Who Does God Say That Jesus Is? Series: Breaking Boundaries
Luke 9:28-36 April 19, 2009
Intro:
Most often, all it really takes to hear God speak to us is that we give Him the opportunity. Last Friday, Good Friday, we set up a devotional journey around the church called “Stations of the Cross”. It was a youth version, which I found shared online, and Ellen our secretary did most of the leg work for me, and a number of our teens and adults did the walk and heard God speak in powerful ways. At each of the stations we were invited to reflect on Scriptures about Jesus’ journey to the cross and empty tomb, and at several people were invited to write prayers. These are poignant and insightful and real and vulnerable and moving.
I had a number of people express gratitude for the opportunity, which was kind and encouraging. But really, it wasn’t nearly as much about the actual event as it was about simply carving out space for God to speak. I’ve seen this time and time again in my years of ministry – the “vehicle” is always less important than simply making the time to listen for God. When we do, amazing and life-changing and transforming things happen… like we will see in this morning’s study in Luke. And it might surprise you to see that the very best role model we have as far as carving out time and space for God to speak is Jesus Himself.
Background:
But before getting to Luke 9:28-26, I need to back up and refresh our memories. We’ve been following Jesus through the Gospel of Luke since Christmas, and noticing how Jesus broke every boundary that existed between people and God – He did so deliberately, powerfully, and passionately. And He did so with the intention that we, His followers, should also work to break down every boundary that exists between people in our culture and the eternal God of the Universe.
As we studied Luke 9, we have seen that the central question has been “who is Jesus?”. The question was present earlier in Luke, but chapter 9 brings it to the forefront. When we last left Jesus and His disciples, they were having this exact conversation: Jesus asks, “who do you say that I am?”, and Peter replied, “You are the Messiah sent from God!” (Lk 9:20). You might recall that from there Jesus went quickly to re-defining what it meant to be “Messiah”, in terms of suffering, which we saw vividly last weekend as we journeyed to the cross and the empty tomb. Jesus said, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross daily, and follow me.” (Lk 9:23). This is pretty sobering, both then and now. And whenever we are called to something really difficult, such as being a follower of Jesus that must “turn from selfish ways, take up a cross daily, and follow”, it sure helps to have a big picture, a motivation, a vision of why we would do this and what the end result would be. I think that is part of why what happens next, happens next…
Transfiguration: Luke 9:28-36
28 About eight days later Jesus took Peter, John, and James up on a mountain to pray. 29 And as he was praying, the appearance of his face was transformed, and his clothes became dazzling white. 30 Suddenly, two men, Moses and Elijah, appeared and began talking with Jesus. 31 They were glorious to see. And they were speaking about his exodus from this world, which was about to be fulfilled in Jerusalem.
32 Peter and the others had fallen asleep. When they woke up, they saw Jesus’ glory and the two men standing with him. 33 As Moses and Elijah were starting to leave, Peter, not even knowing what he was saying, blurted out, “Master, it’s wonderful for us to be here! Let’s make three shelters as memorials—one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” 34 But even as he was saying this, a cloud overshadowed them, and terror gripped them as the cloud covered them.
35 Then a voice from the cloud said, “This is my Son, my Chosen One. Listen to him.” 36 When the voice finished, Jesus was there alone. They didn’t tell anyone at that time what they had seen.
A Needy Jesus? (vs. 28)
Do you think Jesus had needs? We accept that Jesus was fully human, and so we are comfortable with the idea that Jesus had physical needs for food, sleep, go to the bathroom, exercise, etc. What about emotional needs? We know He needed to cry at Lazarus’ tomb. We know He enjoyed going to parties. So how about the idea that Jesus needed a bit of encouragement on the way to the cross? Certainly we see that need in Gethsemane, where Jesus prayed for another way. But I think it is possible that Jesus the man needed something at this point in time as well. And we see what Jesus did about it: “Jesus took Peter, John, and James up on a mountain to pray.” He created space to be with God, He retreated to pray.
