The Transfiguration comes as a strange interlude. But its brevity reveals its true purpose is to reorient the disciples to their new journey.
The transfiguration as a reimagined opportunity
Epiphany Last A | Matthew 17:1-9
Before they went up the mountain, they were followers of Jesus.
They left their nets and boats and parents long ago to join the rabbi on a journey. He had offered them a new fishing opportunity they couldn’t refuse.
They traveled the region, healed the sick, proclaimed the good news to the poor. These disciples were invited into the very work of God in the world. And we know from experience that when we keep seeing the work of God happening over and over, we start to really believe in this thing.
And so, when things happen in our world, we might look for help in understanding it. What does it say in scripture, tradition, theology? Is this what God does? Is this normal?
I sometimes wonder if the disciples are too embarrassed to talk in front of Jesus. They don’t want to mess up. And if we consider that they may be 16, 17, 18 years old, it seems all the more likely. Aren’t we afraid to speak up about theology? What if we’re wrong in front of our peers?
the Pop Quiz
The story right before the part we started reading this morning, is a moment so emotionally fraught. A small exchange that reverberates through the whole gospel. The teacher tests his students.
How dangerous this pop quiz is—Jesus asks the disciples the big question: who do you think I am?
Because we know Jesus as the Messiah, that this is quite literally a name we give him. And we say to Jesus, This is you. We take this so for granted, we might not understand that sensation: that fear and excitement inside Peter. We’re thinking it is a no-brainer and he’s like Is it really possible that Jesus is the Messiah?
So when he says it, he names a thing longed for; the answer to their prayers. He is revealing the anointed one, the savior has come to liberate them.
But he was wrong.
Flip the Script
When Peter called Jesus Messiah, he wasn’t thinking of the Messiah, the savior we know. He was thinking conqueror, military general, the leader of a literal, bloody revolution. The one that God would send to free the Hebrew people from foreign rule by an occupying empire. Because that’s what tradition forecasted.
And we are so eager to skip past that and go Yeah, but he is the Messiah, just a different kind of one. Which is true and why we use the word. But that isn’t what Peter said.
He was misattributing the nature of liberation upon Jesus just as much as he was revealing Jesus’s true nature. Peter was just as wrong as he was right. So wrong, in fact, that he would try to prevent Jesus from facing death. Precisely because Peter believed his job was to protect Jesus. To protect the liberation. The Divine Revolution.
And Jesus called him the Satan.
Six days later, the seventh day.
Sabbath.
Jesus climbs the mountain for a mountaintop experience. He brings the Satan—Peter and James and James’ brother, John. Up the mountain they go. And up there, a new revelation comes. The light of the world is lit up with a new light. His face is transfigured—how they see him is being changed by God before their eyes.
Peter was wrong, but not because he is wrong. The ancient texts, the tradition, theology, all directed him to make the most obvious conclusion. What Peter never factored in was that one of God’s favorite things in the world is doing new things.
It never dawned on him that violence isn’t the only vehicle for liberation. So the Messiah isn’t a general like David. He is something else.
And God is giving them new information to include, examine, to get closer to a new conclusion. A new revelation of God’s purpose, the Missio Dei.
The Mountain Top
We know this passage as the Transfiguration, which is a weird, miraculous story of Jesus’ obscured face and God’s divine voice. But in Matthew’s gospel and for us at this point in the year, it makes for a transition.
We move from the season of light and revelation to the march toward calvary and the crucifixion.
Up the mountain, Jesus reveals a true mountaintop experience for his disciples. And like all such experiences, they don’t get to stay there. Jesus doesn’t get to stay there, chilling with Moses and Elijah any more than Peter can protect him from assassination. That’s not the work God has called them to do.
They will have to climb down again. And they will rejoin the others, go back to the work, knowing the new thing God revealed to them. Knowing the truth of God’s mission. What Peter had so wrong before because he had the guts to try and get it right.
Jesus clearly is the anointed. Just a new one. A new one with a new message.
The Message
The voice tells them that
“This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased”
That’s a pretty big deal, right? We shouldn’t go and skip a disembodied voice declaring the truth in our midst. Especially when it echoes the baptism.
But this time, the voice says to listen to him. Listen to Jesus. And as God’s only instruction, I gotta believe that goes first. That goes before tradition and theology and all of that. That we should first listen.
And what the three disciples do is fall on the ground and worship. They are in the throes of a true mountaintop experience!
Then Jesus says—their first chance to listen:
“Get up and do not be afraid.”
Of course, this makes sense, since they’re on the ground. Seriously guys. You’re embarrassing yourselves. No, it’s not like that. But he is telling them to do a new thing. Be raised.
Jesus uses the same words the angels use in the tomb after the resurrection when they say:
“He is not here; he has been raised!”
So, this isn’t just ah, get up. It’s connected to the resurrection, to the power of God to transform the world and how it works.
Be raised and don’t be afraid.
Then they descend the mountain.
Beyond the Mountain
The classic message of the Transfiguration is that we cannot stay on top of the mountain. We don’t get to be there forever. Our work is not to be in a state of perpetual bliss. That’s using God to get high.
They go up the mountain to receive the revelation from God. They go someplace different so they can get a glimpse of the divine before getting back to business.
We often take coming to church that way. We come here once a week, gather with others, receive communion, and then have to rejoin our friends out in the world. There’s even a phrase many use for communion: we call it food for the journey. And I think that gets the nature of what is happening here right.
Of course, we understand the idea that we can’t stay up the mountain better than we can understand the need to rejoin the world. We need to leave the mountain in our past. And yet, what was revealed there must stay present.
Hear Jesus say it! Be raised and don’t be afraid.
We have work to do. But God has already done the heavy lifting—raising us up, inviting us into transformation. Don’t let fear ruin this good thing!
Fear Not!
We all know about hardship. And I know we all know how much the world needs a new thing. We need that message of love, hope, and transformation of the world. There’s a sickness in our world that can’t be healed with more sickness; a fire that can’t be fought with more fire, or worse, with more oil, gas, or dynamite. We can’t destroy what comes to destroy us. We need a new way.
Jesus comes to us with that same message in a way that is always new. And we get to learn from Peter, to examine our history, our sacred texts, our tradition, and our theology, and see what God is doing in the world—where God’s blessing and anointing is happening. A word that is always in the present, always acting, creating, building up.
So we must certainly look through our past to find the truth of our present. But we also have to look in new places and in new forms. Because God is not chained to the past. God is not a slave of their own creation! God is the liberator! Speaking to us now saying listen to him.
So what does Jesus say?
Throughout the gospels, he says to find God in our children, that they are closer to God than adults are. He encourages us to look for God in our neighbors and our work is to heal and protect them. And we must always look for God in immigrants and those who “aren’t from here.” Because that is us treating ourselves with dignity as we are all God’s children.
But today, when we are full of worry and frustration; we feel shackled to a world that would have us rage and destroy each other; God gives a new word. Be raised and fear not.
God calls us to make something new of this same old world. Something beautiful, brilliant, and utterly fascinating. Something that approaches the scale of the very grace God keeps giving us.