Exodus 34:29-35

{29} Moses came down from Mount Sinai. As he came down from the mountain with the two tablets of the covenant in his hand, Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God. {30} When Aaron and all the Israelites saw Moses, the skin of his face was shining, and they were afraid to come near him. {31} But Moses called to them; and Aaron and all the leaders of the congregation returned to him, and Moses spoke with them. {32} Afterward all the Israelites came near, and he gave them in commandment all that the LORD had spoken with him on Mount Sinai. {33} When Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a veil on his face; {34} but whenever Moses went in before the LORD to speak with him, he would take the veil off, until he came out; and when he came out, and told the Israelites what he had been commanded, {35} the Israelites would see the face of Moses, that the skin of his face was shining; and Moses would put the veil on his face again, until he went in to speak with him.

Luke 9:28-36

{28} Now about eight days after these sayings Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray. {29} And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white. {30} Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Elijah, talking to him. {31} They appeared in glory and were speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. {32} Now Peter and his companions were weighed down with sleep; but since they had stayed awake, they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him. {33} Just as they were leaving him, Peter said to Jesus, “Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah”—not knowing what he said. {34} While he was saying this, a cloud came and overshadowed them; and they were terrified as they entered the cloud. {35} Then from the cloud came a voice that said, “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!” {36} When the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. And they kept silent and in those days told no one any of the things they had seen.

The Sermon

Before he came along, your life was all right. Work the day, take your money, get married to somebody, make a home, try not to mess things up too badly, and be good to the people around you if you are so inclined and as long as it doesn’t substantially cost you anything.

You lived a sleepy life in a sleepy town and you knew that eventually, at some point known only to God, you would fade from this sleepwalk into another, longer, deeper sleep, which it was not really worth thinking about because it couldn’t be any better or, indeed, too much worse, than what you were already doing.

The first time you saw him, you were washing your nets by the lake, and he came along the shore, and though you had caught nothing after a long night on the water, he got into your boat and asked you to put out into deep water, and cast your nets. And you had pulled in an enormous haul. And you were staggered.

At that point you fell at his feet—you, whose life was nothing to brag about—and you said, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful person.”

You hit your knees when he spoke to you, because the thought of all the shortcomings you had shown over the years seemed so pronounced in the presence of someone whose light seemed to shine so brightly with goodness, and fullness, and acceptance, and holiness.

At that moment, in the presence of such divinity, you became acutely aware not only of how unworthy you felt right then, but also of the terrible weight of so many burdens that only you know that you carry with you.

The regrettable decisions.

The unforgettable errors.

The people you never got to explain yourself to, or apologize to—the unfinished business.

It was almost more than you could stand; you were so used to judging yourself that you didn’t dare put yourself into a situation in which he would have to judge you. “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful person.”

And he said, “Don’t be afraid. From now on, you’re going to be catching people.”

And for a moment, and then several moments, you were not afraid. Finally.

And you brought your nets to shore, and on that day, the occasion of the biggest haul of your career, you walked away from it all, and followed him.

Maybe you saw in him—in his person, and in his message—a chance that you had never imagined before:

a chance to reclaim your life, to reposition yourself not as an uninspired workaday drone, but as someone who could live, forgiven and accepted, in truth and beauty, and not be so afraid anymore.

Finally, there was a realistic chance that you might, at long last, know beauty and truth—

that the spin doctoring, and the image massaging, and the careful craftiness of advertising, and politicking, and cover-ups and misinformation—that all that could be exposed for what it is, and made irrelevant, in the overwhelmingly beautiful light that seemed to emanate from everything that this man stood for.

And you could live in the truth, and see the beauty that had for so long remained hidden: the beauty within and around all of creation, and life, and people, and yourself. There is beauty there, waiting to be seen, waiting like a hidden treasure to be seen and known and understood.

Days went by, and weeks, and months; and somehow, since that life-changing day in the boat, you had found yourself in his inner circle. Maybe he likes your impulsiveness, or your fierce loyalty, or just your willingness to stick it out and follow him wherever he leads you.

Or maybe there’s nothing particular that you have done to earn his fondness, his faithfulness to you. Maybe it’s nothing particular but everything in general about you, and he just accepts and loves you for who you are, as you are, because he knows that just being around him and learning from him makes you a better person, makes you want to be a better person.

And so today he calls you, you and two others from the very innermost circle around him, to go with him up on the mountain to pray.

