Matthew 17:1-9
February 15, 2026
Our last worship service on my trip
to the Middle East took place on the top of a mountain. We had returned to
Jordan, and there we drove to the top of Mount Nebo. This is the mountain in
the Bible where Moses stood and saw the Promised Land – a land that he would
never enter.
I don’t remember who led us in
worship that day, although it was probably our professors leading the trip. I
imagine that we heard the reading of scripture, and prayed, and maybe sang a
verse or two of a hymn. But what I do remember was standing in a circle and
passing the peace of Christ. It was a powerful moment, standing on top of this
ancient mountain, sharing the peace of Christ with each other. I was
overwhelmed by the whole experience.
I
was overwhelmed at being at the top of a mountain. I was overwhelmed at being
at the top of that specific mountain. How was it possible that I was standing
at the top of Mount Nebo?! Standing on that ancient land, I felt like I had
stepped back in time. In that moment, I felt close to every person on that trip
with me, and even more, I felt so close to God. I was filled with awe and
reverence and joy. It was a mountain top experience, literally.
The mountain top experience is what
we focus on this morning. Today is Transfiguration Sunday – the last Sunday in
the season following the Epiphany and the last Sunday before Lent begins. Every
year on this Sunday, regardless of whether we are reading from Matthew, Mark,
or Luke, we hear the story of Jesus taking Peter, James, and John up a high
mountain. When they reach the top, something strange and scary and wonderful
happens. Jesus is transfigured before them. Matthew writes that his “face shone
like the sun, and this clothes became dazzling white.”
It must have seemed like a dream to
the disciples. One minute they were looking at their rabbi, their teacher,
Jesus. The next minute he was changed, glowing, dazzling, shining, covered in
an indescribable glory. And just when it couldn’t get any weirder, it did.
Moses and Elijah appeared with him. We don’t know if they were glowing and
shining like Jesus was, but they were in conversation with him. Peter being
Peter, he needed to say something, to do something. So he speaks up and says,
“Lord, it is good for us to be here;
if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and
one for Elijah.”
But before he could finish saying
those words, a bright cloud enveloped them. And from that cloud they heard a
voice saying,
“This is my Son, the Beloved; with
him I am well pleased; listen to him!”
And with that the disciples fell to
the ground overcome and overwhelmed by fear.
Each of the gospel accounts of this
story is remarkably similar, but Matthew adds a detail that Mark and Luke do
not. When the disciples are cowering on the ground in terror, Jesus comes and
touches them. We don’t know if he lays a hand on their shoulders or on their
heads, but he touches them and says,
“Get up and do not be afraid.”
With those words, the disciples,
perhaps still trembling, raise their heads and it is just the four of them once
again. Jesus is no longer shining. Moses and Elijah are gone. The cloud and the
voice are gone. Their world, as they knew it, has returned. Then they go back
the way they came, back down the mountain, and Jesus tells them to keep this to
themselves until the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.
This is Transfiguration Sunday, and
I will be honest that I kind of dread this Sunday all year long. It’s not
because I feel antipathy toward the Transfiguration itself, it’s just that I
think I have run out of ideas about how to preach it. What do we do with this
story? What does it mean for us today? I have spent countless hours trying to
find analogies for the transfiguration. I have spilled countless words trying
to describe a glory that is indescribable. And still, I don’t really know what
to do with this.
Theologian and essayist Debie
Thomas, writes that she doesn’t really like Transfiguration Sunday. She grew up
believing that the mountaintop experience of faith, of which the
transfiguration story is the greatest illustration, was something that she should
have on a regular basis. And because she didn’t have mountaintop experiences on
a regular basis, that must mean that she was a spiritual failure. It must mean
that her faith wasn’t good enough or strong enough or fervent enough. God is
present on the mountain and therefore we should always seek him on the
mountain, and Thomas fears that this kind of theology is spiritually addicting.
If we are always seeking out the mountaintop experiences, we forget that God is
also in the valley. God is also present in the ordinary, the everyday, in the
small, daily tasks, the small daily moments.
And Thomas points out that the
disciples must have felt this too, because Peter’s words about building
dwellings are his way of trying to contain the glory they are witnessing. He is
trying to hold onto it, box it up, make it manageable. But the glory that was
made visible on that mountain is anything but manageable. That glory is not
something that can be contained or boxed or held onto. It can’t be made small.
It can’t be made safe.
There is nothing safe about what
happens on this mountain. I think the disciples witness something far stranger
than Jesus suddenly shining. They get a glimpse of him in his full divinity.
They witness a moment when the line between earth and heaven is blurred. They
see not only the world as they know it but the world to come, the world as it
should be. They see Jesus talking with two of the great figures of their faith,
Moses and Elijah. They hear the voice of God from a cloud. There is nothing
safe about any of it, so I understand Peter wanting to make it manageable,
wanting to make it contained and controllable. There is nothing safe about it,
and I think it’s good that the disciples – and we – are reminded of that. It’s
okay that we can’t contain or describe the indescribable.
But that doesn’t make the valley any
easier either. It doesn’t make the ordinary any safer or easier. And it does
not mean that God is any less present in the valley than God is on the
mountain. Our lives are not grouped into two different categories – sacred and
secular. The sacred is not reserved solely for the mountaintop. Our most
ordinary moments are infused with the sacred too, and it is reassuring to
remember that.
Maybe that’s what the disciples
needed most on that mountaintop. Reassurance. Maybe they needed to be reassured
that when they left the mountaintop and went back down to the valley, back down
to the people, the struggles, the daily grind, the ordinary, that God was with
them in all of it, through all of it. Maybe they needed reassurance because
what lay ahead was going to be so much harder than what they had experienced so
far. What they were going to see and experience and witness was more than they
could imagine even though Jesus was trying to tell them what was to come. The
six days before that this story begins with refers to Jesus telling them openly
that he would suffer and die and be raised again.
So, the road they were called to
follow in the valley promised to be difficult; perhaps more difficult than any
road they had traveled down so far. And they needed courage to face it. They
needed reassurance that God was with them. They needed to hear the words, “do
not be afraid.”
I think we need those words, that
reassurance as well. We are about to enter the season of Lent once more. It is
the season where we are called to pay attention to each step we take, to look
long and hard at the valley we walk through, to understand that it is our time
symbolically, figuratively, and sometimes literally, to walk through our own
wilderness just as Jesus walked through his.
And we need reassurance for the days
ahead; the days of Lent and every day beyond that. We need to have a glimpse of
a glory that defies logic, reason, our senses, and our vocabulary. We need to
be reminded once again not to be afraid. There is so much in our lives, in our
world that makes us afraid, so many circumstances that sends our fear soaring,
but Jesus told the disciples and he tells us to not be afraid. Do not be afraid
because Jesus, God’s beloved, is with us. Do not be afraid whether it is in the
face of this indescribable glory on this mountaintop or in the face of all that
we encounter in the valley below. Do not be afraid. Listen to Jesus. Listen to
God’s beloved. Listen to him and let go of our fear. It’s time to walk back
down the mountain to face whatever waits for us in the valley below but
remember that God is with us. God is with us on the mountaintop or in the
valley, in the extraordinary or in the ordinary, in times of joy, in times of
struggle and hardship and loss, God is with us. God is with us, and the glory
of that truth, the joy of that good news is indescribable indeed. Do not be
afraid. Do not be afraid. Do not be afraid.
Let all of God’s children say,
“Alleluia.”
Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment