Luke 9:28-35
28 About eight days after Jesus said this,
he took Peter, John and James with him and went up onto a mountain to pray.
29 As he was praying, the appearance of
his face changed, and his clothes became as bright as a flash of lightning.
30 Two men, Moses and Elijah,
31 appeared in glorious splendor, talking
with Jesus. They spoke about his departure, which he was about to bring to
fulfillment at Jerusalem.
32 Peter and his companions were very
sleepy, but when they became fully awake, they saw his glory and the two men
standing with him.
33 As the men were leaving Jesus, Peter
said to him, "Master, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three
shelters-- one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah." (He did not
know what he was saying.)
34 While he was speaking, a cloud appeared
and enveloped them, and they were afraid as they entered the cloud.
35 A voice came from the cloud, saying,
"This is my Son, whom I have chosen; listen to him."
(NIV)
When I was a child, my
parents would sometimes become frustrated with me and say, “Maynard, when we
talk to you it just goes in one ear and out the other!”
Then I would really make
them angry because I would look at my parents with full innocence and ask, “Did
you say something to me?”
Oh, and by the way kids,
DON’T try that at home. I did not turn
out well for me!
In our New Testament
Lesson, the voice of God is heard telling the disciples, “
This is my Son, LISTEN to
Him.”
But do we listen? Do we hear?
Or does what Christ say to us go in one ear and out the other.
This is an interesting text
from our New Testament lesson. It is the
event that we call the Transfiguration and today is the very day that we
celebrate the Transfiguration in the life of the Christian Calendar.
Jesus and his disciples are
on a mountain to pray. This event comes
in the midst of a busy time in the life of Jesus and his disciples. Fatigue has set in. The disciples are tired. More than tired. They are sleepy.
Then suddenly, while Jesus
is praying, the appearance of his face changes.
His clothing becomes as bright as lightening.
That in itself is dramatic,
but as if that is not enough, two men suddenly appear – Moses and Elijah.
Imagine – two long dead
fathers of the faith suddenly appearing, alive and well, and talking to Jesus.
It would be like being in
the halls of Congress – and all of a sudden, right in the middle of a
congressional hearing, two men suddenly appear.
George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.
Something like that makes watching C-Span worthwhile. George and Tom have been dead for a couple of
centuries. Imagine not only the
excitement, but the fear of having these two suddenly appearing, alive and
well.
So it was for the disciples
who suddenly see Moses and Elijah. These
two have been dead for a long time – I mean a long, long time. But they are the founding fathers, the
fathers of the faith. And there they
are.
Now, Peter and his
disciples had been very sleepy, but this is enough to wake them up.
But waking up doesn’t give
you any intelligence. Peter starts
talking and he begins to jabber away meaninglessly about how it’s good for
Moses and Elijah to be here, and how the disciples can build three little
houses or shelters for them. Luke seems
to be embarrassed by Peter, because in parenthesis, Luke says about Peter, “He did
not know what he was saying.”
Then, as if all of this is
not amazing enough, suddenly there is a cloud that envelops all of them, and
the voice of God is heard saying, “This is my Son, whom I have chosen; listen
to him.”
Now that is a fascinating
sequence of events, and it is easy to read this as a historical story and to
then move onto the next historical event in the Gospel.
But what draws me to this
story and bothers me is what God says to the disciples. “This is my son. Listen to him.”
And it is at this point
that I think back on what my parents told me when I was a child. “Maynard, when we talk to you it just goes in
one ear and out the other!”
Do we really listen to what
Christ tells us?
Looking at this text, it
becomes obvious that listening to Jesus involves at least three very specific
things from us.
First, to listen to Jesus is to listen to all of
Scripture.
We live in a consumer
age. We are professional, full time
shoppers. Who would have thought years
ago when cable television was first being developed that one or more channels
would be devoted to nothing but shopping.
Nothing but 24 hour commercials.
But that suits us because we are always buying and consuming. We are always shopping.
My mother used to like to
go shopping, but she would never call it shopping. She referred to it as “Picking up and putting
down.”
And that is our approach to
religion and faith. We pick up and we
put down. We try things out, and we
either buy it, or not.
We don’t accept the full
Christian faith. We just accept parts
that make us feel good.
I had a friend who told me
one time that his wife divorced him because of her favorite movie.
Favorite movie? How could a movie cause a divorce? What in the world was this movie?
My friend told me it was
“The Nine Commandments.”
I reminded my friend that
the name of the movie was “The TEN Commandments,” to which he replied. “Yep that was the problem – she sort of left
out the one about adultery.”
Actually, we are all like
that. We shop through the Word of God as
if we were consumers trying on outfits to see what feels good and looks
right. And if some of the Commandments
don’t look right or if they are uncomfortable, well – we pick it up and then we
put it back down. We don’t buy into it.
