Transfiguration Sunday is a day in the liturgical calendar that is about as popular as Arbor Day is in our secular calendar. Does anyone celebrate Arbor Day anymore? Look it up. You may want to add it to your calendar. Transfiguration Sunday is like that. It’s a Sunday that always ends the season of Epiphany and transitions to the season of Lent. It’s a story found in all three of the synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke about a miraculous moment when God shines light on Jesus in a way in which he is presented as more divine than human. It’s a rare glimpse of Jesus as the Son of God and the moment in ministry is a turning point.
We have gone through the season of Epiphany where we have gotten aha moments of understanding who Jesus is and Transfiguration Sunday is like the grand finale of Epiphany’s. You can’t get bigger and brighter than this miraculous moment. Jesus takes three friends, Peter, James and John up to the top of Mount Tabor and when he reaches the top of the mountain he is lifted into the sky, and changed into a blinding white light and next to him are Moses and Elijah and a voice comes from heaven saying, this is my Son, listen to him. This strange and miraculous story is confusing, and we are tempted to be like the disciples and contain it, make it fit our story, or to ignore the miraculous part and just say this is a story to prove the point that Jesus was important.
But what if this really happened? What if it’s not just a story to make the point that Jesus was important. What if this glorious event happened on that mountain and it cannot be explained away. What if you believed and followed Jesus in a way that you embraced miracles?
Martin Luther, in his last sermon preached in Wittenberg before his death, looked back at all the times that his faith was attacked, all the times he struggled with whether he was doing the right thing, and all the trials he had faced in his life. And he reflected on how easy it would have been to start doubting it all. But he says in this sermon that whenever he was attacked, and whenever he began to doubt, he would simply cling to this word that we heard in today’s gospel reading, the word that came from heaven itself:
This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!
Luther would open his Bible, and read about Jesus, and listen to this amazing story again, and his doubts would fade away. Listen to him. This is Jesus, God’s beloved son. Listen to him. Listen, and believe.
Imagine, if you can, living in a way that you believed it was all true. Imagine you believe that he went to the cross and died for our sins. Before he was raised from the dead on the third day. Before he then appeared to his disciples and many others, and then ascended into heaven before them.
Imagine you believed all of that, and before this took place he told us these things, and his Father in heaven confirmed his words, and told us to listen to him. Before all that, our Lord and Savior told us the truth of our salvation. And then, on the mountain, his Father in heaven confirmed this truth. And then, on the cross, he made this truth real for each of us.
This is, first of all, what the Christian faith is really all about. It is about God’s glory, and God’s love, being revealed in his Son, Jesus Christ. And it is about the good news, that we really do get to live in a world that has been redeemed by this Savior. Not in the way that we always want or expect. But always in the way that we need. Redeemed from captivity to sin, to death, and to evil, and ushered into the very kingdom of God.
I am not a big follower of rap music, but there one song by Mackelmore that I really like. I make Jackson play it every time we are in the car. It’s called Glorious and the words go like this – I feel glorious, glorious
Got a chance to start again
I was born for this, born for this
It’s who I am, how could I forget?
I made it through the darkest part of the night
And now I see the sunrise
Now I feel glorious, glorious
I feel glorious, glorious
We gon’ be alright, put that on my life
When I open my eyes, hope I see you shine
We’re planting a flag they don’t understand
The world is up for grabs
We gon’ be alright, put that on my life
When I open my eyes, hope I see you shine
We’re planting a flag they don’t understand
The world is up for grabs
I feel glorious, glorious
Got a chance to start again
I don’t know if Mackelmore knew the story of the transfiguration, but I have a feeling he did. It’s like he put himself on the mountain with Peter, James and John and let himself feel that humility of being there as a disciple, wanting so much to do things right. To follow Jesus and do things right. To build a monument, organize a committee, set a policy, create a memorial, have some bylaws, and then in the midst of their cerebral thinking, a huge boom comes from the sky that scares them half to death and says, this is my Son, listen to him.
We need that fear, that shake in our boots, that knock to our knees. We need to live like we know something the world doesn’t know, that God of glory gave us his son to save us from sin, that we might live. And it is about the good news, that we really do get to live in a world that has been redeemed by this Savior. Not in the way that we always want or expect. But always in the way that we need. Redeemed from captivity to sin, to death, and to the devil, and ushered into the very kingdom of God.
– That’s glorious.
I can’t make you believe that. I can’t convince you not to think you need to build a program or a building or a plan in order to follow him. I can only tell you what God told the disciples, listen. Listen to him.
And when you do, something happens to you – you are changed. Preacher and writer Eugene Peterson puts it this way:
Jesus was transfigured before the disciples’ eyes. The transliteration of the Greek word into English is ‘metamorphosized.’ Elsewhere in the New Testament, it’s translated ‘transformed.’ In other words, the reality that was inside of Jesus got outside of Him so the disciples could see it. Not only was this true of Jesus, it’s true of you and me. Paul wrote about it in his letter to the Romans: ‘Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed’ (12:2) – Or, as I translated it, ‘be changed from the inside out.’ The same Greek word that’s used to describe Jesus’ transfiguration in Matthew is used in Romans to describe our transfiguration. What happens to Jesus happens to us. But it happens to us by the renewing of our minds. As we listen to Him, as we look at Him, as we linger with Him, a transformation occurs. And the beauty that is His becomes ours.”
This is, first of all, what the Christian faith is really all about. It is about God’s glory, and God’s love, being revealed in his Son, Jesus Christ.
Every single day you and I have the option of making a different choice than the one those first disciples made. We don’t have to so quickly forget what God has shown us in Jesus. We can choose to remember and lean into God’s promise of a divine, hope-infused world and let that faith-based reality shape us and how we act and think each day.
Or we can choose to do as those first disciples seemed to do. We can choose to quickly forget about any promise of glory or newness or Divine presence. We can choose to only see a world where everything is flat with no light, no holes, no fullness. We can choose to only see a world where Good Friday seems to hold all the power and the trenches of daily life are just about overwhelming.
Sisters and brothers, that is our battle every single day. That is our choice every single day. Whose story, what memory, will shape our lives? Will it give us courage for discipleship?
When I open my eyes, hope I see you shine
We’re planting a flag they don’t understand
The world is up for grabs
I feel glorious, glorious
Got a chance to start again
Amen,
Rev. Dr. Shelly Wood
