I commend to you these three words or ideas to listen for in this summary of our story, for they are at the heart of our Gospel passage for today: identity, participation, greatness.

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The Transfiguration and revealing the glory of GOD
Epiphany LastC |  Luke 9:28-36, [37-43a]

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.

As much as Peter wants to chill out on the mountain, Jesus is eager to come down from it. Click To Tweet

Sometimes the familiarity of our stories are an asset. And sometimes it distracts us from what is around it.

Jesus, up a mountain with three of his disciples, is turned to this dazzling white, his face shining like Moses’s did on Mount Sinai. As Moses’s did every time he beheld the face of GOD.

This parallel grounds us with Jesus, Moses, and the power of GOD shining through those called into service.

But this story is surrounded by a web which reveals how GOD’s glory comes, not only through Jesus or Moses, but others as well.

If you don’t know this already, the evangelist we call Luke is the master storyteller of the gospel writers. Let chapter 9 be the proof.

I commend to you these three words or ideas to listen for in this summary of our story, for they are at the heart of our Gospel passage for today: identity, participation, greatness.

For those eager to follow along, if you open up your Bibles to Luke 9 you can see it begins with Jesus giving his followers the power to cast out demons and cure the sick. And he sends them out to proclaim and to heal. And they do.

Then Herod hears about all of this, and what people are saying about the disciples’ work. That John the Baptist has been raised from the dead. That Elijah has come back. These are the rumblings he’s hearing.

Then when they get back, they gather and a crowd of 5,000 men follow. Here, with but 5 loaves and 2 fish, Jesus and the disciples feed them all.

Then Jesus asks who people say that he is (remember what Herod heard about Jesus?) John, Elijah, one of the prophets. Peter calls him Messiah. And Jesus foretells his death and resurrection.

Then the Transfiguration that we just read and the curing of the demon-possessed boy.

I’d also like to point out that he then foretells his death a second time, and the disciples argue over greatness. And Jesus says greatness in the kingdom is found in a child.

In the big picture, you can see that Herod is wondering about Jesus’s identity and how he fits into the divine Jewish narrative. He’s wondering about these disciples who can do wonders. These disciples who are participating in Jesus’s ministry. These disciples who bicker about their own greatness and have forgotten how greatness will be revealed.

Transfigured

In our story for today, we get the familiar story, revealed to us every week in stained glass of a Jesus dazzling in white, the perfect, pure, holy, divine GODman with his two buddies as a momentary trinity of GOD’s glory.

We are so dazzled by this image, as Peter is. He just called him Messiah, the anointed, the coming king, and here he is, at the center of the perfect Jewish trinity and he wants to stay right there because it is just too much amazing to stand. Let’s just sit down and chill out and meditate on this mountain, in this holy place. Take off our shoes and calm our minds and live right here.

And the smoke comes (remember GOD comes as smoke during the day and fire at night to lead Moses through the desert) and the voice booms

“This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!”

Because they are seeing with their eyes and not listening with their ears. Like a parent reminding their children “You can’t look with your hands.”

They aren’t listening to Jesus. If they were, they would have heard the teachings before and the conversation of this trinity, in which it says:

They appeared in glory and were speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.

Jesus’s greatness isn’t evidenced here, on the mountain, flanked by Elijah and Moses, glowing with the power of GOD. But will be seen in Jerusalem in a few days. In confronting the rulers and sharing himself, and giving up his life. Not up on a mountain, but up on a cross. And then when they come looking for him, he will be gone. Not in images of power, but an image of lowliness and the revelation of GOD’s vision.

Searching for Greatness

How often it seems we are looking for greatness, for proof of GOD’s power. Now that we officially find ourselves in election season, we’ll hear all sorts of appeals to GOD’s blessing and the virtue of a GOD who loves us. And hopefully we won’t hear too many more like we’ve heard recently. The kind that says GOD’s glory is only for a few of us or that GOD’s mercy should only be shared with the insiders.

How often is our identity tied into a GOD of greatness, a Christ of Glory, whose shiny face is the face of victory or the face of personal mercy?

How often is our response to this brilliant face simply humble gratitude and thankfulness? Thankful for our individual blessings and blessedness and not the acceptance of Jesus’s invitation to greater intimacy with him and our neighbors; fidelity to the needs of others and those in our community? How often is our response to conflict to avoid it or win, rather than seek a more collaborative spirit?

The Wrong Sense

As much as Peter wants to chill out on the mountain, Jesus is eager to come down from it. For the greatness is not revealed there, but in Jerusalem. The greatness is not in him, but in the one who sent him.

What happens next reveals how challenging Jesus’s teaching is for the disciples. For he has been teaching them about the kingdom, has given them power to transform the world, and given them opportunity to do just that.

But now that three of them have had a literal mountain top experience, they aren’t able to cure this boy, they can’t cast out the demon possessing him.

This is their work: this is precisely what Jesus gave them to do. They are participants in making the Kingdom Come and they can’t. Right after the mountaintop. Right after Jesus talks with Elijah and Moses about the greatness being revealed in Jerusalem. After GOD comes in a cloud to tell them to listen to Jesus.

They’re using the wrong sense! They’re watching with their eyes! Listen to him!

I shared Star Wars with the kids this weekend and they loved it, of course, but remember what Obi-Wan Kenobi says to Luke in his training: “feel it.” Luke wants to see the laser beams with his eyes and so Obi-Wan puts a helmet on Luke’s head so he can’t see. He has to feel out with the Force.

The disciples aren’t hearing Jesus. But they will. For their part is coming soon enough.

Participating in Christ

The problem of the gospel is that isn’t transactional. We want to open up our Bibles with a problem, look in the back of the book for an appendix to find a good answer somewhere in there.

We want to be able to give over our lives to Jesus and then never have hardship or to have to make a decision about anything.

Or we want to turn to our leaders and say “well, what does the church tell us about this?” And receive the definitive answer.

All of these ideas about the Christian faith are based on the idea that it is something bought and received individually.

The model Jesus sets up with the disciples, however, is communal. They share everything. And he shares everything with them. Even his power and authority. They’ve gone all over the countryside healing and curing the sick. They have. They’ve done it as individuals, as Jesus himself, as the group of followers of Jesus.

They participated in the mass feeding of the multitudes and gathered to see and hear GOD revealed in their midst. Not just in Jesus, but in a cloud.

The writer of Luke is a master storyteller. But if I were to do anything to this text, I would add one element so that the story’s purpose would be more plain.

When Peter, James, and John are up the mountain with dazzling revelation of GOD, I’d have their faces transfigured. I’d include them.

For the followers of Christ are bearers of the love of Christ, the image of Christ, the very being of Christ. Those who profess the faith of the one whose greatness was revealed in the cross and the empty tomb are the embodiment of that mercy and hope. When we encounter the divine together and in one another, our faces glow. You’ve seen it.

And when we listen to Jesus we participate in the kingdom right here.

Let us all gather together to see the face of GOD revealed in these dazzling faces. But let also listen to Jesus that we might know the authority given to us to participate in the healing of this world. And may the greatness of Christ be known, not only by us on this mountaintop, but as we go down, through these doors in our humble service to this community.