Scripture Luke 9:28-36
As I read our passage
from scripture for today, I begin to think back to high school, and in
particular to my time in English class. I remember being given a novel to read
such as Lord of the Flies or The Canterbury Tales, or a poem from Walt Whitman
or Robert Frost and reading it, putting the book down and thinking to myself,
what did I just read? Of course I had a general understanding of what was going
on; a bunch of kids stranded on an island go crazy, or there are two roads and
the author chose one of them, but even with this slight understanding, I still
would ask what does it mean? And then I remember the teacher taking us through
the poem line by line, or pulling out passages from the books and showing us
that the Pig’s head in the Lord of the Flies was symbolic, or that the
characters in the Canterbury Tales were references to people and events
happening at the time the book was written. Finally after learning all of these
things the books and the poems started to make much more sense.
Our scripture for today is a lot like one of those
classic novels or poems. At first reading you understand that Jesus and the
disciples went up on a mountain and something amazing happened, but you are
still left with that question, what does this all mean? We have Jesus becoming
brightly lit, we have the appearance of Moses and Elijah, we have a cloud
descending over the disciples, a voice in the cloud, Peter making a
proclamation about tents or booths, which apparently is the wrong thing to say,
and then after all of it, the disciples say nothing to anyone else about what
had happened. All of this leads us to ask what is the importance of this event
that we call the Transfiguration? My hope this morning is to be like my English
teachers and to help us understand what is going on in this passage, what are
some of the importance symbols in this scripture, what references are being
made, and once we start to understand some of these things, then we will start
to understand why this event is so important.
Before I start, let me just say that I will not be able
to explain every part of this passage partly because of a lack of time, and
partly because there are still parts of this story that even the greatest
theologians still struggle to fully understand. For this reason I will show us
some of the connections that will help us to take something meaningful away
from this text.
And so we start with the probably the two most pressing
questions, why the change of appearance and dazzling white, and why the
appearance of Moses and Elijah? Luckily these questions can be answered
together, but as we explore we will begin to see how deep these references go. To
first answer these questions we must turn to Exodus 34: 29-32 which says, “ 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. When Aaron and all the Israelites
saw Moses, the skin of his face was shining, and they were afraid to come near
him. But Moses called to them; and Aaron and all the leaders of the
congregation returned to him, and Moses spoke with them. Afterward all the Israelites came near, and
he gave them in commandment all that the LORD had spoken with him on Mount
Sinai.”
This is not the first time
in the Bible that someone in the Bible had gone up on a mountain and had their
face changed by light, here we have in the book of Exodus the story of Moses
having his face shine after talking with the Lord on Mount Sinai. When
reading the transfiguration story from
the Gospel of Luke, those familiar with this story in the time of Jesus would
have made the connection back to this event with Moses on Mount Sinai. If for
some reason they didn’t automatically think back to this story, the fact that
Moses is one of the people appearing in glory with Jesus on the mountain would
have jogged their memory. But still the question remains, what does it all
mean?
First, the light, or the
brightness, or the dazzling white clothes, or however you want to describe it,
indicates that this moment is a moment of true revelation from God. It was on Mount Sinai where Moses received
the law from God, we are told of a great storm, a sign of the power of God, and
then we are told of that Moses face shone as he descended from the mountain.
The shining represents the fact that Moses was in presence of God, and not just
any presence, but that he was in a special revelatory presence, one that is the
closest humans can be to God while on Earth. That is why they are up on a
mountain, it was a symbol of being close to heaven, close to God. So in our
story when Moses, Elijah, and Jesus are shining in dazzling white, it is a sign
that they are in the true presence of God, and it is also a sign that they can
expect some sort of revelation.
So what is the revelation
that they experience. Well once again we have to look at the story of Moses to
understand. So as we discovered, the last time someone went up on a mountain
and had their face shine from encountering God was Moses. And what was the
revelation that Moses received on Mount Sinai? Well, that of course is
something that we are all familiar with. We have either seen it portrayed by Charlton
Heston, or my favorite by Mel Brooks in History
of The World Part Two. Where Moses comes down from the mountain with three
stone slabs, raises them up and says “I have the 15”, and then drops one, “10 commandments.” All kidding aside,
wherever we know it from, we know that the revelation that Moses received on the
mountains was the revelation of the Ten Commandments, or more accurately the
law itself. Now keep that in your mind for just one second, that when we think
about Moses on the Mount, we think about the Law, don’t forget it, in fact say
it with Moses = Law.