Remember the broader context – Jesus’ ministry has been going well in Galilee, people responding, following Him, needing healing and teaching. And right in the middle of that Jesus sneaks off to carve out time to pray. Sometimes we think we are too busy to pray, too much going on, too many activities and demands and pressures. I think Jesus understands that, and models for us the best way – Jesus made time to pray. It forces the question – do we? I have a confession to make here: I struggle with this. I go to a lot of meetings – Elders meetings and Staff meetings and Admin meetings and Search committee meetings and Nominating meetings and Missions meetings and Denominational meetings – and these all include times of prayer. Virtually all of them begin with times of prayer, because we just seem to all understand that we want to begin with seeking God and His guidance, rather than deciding everything ourselves and then just asking God to bless what we came up with; and we just seem to all understand that if we leave it till the end we’ll be just wanting to go home and not really concentrating on God. Now this is all good, but here is my confession. Sometimes during those times of prayer, I’m feeling like “can we hurry this up?? There’s a lot on this agenda…” and I catch myself, and remind myself that this is the most important part, and repent and focus.
How about you? Do you make time in the middle of busy life to pray? We need to find ways to build pray into our lives – maybe for some that is choosing a set time each day and committing to it, maybe others need to make appointments to pray with others, maybe you need to do like Jesus here and actually get away on a “prayer retreat”. Like I said at the beginning, the vehicle is no where near as important as simply making the time to do it.
What Happens When We Pray: (vs. 29-31)
Because when we pray, God moves. We see it happen here to Jesus, in vs. 29-31. Luke tells us this amazing story, “as he was praying”… (note that significant phrase), Jesus’ appearance was transformed. It might have been night-time, we don’t know, but Jesus’ face starts to glow, and His clothes, Luke uses a word translated “dazzling white”, which is a word that refers to how the world is lit up by a flash of lightening. It gets better, Jesus is then joined by two well-known Old Testament figures, Moses and Elijah, who strike up a conversation with Jesus. This is a pretty amazing scene, don’t you think? Moses has been dead for about 1300 years, Elijah has been gone for almost 600 years (remember God took him up to heaven in the whirlwind), and here they show up and engage Jesus in conversation. Luke puts it this way, “They were glorious to see.” I don’t know who your heroes are – people you’ve read about that have died but who you would love to meet and talk to – but for an Israelite, Moses and Elijah would have been two strong candidates! And here they are, talking to Jesus.
What are they talking about? Luke tells us: “they were speaking about his exodus from this world, which was about to be fulfilled in Jerusalem.” Interesting phrase, don’t you think: “his exodus from this world”? Obviously, they were talking about Jesus’ death. So why not just say “his death”? Well, let’s look at the bigger picture. We have Jesus, who defined His mission as coming “to set the captives free”. We have a mountain. We have the glory of God appearing in a cloud. We have Peter wanting to build temporary shelters. We have Jesus’ face shining like Moses’ face did. We have Moses himself. A lot of parallels to the first Exodus story, when we put them all together! So what does this all tell us? The way the story is put together, we are supposed to understand it all in the broader terms of a second Exodus.
Let me simplify: Moses led the people of Israel out of slavery in Egypt and to the edge of the promised land. Jesus came to lead all people out of slavery to sin and into the Kingdom of God. And, backing up to the passage just before this one, where Jesus is laying out the cost of being His follower, this image provides what we need in that “big picture”, that motivation, that grand cause which is worth laying down our very lives for. Jesus’ death and resurrection will defeat the power of sin and enable us to be reconciled with God – truly an incredible “exodus”.
I wonder if Jesus was asking what it was like to die. Moses knew how it felt, he’d experienced it. I wonder if they were talking about pain, or about the experience of the spirit leaving the physical shell. Maybe Moses and Elijah were there reminding Jesus of how this was the dream of God all along – a permanent solution to the “sin problem”, and maybe they were encouraging Jesus that as difficult as the road ahead was, it was worth it. I don’t know, all I know from Luke is that “they were speaking about his exodus from this world, which was about to be fulfilled in Jerusalem.”
