Glory: Transfiguration Story in Luke’s Gospel

February 18, 2007

[Luke 9:28] Now about eight days after these sayings Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray.

[Luke 9:29] And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white.

[Luke 9:30] Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Elijah, talking to him.

[Luke 9:31] They appeared in glory and were speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.

[Luke 9:32] 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.

[Luke 9:33] 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.

[Luke 9:34] While he was saying this, a cloud came and overshadowed them; and they were terrified as they entered the cloud.

[Luke 9:35] Then from the cloud came a voice that said, "This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!"

[Luke 9:36] 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.

[Luke 9:37] On the next day, when they had come down from the mountain, a great crowd met him.

[Luke 9:38] Just then a man from the crowd shouted, "Teacher, I beg you to look at my son; he is my only child.

[Luke 9:39] Suddenly a spirit seizes him, and all at once he shrieks. It convulses him until he foams at the mouth; it mauls him and will scarcely leave him.

[Luke 9:40] I begged your disciples to cast it out, but they could not."

[Luke 9:41] Jesus answered, "You faithless and perverse generation, how much longer must I be with you and bear with you? Bring your son here."

[Luke 9:42] While he was coming, the demon dashed him to the ground in convulsions. But Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit, healed the boy, and gave him back to his father.

[Luke 9:43] And all were astounded at the greatness of God.

Our passage from Luke ends: And all were astounded at the greatness of God. Why?

Jesus’ power and authority was highlighted by the inability of the disciples to heal the boy.

Crowd. See the desperation. Frustration and embarrassment on the part of the disciples. Left alone for just a little while, we can’t take care of it. The distraught father had BEGGED!

So their inability underscores Jesus’ ability.

Why do they think that God is great? Because they took it that divine power was working through Jesus, since Jesus could cast out the evil spirit and perform the healing.

Divine power/greatness/glory is in what God can do for us. And this is nothing to scoff at.

But this leads to a problem. Problem that arises various times/ways in the Gospel.

Delicate balance in our understanding of Jesus and how Jesus reveals the nature and reality of God.

A few weeks ago Pastor Margaret talked about an image of God that is persistent. God as some kind of powerful old man who lives in heaven. God has given us certain rules to live by. If we obey those rules this powerful old man will reward us. If not, we will be punished. We might go on to add Jesus into the imagery saying that we won’t be punished because Jesus died on the cross and so we are forgiven. We might extend the imagery a little further and even say that at times God reaches into the world with a miracle and helps us in some extraordinary way.

There are certain elements of this imagery that have some truth. But this characterization misses some key elements of how it is that Jesus becomes the central revelation of the nature and reality of God in the Gospels.

The truths in this imagery are these:

The Bible and Christian tradition do understand God as personal. Relational. Caring about humanity. God is intentional. God is not an impersonal force, like the wind, or an earthquake. God’s activity is not random. God’s activity is meaningful. We seek to understand God’s activity and relate to God in it.

And God is a powerful personal being. God is the creator of all that is. Visible and invisible.

Because God loves us and cares about us, God understands that there are ways of living and doing that help us grow and ways of living and doing that harm us. God is interested in us being the best that we can be, because God longs for a relationship with us and we all know how painful it is when someone we care about is living and doing in a way that harms them or holds them back.

And as part of that longing that God has to be in relationship with us, God forgives, because that is the way relationships are able to endure disappointments, frustrations, and offenses.

But the Jesus revelation of God’s power and glory is deeper and richer. It is revealed in the first part of the Gospel story today.

The transfiguration story – Jesus appearing radiant with the glory of God – is in Luke, Matthew and Mark. In each of these gospels it follows Jesus’ first prediction of his crucifixion and the realization by the disciples that he – Jesus – is the messiah, the anointed and holy one of God.

For Jesus, these two realities of his story on earth: messiah and crucified are inextricably linked, but they are fundamentally in conflict for the human mind.

In a conversation with the disciples, it comes out that Jesus is the messiah, and Jesus quickly tells them that this will lead to his crucifixion, and if any want to be his followers they too must take up their cross and follow him.

The question immediately emerges: if Jesus is the messiah, why is he not powerful enough or why isn’t there enough power to simply crush all the bad stuff out and deliver the world and all of us into goodness and wholeness? How can it be that he is crushed?

On the other hand, if Jesus were all about simply fixing everything by brute force and miracle, then he would be attractive to us regardless of our relationship with God. We would simply be overwhelmed; we would not be drawn into love.

To open our minds and hearts to embrace both realities together is the product of faith. To be able to embrace God’s glory and power and grandeur on the one hand, and God’s vulnerability and suffering on the other, brings us in touch with the divine reality. And I suggest that reality ought to draw us into a humble silence.

Jesus and Peter, James and John, climb the mountain to pray. While praying, Jesus connects into the divine power. He begins to radiate light.