Good, now fast forward back to our story, so we
have Moses and (guide them in repeating Moses = Law) but we have another
Biblical figure as well in Elijah, so let’s take a quick look at why Elijah.
Elijah is one of the great prophets of the Old Testament. 1 and 2 Kings tell
great stories of how he stood up to Ahab and Jezebel. He taunted the prophets
Baal, a false God that was worshipped at the time. We may know the story where
he exposes the prophets, seeing if their God will light the fire of an altar,
and after they failed he poured water on his altar, called upon the name of God
and had his altar lit in fire. But there are two other stories that he is
probably most well known for, and one of them not surprisingly happens on a
mountain. While Elijah is hiding in a cave he comes out to witness, fire, and
winds, and earthquakes, and after it all, here experiences God in a still small
voice. The other story is the story of Elijah being whisked away by a chariot
of fire into glory. Because of all of these stories Elijah had come to be
revered as one of the greatest prophets. In fact, we see in both the story of
John the Baptist in the wilderness and the birth story of Jesus, that they are
mistaken for Elijah returning. When you add this reverence for Elijah together
with the story of him experiencing God on the side of mountain, and with the
story of him being taken up in glory by the chariot, then is seems fitting that
Elijah would be the perfect symbol for all of the prophets. So now we have
Moses who symbolizes ____(the law)_________ and Elijah who symbolizes the
prophets. But still what does it all mean?
If you can recall,
throughout this season of Epiphany there has been a theme of anticipation and
fulfillment. We had talked about how the Jews at the had been for so long
anticipating the Messiah. We talked about how the shepherds and the Magi were a
sign of Jesus Christ not only being the fulfillment of that expectation, but
one who would exceed all expectations. We also talked a couple of weeks ago
about Jesus’ return to Nazareth reading the scroll of Isaiah and proclaiming
that scripture had been fulfilled in him. This moment on the mountain, this
transfiguration, once again shows the relationship between expectation and
fulfillment. This year I have used the scripture in which Jesus says to love
God with all of hearts, all of our minds, and all of our souls, and to love our
neighbors as ourselves. In fact I just referenced it last week. Often however we overlook what Jesus says
after it. He says, “All the Law and the prophets hang
on these two commandments.” All of the Law and the prophets. You see in those times, the law and the
prophets were extremely important. These were the ways in which the people knew
God. We already discussed how Moses received the law through an intimate
experience of God, but the law itself was revered. They were not seen as just a
list of rules to follow, but they were seen as a way to be in relationship with
God. God made a covenant with the people to be their God and for them to be his
people, and the law was seen as a way of fulfilling that covenant. The other
way in which the people experienced God
was through the prophets. God spoke through certain individuals who were
normally called to either bring news of hope to a people in strife, or to
preach words of repentance for a people who had broken their end of the
covenant. The prophets and the law were the primary ways in which the people at
the time experienced relationships with God. Not only that but the law and the
prophets were the way in which God communicated how the people should live as
the chosen people.
But now on this mountain
we have Jesus surrounded by Moses and Elijah, representations of the law and
the prophets, of the people’s experience
with God, and in this moment the voice of God proclaims, “this is my son whom I have chosen, listen to him.” The
mountain, Moses and Elijah, the dazzling white light, all of these things are
signs that the disciples are in the presence of God, but in a new way. No
longer simply through the law or through the prophets, but that now God can be
experienced in person, because God has become flesh, Jesus Christ is Lord. The
words from God are telling, “this is my son whom I have chosen, listen to him.
Listen to him. Listen to him. These words are telling us we no longer have to
labor through trying to figure out what the law is saying, the embodiment of
the law is here in Jesus Christ. That we no longer have to look to prophets to
tell us the word of God, because the word of God became flesh and dwelt among
us. Now let’s not think that this means the law and the prophets became
useless, but instead now you can look at Jesus to see the words of the law and
the prophet lived out. After all when asked which is the greatest commandment,
he didn’t say that loving God and your neighbor replaced the law, but that they
encompassed the law, in the same manner the law and prophets are not wrong, but
Jesus shows us what they mean lived out.. On Christ hangs all the law and the
prophets. We can now experience God in a new way, because God has dwelt among
us.
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