Matthew 17:1-9 - What Does This Mean? - February 23, 2020

Our world is filled with countless different churches, denominations, and non-denominations – almost all of which claim to be Bible-believing. Because of that, people often wonder, what’s the difference? Because many churches today don’t actually publish a written confession, it’s gotten a lot harder to distinguish the differences. But one way to identify the differences is to identify the questions they are looking for answers to. Many TV and YouTube evangelists seem bound and determined to answer the question: what is God trying to tell us in the daily news – and what can it tell us about the future? What is the divine meaning behind a plague of locusts invade Africa and the corona virus infects thousands around the world? [1] Another strain has sought to answer the question: what makes sense, how can we logically explain the mysteries of God and what can we do to remain in God’s grace? Broadly, we know them as those of the Reformed tradition. If you happen to know someone who attends a generic big-box church, they will probably be asking: what can the newest book or hottest, hippest preacher teach me about my finances, my marriage, my destiny in life – and how can they help me manipulate God into helping me realize my best life now? A person who is wondering how they can “feel” God, can find a home in the charismatic, Pentecostal tradition. Finally, every year around Lent, you hear about this denomination, because many are wondering what new rules or exceptions to rules the church is going to hand out this year? [2] These are Roman Catholics. Did you notice anything missing from those questions? Sadly, many Christians look for authority and answers in any and every place except the one in which God has promised to give them: the Bible. Which brings us to Lutheranism. What is the Lutheran question? The uniquely Lutheran question, the one that we ask before and above all others is: what does this mean? (with “this” referring to God’s objective, black on white, Word.) Today, our Lord’s Transfiguration grants us a wonderful opportunity to put this question into practice, because there are several aspects of this account that invite and almost demand us to search the Scriptures for the answer to the question: what does this mean?

The first question is so obvious that we might miss it: what does it mean that Jesus took Peter, James, and John up a high mountain by themselves? Why them? Why only three out of 12? We could guess at why Jesus chose Peter, James, and John, but we are not in the business of guessing, so we’ll just admit that we don’t know. But we can say with some certainty why Jesus chose three. In the OT, by God’s command, the testimony of just one eyewitness wasn’t enough to press charges or convict a crime – two or three were necessary (Deuteronomy 19:15). This is still the case in the New Testament – where Jesus states that 2 or 3 witnesses are needed both to properly practice church discipline (Matthew 18:16) and to bring an allegation against a church leader (1 Timothy 5:19). We aren’t told exactly why Jesus picked Peter, James, and John – but we do know why he chose three disciples to witness this event: so that we can be sure beyond all reasonable doubt that this actually happened (2 Peter 1:16-21).

The second, more obvious question would be: what does it mean that Jesus was transfigured? The Greek word for “transfigured” is our English word metamorphosis. It’s what happens when a caterpillar changes into a butterfly. In Jesus’ case, what changed was not his shape, but his appearance. Jesus glowed with the glory of God; glory that he had hidden for 33 years under poverty and humility, under human flesh and blood. Why? Why now? What does this mean? Jesus wanted his disciples, and us, to see who he truly is right before he descends into the valley of death and any hint of glory is covered by pain and shame and suffering and crucifixion. On the brink of Lent, Jesus wants us to be assured that he is the Son of God. But also, and more importantly, that his true glory, his true power and his true mission, wasn’t fully revealed on the mountain where he pulled back the curtain covering his glory, but on the mountain where he ripped the curtain separating us from God in half by offering his life as the payment for our sin (Matthew 27:51). Jesus’ glory on this mountain prepares us to endure the dark days of Lent and to see the glory behind his suffering on Calvary, which Paul described in his second letter to the Corinthians: you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that although he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that through his poverty you might become rich (2 Corinthians 8:9). Jesus’ transfiguration is visible theology. It is a simple summary of the gospel: Jesus is truly God, and he is GOD FOR US.

Next: what does it mean that Moses and Elijah appeared to them, talking with Jesus? Moses was God’s instrument for the transmission of the Law on Mt. Sinai. Elijah was one of the most famous OT prophets. Both had their own unique mountaintop experiences of God’s glory and power (Exodus 19-20; 1 Kings 18). Together, they appear to be endorsing Jesus as the One promised and predicted by all of the OT prophets. Just as importantly, their presence testifies to the fact that God is good to his word, that after death there is life, that through faith we – and all who believe – will go on living in God’s glory forever. In other words, we don’t need some fraudulent and fictional book to tell us that Heaven Is for Real [3], we only need to look at this mountain and see Moses and Elijah walking and talking on this mountain. Even more interesting is what these two biblical heroes were talking about. Luke writes: [they] were talking about his departure, which he was going to bring to fulfillment in Jerusalem (Luke 9:31). If these residents of heaven weren’t talking about whether the fish in heaven’s ponds were biting or what was on the menu for the next heavenly banquet or how the angelic choir sounded especially good last week – but were talking about the life, death and resurrection of Jesus – does that give us a hint as to what we, who are still waging the war of faith in this life, should be talking about? They were talking about Jesus – his life, death, and resurrection! So should we!