This kind of thing had happened before in the Bible. Way back in Exodus, hundreds of years earlier, Moses had climbed Mt. Sinai and received the ten commandments.

Shining, cloud are signs of the glory of the Lord. Signs of the overwhelming, overpowering presence of the power of almighty God. Not something you fool around with.

Moses was so terrifying with the glow of the presence and glory of God that he had to wear a veil, so that the people could stand to be in his presence.

In our passage this morning we again have the cloud and the shining, clearly meant to indicate that the presence and power and glory of God are right there.

Moses again (who represents the law) and Elijah (who represents the prophets) are seen with Jesus. This is a very high-level meeting. At first blush it is Jesus who is elevated by this company. If Moses and Elijah will talk with Jesus, he must be important.

Peter and the other two disciples are not to try to make some religious gesture in this moment they are to re-orient their attention and their focus to Jesus who is God’s son, God’s chosen.

It is not a matter of their perception or understanding, it is a direct word from the Lord that Jesus is the one.

Why is it important that this be underscored? Because as Jesus and the disciples approach Jerusalem for the final act of his earthly ministry, it will become more and more difficult to believe that this one who will be handed over to death is the Chosen One of God. The Chosen One of God cannot meet such an end.

The sign on the mountain will attempt to fix it for sure and certain in their mind that the power of God is not to be confused with earthly power that accomplishes things in this world as we normally think of it. Jesus’ departure as talked about by Elijah and Moses is part of the plan that Jesus must carry out to reveal the true power and glory of God.

The testimony of God in Jesus Christ is this:

My glory is not that I sit in the heavens and can exercise control. My glory is not that I sit in the heavens and reward the righteous and condemn the evil. My glory is not that I intervene in the natural course of events from on high to make history turn out the way it should.

My glory is that I come down to you. That I share with you your life and your temptation your suffering and your death.

My glory is that in your suffering and your grief, I sit with you on the mourners bench and take your suffering upon myself.

My glory is not that I am aloof and above it all. My glory is that despite my power and my authority, I will take on human flesh to live and die alongside you.

My glory is bright enough to outshine your darkness. My love is strong enough to live through your death.

My glory is that I will dare to invite you also to set aside your idolatry of earthly power that lords in fear over your true heart’s yearning to open up in love and compassion so that it will burn brightly with the glory I wish to pour into you.

God sees through our competition of earthly glory trying to get the upper hand against others who seek to compete with us for that same apparently limited earthly glory.

We may think that our task is to somehow get God to lend the divine glory on behalf of our interests.

But God is inviting us into the truly divine glory of mercy, love, compassion, and peace that seeks to weave from the experiences of our lives a tapestry of glorious beauty.

What I have learned in twenty five years of pastoral ministry:

Where I have seen the glory of God most profoundly is those times and places where people have let down their guard, their pride. Where they have lowered their defenses and tenderly told the truth about their woundedness, weakness, and lostness.

I have witnessed the glory of God in tears and confession. I have witnessed the glory of God in an admission of uncertainty and fear that opens up a real opportunity for encouragement or learning.

The secret that God shares in the revelation of divine glory at the transfiguration is that glory is not where we look. The Jesus story is to redirect our attention.

It’s true that God may be at work in magnificent success, but we don’t need help seeing that. In fact we may well believe God is there simply because we like the success, whether God is there or not. In that case success has become our God.

Jesus does not take on the powers of sin and death directly, standing up to them to overcome them with superior force. Instead, he opens himself up to take them in, embrace them, and overcome them by forgiving their practitioners and inviting them to begin again as his community of followers re-forms at his resurrection.

The glory of God in Jesus Christ is the glory of a love that will not let us go. That will not be daunted by any other power in the universe.

These two themes, these two realities: Jesus the messiah and Jesus the crucified both reveal the glory of God.

God, powerful creator and author of the universe and God the God who offers us a tender and loving and personal relationship and who will weep with us in our suffering and sorrow.

Jesus and the disciples go down from the mountain into the complexities of the world in which it sometimes takes a keen spiritual eye to discern the glory of God which can be hidden in the ambiguities of life.

Their journey takes them to Jerusalem where the forces of sin and death will fail to take into account the glory that was revealed upon the mountain.

As we journey together into the season of lent, toward the dark glory of Good Friday and the Resurrection glory to be celebrated on Easter, I invite you to keep a lookout for the glory of God to be revealed in unexpected places of weakness and grief and tenderness. Revealed perhaps in unlikely instances of fear and forgiveness. Revealed in a renewed awareness of the power of God at work in your life and the lives of those around you.

I invite you to pray that your mind and your heart would, in fact, be opened to embrace the reality of which the prophet Isaiah heard the angels say:

Thanks be to God. Amen.