“The Glory Thing”

I think we all know the story of the transfiguration of Christ pretty well. It is one of those pericopes that we hear every year to end the Epiphany season and transition into the Lenten journey to the cross with our Lord, so the details should be familiar to most of us.

Jesus takes three of the twelve: Peter, James, and John. Even though Andrew was the first disciple really, the first to follow Jesus, he gets left behind in the less favored nine. Some think this shows Andrew’s star has fallen. I myself tend to think the opposite. I take it as a sign that Jesus had confidence in Andrew, maybe more than any of the others, to watch the rest while he took the three up the mountain. Because remember what happened when Moses went up a mountain with Joshua and left Aaron in charge? Golden calf, baby. That nothing like that happened on Andrew’s watch tells me he was a better watcher. And make no mistake, that was a bunch that needed watching.

But our attention is rightly on the three who go up the mountain. On top of the mountain is where the action is. That’s where you’ll want to be. God is always doing big things on mountain tops. It’s kind of a signature move of his. When they get up on the mountain, Jesus is transfigured before them. What is transfiguration? Well it’s what happened to Jesus on the mountain. His face and clothes shine like the sun. Something somewhat like this had actually happened before…

Moses’ face shone with an unearthly light when he came down from Sinai with the Torah. But that was a reflected light, from catching a glimpse of God’s back. Even so, it was spooky. The people made Moses put a bag over his head until his face stopped shining. Because… it bothered them. It wasn’t natural. Wasn’t normal.

But this light that lit up Jesus’ face and clothing was not reflected. It came from within. And that was more scary still. Did Jesus’ face shine more brightly than Moses? It seems so. The children of Israel found Moses’ glowing countenance disturbing but they could look at him for a while before they needed to get out the bag. I don’t know about you, but I can’t look at the sun very long without having to shield my eyes. Since that is how brightly Jesus’ face shone, I would think glimpses were all they could manage.

We know about Moses and Elijah. We know about Peter wanting to pitch tents. We know about the cloud, the voice, the cowering disciples and the beautiful line that at their most fearful, when they looked up, they saw Jesus only. And they were fine.

But the weirdest line of all (and so my favorite, naturally) is when they are descending from the mountain top and Jesus commands them “tell the vision to no one until the Son of Man is risen from the dead.”

Now doesn’t that strike you as strange? If Jesus wants to be known by all as the Son of God and Savior of the world, which he certainly does, then why not have the disciples tell everyone of his glory, his honor, his divine majesty that shows up so clearly in this whole transfiguration deal? Why not tell the world? Wouldn’t that help the cause?

No. It wouldn’t. But still this is the thinking that some rather dim-witted 19^th century biblical “scholars” (and I put the word “scholar” in quotes here) have foisted on most “scholars” today (quotes around “scholars” again, if you’re just listening) that when Jesus says “don’t tell anyone about this” that he doesn’t really mean it, that it’s reverse psychology, that really, he wants us to tell everyone, all the time, everything about Jesus—especially the grand and glorious bits.

But I don’t buy it. Jesus says more than once that following him means abiding in his word, keeping his word, just as he gives it, no thinking or guessing or clever interpreting of our own. So if Jesus says “don’t tell” I’m going to say we should not tell. Because Jesus says so. And that’s good enough for me.

Oh, I know: there’s lots of exciting stuff we see when we follow Jesus. Lots of cool stuff that he does with us in our lives. Lots of ways we catch glimpses of his glory. It’s natural to want to tell others about the glory thing. Shoot, we’ve practically made it a law these days in the American churches that everybody has to gab to everyone about Jesus, the grand and glorious bits most of all, all the time, or else they run the risk of getting kicked out of the club.

I think that’s missing the point. Our text today, I believe, shows why. Jesus doesn’t say the disciples can never tell ever, what they have seen on the mountain. He says rather, tell no one the vision they’ve seen until the Son of Man is risen from the dead. There’s the important clue to solving this particular little mystery of the “don’t tell anyone” thing.

We see that the disciples themselves expected a grand and glorious Messiah from the start. When Jesus started with the miracles, they said: “now we’re talking!” But when Jesus said the miracles weren’t the point, when he taught them that he really came to suffer and die at the hands of sinful men on a cross, and the third day be raised again, they couldn’t believe it. Couldn’t do anything with that cross business. When the women came and told them Easter Sunday the tomb was empty, they didn’t believe in the resurrection. They didn’t get it.

Why? Because they were hung up on the glory thing, like most of us today are hung up on the glory thing. We look for Jesus Christ in the great and grand things, in the miracles, the healing, in the prosperity he brings for us, in the bright, shiny bits of life. But Jesus promises he won’t be found there. He will only be found hidden in the darkness of the cross. Find him on the cross, find him in the darkness of Golgotha, find him in that last, bone-chilling cry “It is finished!” or you don’t find him at all. It’s that simple.

Find him in the hurts, the losses, the sorrows, the pains of your life, or you don’t find him at all. Find him by sharing his sufferings yourself, here, now; find him by having a sip of that cup of woe he drained to the dregs, or you won’t find him at all. Because the bright, shining stuff blinds. You can’t look at it. But out of the glare, under the cross, you’ll see him as he truly is—the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, our substitute, our shepherd, our merciful savior.

Only when you’ve found him in the shadow of the cross like that and in the sufferings he lets you share yourself, will the light of the transfiguration mean anything to you. Only after you’ve seen him dead and buried for your sins, and found his tomb empty are you ready to reflect on the transfiguration glory, and tell the story well and truly. Until then, we’ll keep this transfiguration thing strictly between us, okay?

Until then, we’ll look for Jesus in the dark; we’ll take the Lenten journey with him to the cross. We’ll look for him in the hidden places, the word and sacrament places, and finding him there, in cross and trial, the glory will not overwhelm us, the light will not blind us, anymore. Because it is not the glory thing that truly illuminates, no, no: the cross is the thing you see, the thing that does it, so to the cross we go, for that will bring us Peace, that passes understanding, that guards heart and mind in Christ Jesus. Amen.