“Glimpses of Glory”
Matthew 17:1-9
February 3, 2008
Rev. John A. Fleming
Who can talk about the transfiguration of Jesus? Our gospel lesson for this morning, taken
from Matthew’s seventeenth chapter is as strange a scene as there is in the
gospels.
For
sure Jesus did not talk about his transfiguration and neither did the three
disciples who made their way up the mountain path with him. In fact, according to Matthew, the three
disciples were ordered not to tell anyone about vision until after the Son of Man had been raised from the dead. So did it really happen, Jesus, or was it
just a vision?
As
for the disciples talking about it, then eventually did. You have to wonder when they did. Whenever it was, my guess is that the three
got strange looks from their fellow disciples.
Matthew,
Mark, and Luke all three record what can at best be described as an intensely
private moment between Jesus and
God. In fact, it is so private
that most of it happened in a cloud. There
were witnesses, of course. Peter, James
and John were there. Matthew tells us
that the three fell down in fear when they heard the voice of God boom from the
clouds.
So
it is hard to talk about what happened up there on that mountain other than to
say that we cannot help but to be fascinated when events like this happen. The Bible is full with them. Go up on another mountain and watch as Moses
is minding his own business and tending the sheep of his father-in-law’s
flock. It is there that a bush is sudden
ablaze, which is not as much a miracle as the fact that God’s voice spoke from
the midst of it. Wasn’t it Jacob who dreamed of the ladder that reached up to the heavens? He tells us that angel’s footprints were all
over the ladder’s rungs. It was Job who
told about the voice of God that spoke to him out of a whirlwind.
Things don’t tend to work like that today. They did during biblical times, but today
most bushes don’t give off even a hint of heat.
As for ladders, the only footprints on them are your own. Someone wrote that the only sound that comes
out of a whirlwind these days is the sound of the wind. Still
we are in hot pursuit of God. We do that
in many ways. Some of us fast and others
of us pray. Some of us go on
retreats. Some of us head off to
seminary or end up on a mission trip in a place like
In
our lesson for this morning, four people do catch a glimpse of the glory of
God. I guess you could say that three of
them, Peter, James and John saw God’s glory.
The question that begs to be asked is this one, “Who was the
transfiguration really for? Was it for
those three disciples, who, for some
reason, made the trek up the mountain with Jesus? Or was the transfiguration more for
Jesus?” I think the answer to that
question is, “Yes.”
There
has always been a lot of misunderstanding about who Jesus really was. His identity is always an important question
to consider. A few short verses before
we arrive on this mountain, Jesus turned back to the disciples and asked, “Who
do people say that I am?” By the way it is always easier to answer the
question of what other people are saying that what you believe. The disciples let Jesus know that some people
believed he was John the Baptist reincarnated.
Others believed he was the prophet Elijah, who reportedly never died,
but was taken up in a whirlwind to heaven.
There is that whirl wind again.
Still others believed he was Jeremiah or one of the prophets.
Then
Jesus turned back with another question.
It was this one, “Who do you say I am?”
It is harder to answer that, but Peter does. He speaks for the group. He answers, “You are the Messiah, the Son of
the living God.” Matthew is clear when
he says that it was God who enabled Peter to say that, but you get the idea
that he still didn’t realize what his words meant.
So
six days later Jesus took Peter and James and John up on a high mountain, by
themselves. Matthew tells us that Jesus’
face shone like the sun. Matthew tells
us that Jesus’ garments became as white as light. No wonder Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here. If you wish, I will make three dwellings here. I will build one for you, one for Moses, and
one for Elijah. Paul wanted to begin a
building program. Who could blame him? And of us, when we have had what can best be
described as a mountaintop moment, want it to last longer than that
moment. That’s why we call them mountaintop
experiences. Mountaintop moments, of
course, do not have to happen on mountaintops.
They can happen anywhere and we want these moments to last forever. We do not want the feeling of these moments
to ever go away. We, too, say, “Lord, it
is good for us to be here.”
Matthew
then tells us that there was a bright cloud that overshadowed them. He lets us know that fear enveloped
them. From that cloud came
the voice of God. “This is my Son, whom
I love; listen to Him!”
I
will say it again. This is as strange a
scene as there is in the gospels. Even
with the voice from the clouds to explain it, the three disciples must not have
known what they were seeing. What they were seeing was Jesus of Nazareth,
all right. He was the man they had
tramped down many a dusty mile with. He
was Jesus of Nazareth, the man whose mother and brothers they all knew. He was the one they had seen as hungry and as
tired and as footsore as the rest of them.
He was all those things, but he also was the Messiah, the Christ, the
Son of God, in full glory. It was
his face that shone and nearly blinded them.
So the transfiguration moment could have been just for those three
disciples, in hopes that they one day would tell of the experience.
I
want to say this. I believe the moment
was just as much for Jesus as it was for Peter, and James, and John. The moment would have sent him back to the
chilly waters of his baptism, where he heard the voice of God booming from the
heavens. As he rose from the cold
waters, God said, “This is my Son, with whom I am well pleased.”
Jesus’
ministry is half over when we arrive at our lesson today. He has been rejected in
Max
Lucado tells the story of a young woman, eight months
heavy with her first child who waddled into her mother’s house. She flopped down on the sofa in the den and
kicked off her shoes on her way to putting her sore feet on the coffee table. She groaned and exclaimed to her mother, “I
don’t think I can make it.”
Her
mother, wise with years, picked up a photo album and sat next to her
daughter. She opened the album to the
photos of her children in diapers and in ankle high walking shoes. You have to be a certain age to appreciate
that last line! Slowly the two of them
turned through the memory filled pages.
They smiled at the pictures of kids blowing out birthday candles and
ones taken in front of Christmas trees. The mother sees yesterday, the daughter looks
to tomorrow, and for just a moment, she is transformed. She is not transfigured, but she is
transformed.
She imagines
the future. She sees her child take her
timid first steps. She hears her
daughter’s first words, discernable only to her. She imagines her putting black leather shoes
on her feet, a cute dress on her body, and a bow in
her hair (even though there is not enough hair to warrant the bow). Suddenly the pain in her back is overshadowed
by the joy that will soon come. The hand
that had been on her hips was now gently touching her stomach. For the first time that day, she smiled. It was a transforming moment.
Beloved
I know it is not the same. It is not
nearly the same; you can’t compare the two.
Go up on that mountain and notice the moment. For that moment, Jesus is with those who
understood him the best, Moses and Elijah.
They welcome him. Matthew tells
us that the spoke with one another. I
would love to know what they talked about.
I only know what one person said.
You will remember that it was God who spoke again whose voice boomed
again from the cloud.
It
was a voice that was for His son, Jesus, and yet was for us, too. For the benefit of Jesus, God said, “This is
Jesus. He is my beloved Son. I’m well pleased with him.” And to the disciples of any age God says,
“Listen to Him. Pay attention to Him. His words are important and significant and
life giving. But more than that, they
are life changing. Listen to Him.”
We
are on the edge of the season of Lent. I
hope you will go with Jesus all the way to
(Special
thanks to the writings of Barbara Brown Taylor, Frederick Buechner,
and Max Lucado for some of the thoughts in this
sermon. Special thanks to God for giving
us mountaintop moments. I pray there
will be many for us in our lifetimes).