But one of the men on the mountain still didn’t get it. Peter, clearly star-struck at the presence of these heroes of faith comes up with a plan: Lord, it is good for us to be here. If you want, I will make three shelters here: one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah. What does this mean? What was Peter trying to accomplish here? Well, just six days earlier Jesus had told his disciples that he had to go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders, chief priests, and experts in the law, and be killed, and on the third day be raised again. And Peter replied, “No!” This will never happen to you (Matthew 16:21-23). Peter had his own plan for how things should be – and his plan involved prolonging this glorious moment on this mountain – without the suffering, without the pain, without the cross. And we know what that’s like, don’t we? Seeking joy, happiness, glory apart from the cross. We sometimes imagine that God’s glory can be found in health, in wealth, in happiness and self-fulfillment. We often expect God to reveal his glory in our lives now, rather than patiently and faithfully waiting to experience the glory of heaven. Just as bad, we seek God’s glory in places he has explicitly said we shouldn’t go looking. We want to feel God in our hearts rather than receive him in Word and Sacrament. We search for financial peace in our salaries and savings rather than in God’s promise to provide (Matthew 6:32). Rather than cherish the spouse God has given us – because, let’s be honest, marriage is hard work, it’s often a cross to be carried – we look for easier routes to satisfaction through flirtation and pornography. We imagine that if we just “do church right” we can make it glorious and acceptable to the world when Jesus promises that the church will always be hated by the world (John 15:18) as long as it preaches the foolishness of Christ crucified (1 Corinthians 1:18-25). The truth is the same for us as for Jesus: there are no shortcuts to glory. First comes humiliation, then glory. First the cross, then the crown.  

There’s a bright cloud and a voice – what do those mean? Just as happened several times in the OT, the cloud indicates the presence of the only true, almighty God (Exodus 13:21; Exodus 24:17; 1 Kings 8:11). But what about the voice: this is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him. What does this mean? This is both a non-so-subtle rebuke of Peter and a divine endorsement of Jesus. In other words, God the Father is calling Peter to repent of his attempt to turn Jesus into the glorious, earthly Conqueror he wanted him to be and instead receive him as the crucified Savior he – and all of us – truly need. Peter should not have rebuked Jesus when he said he had to die nor should he have tried to build tents on this mountain. He should have listened to, and believed, Jesus’ words about the necessity of the cross. So should we. How do we listen to Jesus? Open your Bible. Compare everything you hear (including everything you hear from this pulpit) to the Word of God. It’s been said that if you stick a knife anywhere in the Bible, it will bleed red with the blood of Christ. When you read your Bible begin by asking “what does this mean?” followed by “where do I see Jesus, my Savior?” He’s there, on every page. Don’t do it because I told you to, do it because God told you to.

Finally, Jesus issues a somewhat strange command: Do not tell anyone what you have seen until the Son of Man has been raised from the dead. Why not? Well, Jesus had already had many people following him for all the wrong reasons. They wanted him to be their warrior to defeat their Roman overlords, their bread-king to fill their bellies and bank accounts, their private physician to heal all their diseases (John 6:15). But that was not Jesus’ mission. Jesus’ mission was not and is not to fix all the symptoms of sin in this world. Jesus came to take away the cause of all of those symptoms; to take your sins and mine and the sins of the world, carry them to the cross and suffer and die to pay for them. And after Jesus’ resurrection, Peter, James, and John could give powerful testify to the world that this was no ordinary criminal who was brutally beaten and hung on a cross to die; this was God’s Son, the promised Messiah, who came to take away the sins of the world. When asked how they could know this, they could say: we heard God’s divine testimony from heaven, we witnessed Moses and Elijah speaking with him on the mountain, we have seen his glory (John 1:14)!

And now that we know what these nine verses mean, we may ask the question: what does this mean for me? Why spend an entire Sunday on an event that most churches don’t recognize and many Christians are unaware of? It is placed here, on the last Sunday before Lent because this is the point at which Jesus sets his face toward Jerusalem (Luke 9:51) and begins his descent into the valley of the shadow of death for us. The Transfiguration tells us that he was fully prepared to face the doom we deserved. It assures us that he was the one the prophets had foretold; the one chosen by God to carry out the job no one else could perform. It tells us that Jesus was in total control when he walked into Jerusalem to be betrayed, denied, tortured, crucified and buried. And it assures us that through faith we are truly pleasing to God, because in Jesus every last one of our sins has been punished and paid for – that through Baptism and through faith we are now God’s sons and daughters with whom he is well pleased. The Transfiguration means that your sins are forgiven. You are saved. Heaven is real and you will spend eternity in heaven’s glory with Peter, James, John, Moses, Elijah and Jesus. The Transfiguration proves that Jesus is true God and that God is here for us. The comfort of sins forgiven and the confidence that heaven is ours is finally the answer God always wants to give us when we search his Word for the answer to that uniquely Lutheran question: what does this mean? Amen.

[1] In short, the daily news is nothing less than evidence that Jesus was right: this sinful world is spiraling into destruction – see Matthew 24

[2] https://time.com/4705034/st-patricks-day-corned-beef-lent/

[3] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004A90BXS/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1#ace-g8881249860