Pressing Toward Ultimate Glory

The Transfiguration event is just one of those that makes you say, “Wow!” It is just amazing what happens. Peter, James, and John accompany Jesus up the mountain. And all of a sudden, when they’re on the mountain, and Peter, James, and John have apparently kind of gone to sleep, did this event happen late in the day? Was it even the evening? Maybe. Were Peter, James, and John just tired because they had trudged up a mountain, going up a mountain, it’s not easy walking? And now that they’re sitting, they just sort of fell asleep. Was Jesus sort of in a habit of saying, “I’m going to go pray for a little while,” and they realized that that was kind of relaxed time for them? Don’t know. Put it on your bucket list. We’ll find out when we get to heaven if it’s important. Regardless, they’re falling asleep, and all of a sudden, Jesus, His face, changes. The way the Greek literally reads, it says, “His face, different.” And Luke tells us at the beginning of his Gospel that he did, wanted to write a carefully investigated account. So we assume that Luke talked to either Peter, James, or John about this, and you can hear Peter, James, or John say to him, “I don’t know. His face, it was just different. I don’t even know how to explain it. It was just different. It kind of had to be there to really get it, but that’s the best I can give you. It was just different.” And his clothes, like a flash of lightning. And they’re talking with him where Moses and Elijah. How did the disciples know it was Moses and Elijah? Good question. Text doesn’t tell us. But Moses and Elijah were talking to Jesus face to face, and the glorified Jesus was standing right there, having this wonderful conversation with them. By contrast, when Moses was in his on-the-earth lifetime, I’m not sure how to say that. He was still alive. He was in heaven. Because believers never really died. They’d go to heaven. But Moses, during his life here on earth, he asked to see God’s glory, and he was denied. And God said, “No, I’ll show you my goodness instead.” Yeah, he showed him little glimpses, like we heard in our Old Testament text, but never the full glory. Here Moses is talking to the glorious Jesus face to face. And similarly, Elijah, when he went to Mount Sinai, saw God’s power with the earthquake, the wind storm, and the fire. And then came that gentle whisper. And what did Elijah do? He pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave. Why does he pull his cloak over his face? Was it partially because he was afraid to stand in the presence of God? That seems very likely, doesn’t it? And now he, too, is talking with Jesus face to face. And they’re having a pleasant conversation. The Greek word that’s used for talking with each other is the nuance of a fun conversation, a pleasant conversation, a happy conversation, a joyous conversation, because what were they talking about? They were talking about Jesus coming departure. Another really cool little Greek detail. That’s the Greek word Exodus. Oh, you know what the Exodus was about, don’t you? We flash back to the Old Testament Israelites, and we remember God bringing them out of slavery in Egypt with the plagues, the Passover, leading them with the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night up to the Red Sea, then opening up that Red Sea and allowing the Israelites to walk through on dry ground, leaving slavery behind and walking into freedom. That paled in comparison to the Exodus, which was about to happen. Another Greek detail. The word Exodus in our text has the definite article that makes that word Exodus emphatic. That this is the Exodus. The Exodus of all humanity from the slavery of sin into the freedom of forgiveness. And that’s how the disciples wake up. You know how it is when you’re drifting off to sleep and the cobwebs are going, and then all of a sudden something strange happens? There’s a big noise or the phone rings or whatever. You kind of go, whoa. Well, can you imagine awakening to this site? There’s the glorified Jesus. There’s Moses and Elijah. They’re having this conversation. Jesus’ face is just different. His clothes are shining like the sun. Whoa. And now you’re fully awake. And Moses and Elijah are leaving. God, would you imagine, I would have said the exact same thing that Peter said. Lord, it’s good for us to be here. We’ll pitch three-tenths. One for you, one for Moses, one for Elijah. And as usual, God has a better idea because here comes this cloud. We’re told the cloud came and covered them or enveloped them. Here’s the Greek detail. The Greek has literally pitched its tent over them. Peter wants to put up earthly tents. God says, I’ve got a better idea. I’m gonna put my tent of glory over the top of you. Oh my. And then a voice from the cloud comes and says, this is my son whom I have chosen. The term the chosen was one of the Old Testament terms that designated the Savior. And the New Testament people knew it. When Jesus was on the cross, the rulers and the religious leaders were mocking Him and saying, come down from the cross if you are the Christ, the chosen. So the Father is saying, this is the Savior. This is my son. This is the chosen one. Listen to Him. Did you catch the timestamp at the beginning of our lesson? It said about eight days later. Every time the transfiguration account is recorded, there is a timestamp. Sometimes it says six days. This time it says eight days. Jewish time reckoning is a little weird because they would count partial days as full days