But you were so tired.

Maybe you didn’t even realize it until just now, but as you trudged up the hill with him, you and the two others, you began to realize that the long days were taking their toll. The miracles, the teaching, the healings; running from one crowd to another, some angry, some clinging—even he had to get away by himself once in a while, and for a mere mortal like you, of course it took it out of you. It was tiring. You had a right to be tired.

The problem with boring churches—boring sermons preached in boring worship services that have boring music and boring prayers—is that they produce Christians who are always making decisions when they’re only half-awake, because we’re already so tired by the time we get to Sunday morning, it doesn’t take much to put us to sleep. And the danger then is that when we face a genuine encounter with God, no matter where or when it might be, we may be found only half awake.

If you’re half-awake, you’re more likely to try the easiest possible solution to whatever your faith crisis happens to be. And most of the time that’s going to be, roll over and cover your head with a pillow, and maybe God will leave you alone and you can just go back to sleep.

So you got to where you were going, and Jesus began to pray. And as he spoke in that wonderful warm, holy cadence, your eyes began to get heavy.

And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white.

Suddenly there were two others, whom you knew to be Moses and Elijah, talking to him. They appeared in glory and were speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.

Was it a dream? No, you were still awake.

Were you just punchy from lack of sleep? Was it a hallucination caused by extreme fatigue? No, the others heard and saw it too.

Here before your own sleepy eyes was an encounter of such awesome and undeniable holiness that Jesus glowed white the way Moses had done in ancient times when he went in and was spoken to directly by Almighty God, the sovereign creator of the universe. And you were witness to the direct encounter with absolute, forbidden holiness.

And for just an instant, you were back on that boat, questioning your own acceptability, reviewing your life in painstaking detail and wishing so much that you were someone else, someone better, someone more predictable, more mature, better able to look in the mirror without wishing you could see something profoundly different than the person staring back at you.

But then Elijah and Moses—Elijah and Moses!—began to take their leave, and you realized that a chance may be slipping away here.

Sometimes you get to the worst part of a nightmare, and just when it seems you’ve run out of options, or something unspeakably terrible is about to happen, or has just happened, you wake up. And slowly you recognize where you really are, and that the situation you thought you were in was only a bad dream. And you thank God it’s not really like that.

But sometimes you dream wonderful dreams, too good to be true. One friend of mine who had lost some money on an airplane told me that he dreamed a few days later that he found it—only to wake up and find himself disappointed all over again. Another friend had several dreams after his mother passed away that she was back again, and those dreams were hard to deal with, because he would wake up and face his grief all over again.

You didn’t want this waking dream to end—you finally had an undeniable glimpse of the light of God—we don’t get that very often, that wonderful moment when you could feel like, for the first time in your life, you can really feel it.

And you said, “Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”

Maybe, you thought in your half-sleep, if you could lock up what you had here in a small booth, a tiny box, and just hold it there, you could feel like you’ve got some control—when so much is beyond our control, and usually feels like it’s out of control.

If I can keep Jesus in here, like a lightning bug in an empty mayonnaise jar, I won’t have to have any doubts. I won’t have to be inspired. I won't even have to have faith, because I’ll always be able to see that he’s right there, in the little tent I built for him. Under my control.

Then a cloud overshadowed you, and from the cloud there came a voice, “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him.”

And now you were completely awake, and Moses and Elijah were gone, and your momentary idea to try to keep them in little boxes vanished with the cloud that had overshadowed you all.

There will be no confining space for Jesus, no booth or tent or box that can hold God for sleepy humans to hang onto for themselves. “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.” That’s a different gospel (John 3:8) but the same idea.

With the supreme freedom of God, Jesus chooses whomever he will.

Today, he has chosen you. From that first day in the boat, or wherever you first encountered him, it has been pleased God to have you as a follower. God knows your shortcomings, your weaknesses, your impulses, your nagging memories and your insistent dreams. In spite of all of it, and because of all of it, you are called, to be transformed as he has been transfigured.

He will lead you on in love, Peter, all the way to the cross. Along the way, you will pledge your undying allegiance to him, and in his own darkest hour, you will deny him. He knows this. And he will love you every day, and never stop.

This is God’s son, God’s chosen. Listen to him.

Let us pray...

Keith Grogg

Carolina Beach Presbyterian Church

Carolina Beach , NC

February 18, 2007