“What’s Going On Here?”
Luke 9:28-36
2/18/07
So, here we are again at the end of the season of
Epiphany about to enter into the season of Lent, and we are invited to
go up to a mountain top with Jesus in order to see Him transfigured
before we are invited to follow Him down that mountain as He makes His
way to Mt. Calvary - where we will see Him suffer and die. What
we see of Jesus on the Mt. of Transfiguration prepares us for what we
will see of Jesus on Mt. Calvary. And so there are a number of
things going on here at this mountain that are given to teach us about
what will be going on at Mt. Calvary, so that we will not be offended
by Jesus’ shameful death on the cross, but understand why He will
undergo such a thing.
The first thing the Mt. of Transfiguration teaches
us in order to prepare us for Mt. Calvary is that through His work on
Mt. Calvary Jesus will usher in the “eighth day.” The
number 8 in the Scriptures symbolizes new creation. The eighth
day is the first day of a new week. There were eight people saved
in Noah’s ark. Thus, our baptismal font has eight sides,
reminding us that Noah’s ark is a picture of the Church in which
we are saved and made new creatures through the baptismal flood.
Male Israelites were circumcised and named on the eighth day after
their birth, bringing them into the covenant community. Thus,
Jesus too was circumcised on the eighth day. And it was on the
eighth day of the week (the third day after His crucifixion) that He
rose again from the dead. All of these eights point us to the new
creation to which God brings us in Christ. The Mt. of
Transfiguration, then, directs us to the number eight when Luke writes,
“Now about eight days after these sayings [Jesus] took with Him
Peter and John and James and went up on the mountain to
pray.” The lesson here is that through Jesus’
suffering, death, and resurrection the new creation is ushered
in. And as that suffering, death, and resurrection are given to
you in your Baptism, you enter into that new creation with Jesus.
The same eighth day glory the disciples saw on the Mt. of
Transfiguration you yourselves will see with you own eyes when you,
like Moses and Elijah, enter into glory and see Jesus face to face in
the new heavens and the new earth.
But it’s only by going to Mt. Calvary first
that this new creation comes. Jesus must go to the cross to be
glorified there in His suffering and death before the glory of the
resurrection can be revealed. The Mt. of Transfiguration gives us
a preview of that glory, so that when we see Jesus suffering and dying,
and when we contemplate our own suffering and dying, we will not
stumble and fall away into unbelief as the glory remains hidden for now
behind the cross. To anyone observing the crucifixion of Jesus it
would have appeared to be anything but a revelation of God’s
glory. If anything, it would have looked like a defeat for
God. No wonder the Jews were taunting Jesus that if He came down
from the cross, then they would believe Him. They wanted a Mt. of
Transfiguration Messiah, not a Mt. Calvary Messiah. But the same
glory found on the first mountain was also found on the second, only
hidden. In fact, God’s glory was most clearly seen not on
the Mt. of Transfiguration, but on Mt. Calvary as He was redeeming the
world from their sins with the blood of His Son shed on the cross.
Next, we are taught that this had been God’s
plan all along - to send His Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our
sins. Of this Moses and the Prophets spoke and wrote. And
so, Moses and Elijah, representing the Law and the Prophets, appear in
glory with Jesus talking with Him about His departure which He was
about to accomplish at Jerusalem. This is what their writings
speak of, and so this is what they speak of with Him face to
face. In the O.T. both Moses and Elijah had been allowed to see
God’s glory in a hidden way. Moses was allowed to see
God’s backside; Elijah covered his face as God passed by in
gentle breeze. Both saw this glory on Mt. Sinai, the mountain
where God had revealed Himself amid earthquakes, thunder and
lightening, fire, smoke, and mighty trumpet blasts. But now here
at the Mt. of Transfiguration both were seeing God’s glory face
to face in the flesh of Jesus Christ, and there were none of those
signs of wrath which accompanied the giving of His Law. They were
talking with God as friends.
They were talking about Jesus’
“departure,” as our translation puts it. The actual
word used here is “exodus.” That should bring to mind
the famous exodus in the O.T. Just as the people of God under the
leadership of Moses had made their exodus from the land of slavery in
Egypt to the promised land of Israel, so Jesus, the new Moses, the
Prophet like Moses whom God had promised to raise from among His
people, to whom they were told to listen, this Jesus was going to lead
God’s people in a new exodus out of their slavery to sin, death,
and the devil into the kingdom of God by way of His death,
resurrection, and ascension. Just as Moses went before
God’s people in the O.T., Jesus goes before you, conquering your
enemies through His cross and His resurrection from the dead, ascending
to the right hand of the Father where He prays for you now and from
whence He will come to take you there to be with Him in the place that
He’s prepared for you. Moses was not permitted to bring
God’s people into the promised land on account of his sin.
