THE TRANSFIGURATION of OUR LORD

March 6, 2011

Text: Matthew 17:1-9

Pastor Dale G. Bauer 

Making life simple. How many would like to have a life that’s a little less complicated? Simpler? I learned a new phrase this week that describes how complicated life has gotten. It’s Brain Freeze. Brain Freeze is what happens to our brains when they get overloaded with data as we try to make decisions. During the British Petroleum spill in the Gulf, you may remember, Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen headed the incident command. He received between 300 and 400 pages of emails each day with suggestions. The article maintains that when we get too much information, the decision-making center in our brains simply shuts down and we make poor decisions.

Increasingly, we need to focus. To make a few cardinal decisions that guide us through the data overload we all face. These cardinal decisions, once made, free us from overload.

Jesus makes that as simple today as he did 2,000 years ago. “Follow me,” he said. When we make that decision, all other decisions become simpler.

Let’s see how this works. Let’s turn to Matthew 17, beginning at verse one.

(1) Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves. Peter, James, and John are the inner circle of the disciples. Peter is the Rock; James and John are known as the sons of thunder. They are taken up a mountain. The traditional site is Mt. Tabor. Not a big mountain by Rocky Mountain standards, but a high point in Galilee, nonetheless. Remember, for Matthew, a mountain is the place of God’s presence and revelation.

(2) And he was transfigured before them, his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white. The word used here in Greek is metemorphothe. Means to be changed, to be different. It has come down to us as the word metamorphosis. Jesus was changed. He looked like Jesus of Nazareth, but he is different, reflected in his radiance. He is a bright, dazzling white. Hard on the eyes.

What the disciples see is the resurrected Jesus. The man who is more than a teacher, more than a miracle worker, more than a healer. He is the new being the Apostle Paul describes. This is a glimpse of what he shall be. It is a promise for the disciples to hold on to. After descending the mountain, Jesus begins a new phase of his ministry. He stops in Capernaum but then crosses the Jordan into Judea and on to Jerusalem, where, we know, he will die.

Jesus gives his key disciples a look at what lies beyond the suffering and death he faces. When I was a runner and I was increasing my mileage, I would often “hit the wall.” That’s when you have no energy left and the pain is mounting. On those occasions there is a technique known as “diverting.” You stop experiencing the pain and divert to something else. A pleasant memory. A future goal. I once read this:

Trouble comes to everyone. When it comes to you, forget the past and focus on the future. (Positive Imaging, p. 57)

Jesus is giving his disciples a vision of his and their future as they get on the road to Jerusalem.

(3) Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. Jesus is chatting with the two giants of the Covenant: Moses, the Law-giver, and Elijah, the greatest of the prophets. Jesus as resurrected Lord fulfills the Law and the Prophets. Both Moses and Elijah had face-to-face encounters with God on a mountain.

(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. Peter is so us. He’s looking at this glorious moment and he wants to preserve, sit on it. Memorialize it. Hang on to it. Institutionalize it.

(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.” These are the same words that came from God when Jesus was baptized. These words from God himself in the cloud intensify Jesus’ transfiguration. It affirms Jesus’ ministry up to this point and affirms what is coming, including the suffering and death.

(6) When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear. Me, too. I’d hit the deck. The cloud by tradition tells us that they are experiencing the presence and voice of God himself. They are overcome, as we all would be overcome by the very presence of God.

(7) But Jesus came and touched them, saying, Get up and do not be afraid. This is so Jesus. He doesn’t upbraid them for being afraid, for not understanding what was going on—which they clearly did not. Who could take it all in? They could not comprehend that the man they had been walking with, talking with, working with, was truly the Son of God. And the transfigured Jesus, the resurrected Christ: how could they comprehend that?

But Jesus touched them and told them not to be afraid. Things were happening around them and going to happen to them that were truly frightening. Jesus has the same words for us when we come into his presence, however that happens. He is saying to us: I am the resurrected Lord, that’s what’s up, Doc. I am there always.

The most wonderful thing that can happen to any of us is to have the most profound of all experiences—to know Jesus Christ personally.

(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. Who Jesus is and the reason we follow him so intensely is because we all are called to a transfiguration experience, personally, as resurrected Lord of our lives. As Norman Vincent Peale once said:

... [W]hen at last you find Him and experience His reality, when for you He comes out of the stained-glass windows and out of history ... then you can walk through all manner of darkness and pain and trouble and be unafraid.

Two things. The Transfiguration of Jesus was given to the disciples on the road to Jerusalem so that they diverted to the glory to come in the suffering they were experiencing. It is for us the very same thing—a vision of what is to come for us: a resurrection life with the resurrected Jesus, no matter what.

Jesus asks his disciples not to spill the beans until after he is resurrected. That happened. Finding him makes life much simpler and focused. Go ahead and spill the beans.

Amen.