and it gets a little strange to us. What had happened about a week earlier? That’s when Peter had taken Jesus aside. And Peter had rebuked Jesus because Jesus was talking about His upcoming sufferings in death. And Peter had taken Jesus aside and rebuked Jesus. And Jesus had looked at Peter and said, get behind me, Satan. You don’t have in mind the things of God, but the things of man. And now it’s a week later. And Jesus’s face is shining with just different. And this cloud is covering you. And the voice is saying, listen to Him. And Peter is thinking, oh man, I rebuked Him. What was I thinking? Oh man, I wanted Him to listen to me instead of me listening to Him. What was I thinking? And wouldn’t we have been in exactly the same circumstance? Because I often don’t, we want God to listen to us rather than us listening to God. And all of a sudden it’s done. Moses and Elijah are gone. No more cloud, no more voice. No more clothes gleaming like the lightning. Just Jesus. The way they’d always seen Him. Glory hidden. The way God so often likes to do it. And see for us, in a sense that’s the most glorious, most amazing part of this account. It isn’t really all that amazing to know that the Son of God is glorious, right? I mean that’s logical. What seems illogical to us is that we’re not logical to us. And astounding to us is that Jesus would set that glory aside, walk back down the mountain. The other accounts tell us that they walked back down the mountain. I’ve always wondered why Jesus didn’t just beam them down the mountain instead of having to walk it. I know I would have. But they go walking down the mountain. Why? So He can walk to Mount Calvary. Who is that on Mount Calvary? It is the same glorious Son of God who we see on the Mount of Transfiguration. Oh, the glory is hidden, but it’s the same guy. And maybe that helps us understand the Transfiguration account. Think about it for Peter, James and John. Their world was about to be rocked in ways they could have never dreamed of, even though Jesus told them. They just didn’t get it. They’re going to see Jesus taken captive. They’re going to see Him beaten, spit on, mocked, ridiculed, nailed through, put into a tomb. They and the rest of their buddies were going to run away in terror. Peter’s going to end up denying Jesus. One of their own is going to end up betraying Jesus. What a mess. Do you think it might have shaken them and shaken them right to the core of their being? I think so. It sure appears that way from the Gospel accounts. How much must the Transfiguration account have helped them? You can kind of hear them thinking. I don’t know what’s happening here. This looks so bad. But remember what we saw up on the mountain. Remember the glory. Remember the cloud. Remember Moses and Elijah. Remember those clothes shining like the sun. This has to be okay. Because at Mount Calvary, everything is oh so different. Yes, Jesus’ face again is going to be just different. But this time it’s not glory. It’s gory. Yes, clothes are going to have something happen, but they’re not going to be flashing like the lightning. Instead, they’ll be divided up among soldiers who will even gamble for one of the pieces. Instead of hearing, “This is my son whom I have chosen,” the chosen one is going to be shouting out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Oh my. But make no mistake, it is the same glorious, powerful Savior who is there on the cross as who we see here on the Mount of Transfiguration. We begin Lent this coming Wednesday with Ash Wednesday. The Lenten season can feel heavy. We focus in on our sinfulness, our need for a Savior. We focus in on the sufferings of Jesus, the agony that He had to take, and whose fault is it? Ours! Doesn’t the Transfiguration event kind of help us to get through? To have this Transfiguration event in the background, they say, “Yeah, that suffering stinks. That suffering is tough. The fact that it’s my sins that cause us, that makes me feel heavy and hurt.” But at the end of the day, that is the glorious Son of God on that cross. And if that glorious Son of God didn’t want to go to that cross, He sure didn’t have to. But He did. He was willing to. And the Transfiguration account just shouts that to us to say, “This is the all-powerful, glorious God who is doing this because He loves you, who is doing this because He wanted to win the ultimate Exodus for you, not an Exodus which was sealed by crossing through the Red Sea, but with an Exodus that was sealed with a run of red blood and water from a pierced side that sealed your ultimate Exodus.” And can you imagine? Someday you are going to see the Transfigured Jesus face to face, and like Moses and like Elijah, you will have no fear. That just like Moses and Elijah were with Jesus in glory, so you will be with Jesus in glory. The ultimate glory. And so doesn’t that just help us to rethink what glory is? What real glory is? And what kind of glory I actually want to pursue in my life? Is it to become rich and famous or a great athlete or a great dancer or a great writer or a great businessman or a great politician or a great… No, that’s not the ultimate glory. The ultimate glory is having a seat at the banquet feast in heaven. And the glorious Son of God earned a place for you at the ultimate banquet feast in heaven, because He died and rose for you, for me. So my brothers and sisters, as you see this picture of Jesus in glory, may it motivate and inspire you and me to keep pressing toward the ultimate glory. Amen? Amen. And amen.