Sleepy Heads… (vs. 32-33):
Maybe the reason we don’t know more of the details is because the chief witnesses, Peter and John and James, had gone to sleep. When I read of things like this from Jesus’ disciples, I don’t know whether to laugh, get angry at them, or really wonder whether I would have done anything different. Really, after a long day’s walk, how much time are they going to spend watching Jesus pray before the eyelids start to droop? As someone who has fallen asleep in school, while watching TV, once at a summer job just before the senior manager showed up for a surprise visit, and yes, even while praying, I sympathize. Luckily for us, they do wake up near the end of Jesus’ conversation, and at least see a bit of what is going on. Peter blurts out the first thing that comes to him as he sees Moses and Elijah start to leave, basically: “no! wait! don’t leave! I’ll build three shelters, we can spend some more time together and then we can leave them as memorials!” Luke points out how ridiculous this is when he tells us that Peter didn’t even know what he was saying. And then God Himself shows up.
The Voice of God (vs. 34-36):
“even as he was saying this, a cloud overshadowed them, and terror gripped them as the cloud covered them.” Try to imagine the scene – you’ve been asleep, woken up to see this incredible site of Moses and Elijah, and Jesus glowing, Peter says something dumb, and then this happens: the cloud appears and comes straight for you and comes right down over top of you and you feel the cold and humidity and you can’t see anything. And the Voice of God speaks: “This is my Son, my Chosen One. Listen to him.” Remember the question that Luke 9 is all about? “Who is Jesus?” Now we have the answer from God Himself – and it is a pretty convincing one.
I can’t describe what it is like for you to hear the voice of God speaking. Until it happens to you, you can’t really understand how life-changing it is. Here, in this case, it was an audible voice – the disciples actually physically heard it. That still happens today, but it is rare. More often we hear the voice of God speak internally – to our spirits. Sometimes the actual words come out of Scripture, sometimes out of the mouth of another person, sometimes just as thoughts or feelings. In all cases, anything we think we hear God saying needs to be tested against God’s written word, the Bible, and with people who know God and have gifts of discernment. But the point is this: God will speak, when we make room in our lives to listen.
I think we are often afraid to make time to listen because we expect God to use the opportunity to tell us off for some sin. Yet in my experience, that is rarely the first thing on God’s mind. Most often, He wants to speak words of love, of comfort and encouragement, of joyful challenge, and of guidance. Kind of like the words He speaks to the disciples from the cloud – words of affirmation, of identity, and of love. This idea, of listening to God and hearing Him speak to us, is supposed to be a regular way of life, not a once in a lifetime thing. Because Jesus has led us through this second exodus, that kind of intimacy with God is offered.
So God speaks, and that is it. Everything vanishes, and it is “back to normal”. But we know that this experience remained with the disciples: Peter, old and nearing death, wrote:
16 For we were not making up clever stories when we told you about the powerful coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. We saw his majestic splendor with our own eyes 17 when he received honor and glory from God the Father. The voice from the majestic glory of God said to him, “This is my dearly loved Son, who brings me great joy.” 18 We ourselves heard that voice from heaven when we were with him on the holy mountain.
19 Because of that experience, we have even greater confidence in the message proclaimed by the prophets. You must pay close attention to what they wrote, for their words are like a lamp shining in a dark place—until the Day dawns, and Christ the Morning Star shines in your hearts. 20 Above all, you must realize that no prophecy in Scripture ever came from the prophet’s own understanding, 21 or from human initiative. No, those prophets were moved by the Holy Spirit, and they spoke from God. (2 Pet. 1:16-21).
Conclusion:
In my opinion, this whole “transfiguration” story really serves three purposes: to definitively answer the question of Luke 9, “who is Jesus”, with God’s own answer; to encourage Jesus as He begins the journey to Jerusalem where He will die; and finally to demonstrate what can happen when we take time out of life to pray and listen for the voice of God.
(Sue story to wrap up)