But this Scripture passage
introduces the presence of Moses and Elijah right next to Christ. As if to say you cannot have Christ without
Moses and Elijah. Moses – the law. Elijah, the prophet. The Law and the Prophet. The Old Testament. You cannot have Christ without the fullness
of all of the Scripture.
Without the whole of
Scripture, we cannot listen fully to Christ.
Later on in Luke’s Gospel, Jesus teaches about a parable and at the
conclusion he says (Luke 16:31), “If people do not listen to Moses and the
Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.” Interesting words, since Jesus was about to
rise from the dead.
The first heresy the
Christian Church faced involved a man named Marcian, who during the early years
of the church tried to edit the Bible.
He threw out some of the books of the New Testament and almost all of
the Old Testament. Against this the
church declared that the whole of Scripture was the Word of God. As Paul himself said in his second letter to Timothy (2 Tim 3:16-17), “All
Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and
training in righteousness, so that the
man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”
But this is a heresy we
still struggle with in the church. We
study portions of the Word of God, without reading and studying all of
the Scripture.
If we are to truly listen
to Christ, we must first listen to all of Scripture.
Second, to listen to
Christ means that we must listen to His words as having the authority of God.
Imagine experiencing that
transfiguration event. You are with
Jesus. There’s Moses and Elijah –
they’ve been dead for a long time, but there they are, alive and well and
having a conversation with Jesus. Then
there is a cloud that envelopes everyone and you hear the voice of God
speak. “This is my son, listen to him.”
Whatever Jesus says, he
says with the authority of God almighty.
There is, in our modern
culture, a tendency to reduce Christ to having been nothing more than a great
teacher or historical figure around whom fictional stories about miracles
developed. But Christ is the Son of
God.
As soon as we fail to
accept that Christ is the Son of God, we become unable to fully listen to the
teachings of Christ.
In our New Testament
Lesson, the voice of God is heard declaring, “This is my Son.” It is not the first time that voice had been
heard making that declaration. It was
also heard at the moment of the baptism of Jesus. (Matt 3:17)
“And a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with him I
am well pleased.’”
From time to times, even
the demons are heard in the Gospels affirming that Christ is the Son of
God. In one instance a demon possessed
man sees Christ and they address him, asking,
(Matt 8:29) "What do you
want with us, Son of God? Have you come
here to torture us before the appointed time?"
We cannot be followers of
Christ, without accepting that He is the Son of God, and that his words have
the authority of God himself.
Anytime we make Christ out
to be simply a teacher or a wise man, and nothing more, we loss our ability to
truly listen to him as God instructed.
If we are to truly listen
to Christ, we must first listen to all of the Scripture, and second listen to
Christ’s words as having the authority of God.
Finally, to listen to
Christ is to be willing to do what He tells us and get to work.
There are people who have a
deep desire to study the Word of God, read the Word of God, learn all about the
Word of God, but that doesn’t do any good until they then go out and are
willing to DO the Word of God.
Until you DO what Christ
tells us, you haven’t LISTENED to what Christ tells us.
In the New Testament
Lesson, there is a wonderful image of the disciples being on a mountain
top. Literally, they are on top of a
mountain. The are also on a mountain top
in a symbolic or figurative sense. We
all talk of great moments of our lives as being mountain top experiences. For Peter and the disciples, seeing Jesus
change and radiate light, seeing the appearance of long dead people of the
faith – Moses and Elijah, and hearing the voice of God – that was indeed a
mountain top experience.
Maybe that is what prompted
Peter to babble on about “Jesus this is good.
Let’s build some shelters for the three of you and we can just stay
here.”
But they were not to
stay. They had to go down from that
mountain top experience and go into the valley.
And once in the valley,
what did they find?
We didn’t read that far
when we read the New Testament Lesson, what happens immediately after the voice
of God announces that the disciples are to listen to Christ is that Christ and
his disciples leave the mountain and go into a valley. There they encounter evil – a demon possessed
boy.
Work to be done. Hard work.
Then Jesus begins teaching
them about his coming death. Hard
lessons to learn.
Then they begin to call on
others to follow Christ, but some say they are too busy. Hard work, and sometimes hard failures.
Listening to Christ means
hard work.
It means getting back into
the valley of the world, getting back into the midst of life and confronting
evil. Loving those who are hard to
love. Forgiving those who hurt us. Inviting others to join Christ.
Hard work. Hard service.
But if we are to truly listen to Christ, it means we do what he says.
When my parents spoke, it
really did go in one ear and out the other.
At least sometimes.
But Christ speaks, do his
words go in one ear and out the other?
Let’s not let that happen.
Let’s remember the voice of
God calling us, “This is my Son. Listen
to Him.”
Copyright 2013 - W.
Maynard Pittendreigh