But Jesus, the sinless Lamb of God, who with His blood has atoned for
our sins, brings us safely into God’s kingdom where we will live
and reign with Him forever and ever.
Now, Peter, just waking up from sleep, observing all
of this and hearing Moses and Elijah’s conversation with Jesus,
says something rather foolish. He says, “Master, it’s
good that we are here. [Of course it is, Peter; you’re with
Jesus, for crying out loud, and He wouldn’t have invited you to
come up there with Him in the first place, if it hadn’t been good
for you to be there!] Let us make three tents, one for you and
one for Moses and one for Elijah.” There was a holiday
given by God in the O.T. for His people to observe called the Feast of
Booths. It was a time for remembering how God had brought His
people out of the land of Egypt and how they had lived in booths in the
wilderness before settling in the promised land. So once a year
the people were to build these booths and live in them instead of their
houses for a whole week. This seems to be what’s behind
what Peter is saying, but as Luke writes, Peter didn’t know what
he was saying, and if he didn’t know what he was saying, how
should we?
The problem here was, however, that Peter was
putting Jesus on the same level as Moses and Elijah. But Jesus
was not just a prophet like Moses and Elijah. He was God in the
flesh. The words which Moses and Elijah proclaimed and wrote were
His words, and they spoke of Him. Jesus alone was to be
worshipped, not Moses and Elijah. So, God deals with
Peter’s stupidity with His words, “This is my Son, my
Chosen One; listen to Him!” Yet these are rather perplexing
words, because again, the words of Moses, Elijah, and all the prophets
were God’s words, and they all spoke of Jesus and His
exodus. So why doesn’t God say, “This is my Son, my
Chosen One; listen to what Moses and the Prophets say about
Him”? Two reasons: First, because the words of Moses
and the Prophets are Jesus’ words; they speak of Him, and point
to Him. And second, because without Jesus the words of Moses and
the Prophets cannot be understood and they remain unfulfilled.
This was the problem which the Jewish leaders had in Jesus’
day. They thought they knew the Scriptures; they could quote them
from memory. But because they rejected the One of whom the
Scriptures speak, they were blind and could not understand the
Scriptures. In order to hear Moses and the Prophets rightly, we
must listen to the One they speak of - Jesus. He is the one who
interprets them correctly and He is the one who fulfills them. As
the author of the book of Hebrews writes, “Long ago, at many
times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but
in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son...” It
was not Moses or Elijah who would be sacrificed on the cross for our
sins, but Jesus. Therefore, we are to listen to Him, the beloved
Son of God, the Word of God in the flesh, whom God sent to take away
our sins.
When the disciples heard the Father speak these
words from the cloud, it was reminiscent of when He spoke from Mt.
Sinai. Just as the Israelites were terrified when they heard
God’s voice there, so Peter, James, and John were terrified on
the Mt. of Transfiguration when they heard God speak to them from
heaven there. And that’s what God’s words would do to
us too, if He only spoke to us from heaven. But it is when He
speaks from the mouth of Jesus that we are comforted. After God
spoke from heaven, the disciples looked up and found no one else there
but Jesus alone. He was still the glorious One who had appeared
on Mt. Sinai and who had just been transfigured before them, but now He
had again hidden His glory, so that He might humble Himself and give
His life for us on the cross. As Jesus said to Nicodemus,
“God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world,
but in order that the world might be saved through Him.”
Jesus was sent to take the wrath of God upon Himself for our sins, so
that we might not be terrified at God’s glory, but live under His
mercy and divine favor. And so again, we are to listen to Jesus
alone, for He alone has the words of eternal life and He alone can
deliver that eternal life, because He alone has overcome death.
The Mt. of Transfiguration, then, prepares you for
what you will see Jesus doing on Mt. Calvary. It shows you who
Jesus is, why He was sent, and how you are to listen to Him. He
is God in the flesh, the God who veiled His glory in the O.T., the One
of whom Moses and the Prophets spoke and wrote, the One who reveals His
glory now in the flesh of Jesus through the cross, and who will again
reveal that glory to you face to face at the resurrection. He is
the One who brings you to the new creation of the eighth day. He
has brought you to that new creation through your Baptism, and He will
bring you into that new creation at your own resurrection from the dead
when He will make all things new. He has brought you with Him
into His exodus, delivering you from your slavery to sin, death, and
the devil, and He will take you to the promised land of heaven, where
you will see Him face to face and live and reign with Him for all
eternity. And He alone has the words of eternal life, words that
are written, stamped, and confirmed to you with His own blood. He
is God’s beloved Son, the Suffering Servant of the Lord for
you. Listen to Him! Amen.