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Transfiguration Sunday March 2, 2025

The text for this sermon is Luke 9:1-34

Jesus has been busy calming a storm, evicting demons, healing the sick.

Now he’s taking a little recess. He commissions his disciples to go out and minister on his behalf. They return eager to share news of their efforts so Jesus and they retreat to Bethsaida. But news has spread and a great crowd finds them; Jesus welcomes them, speaks to them about the kingdom of God and heals those in need of heeling.

Then Luke tells us that he feeds that crowd of about 10,000 and then when all is said and done, Jesus asks his disciples who they think he is with Peter making his great declaration: You are the Christ whereupon Jesus predicts his suffering & death and tells them that to save one’s life they must lose it.

Luke’s narrative moves us from accounts of wonder and miracle to a lesson about suffering and death. 

It is at this juncture that Luke relates the story we call The Transfiguration. Jesus singles out Peter, James and John, and walks them up the mountain to pray. Jesus prays and while his disciples are fighting sleep, Jesus’ face starts to change and his clothes start to shine and glory flashes like lightening. Moses and Elijah appear and start a conversation with Jesus. The disciples are wide awake now.

When all is back to normal, Peter, overcome, blurts out the suggestion that they construct three sacred tents: one for Jesus, one for Moses, one for Elijah. But Peter is interrupted by a terrifying overshadowing cloud and a glorious Voice announcing: This is My Son, My Chosen One; listen to him. The three disciples are stunned to silence.

But let’s back up. What’s the problem with Peter’s suggestion? He’s wanting to commemorate and acknowledge this holy event. What’s wrong with that?

What’s wrong with a monument? Monuments can depict a memorable event or person and there’s nothing’s wrong with monuments in general, they can remind us of our history and of people we might want to emulate.

And this that Peter has witnessed is indeed memorable. He’s overcome, he’s excited, he’s moved, he wants to capture this glory and preserve it in a tent. That’s more akin to trying to freeze a glorious moment and turn it into an end in itself instead of giving the event free reign to work as it will --to serve a greater purpose.

And this brings us to the other detail in this story we need to heed. In verses 30 and 31, the two men: Moses & Elijah are not just standing there; they are talking with Jesus and Luke tells us that they are talking to him about his “exodus” (often translated as “departure” but is in fact the word ‘exodus’.  They are talking with him about the exodus Jesus is about to accomplish in Jerusalem.

This is important because the point of the whole episode is to link the Exodus from Egypt, the exodus that Saved the People of God from slavery, moving them to freedom; with the Great, Eternal Exodus Jesus was going to effect through his death and resurrection.

Peter, is wanting to slice out just one little piece of the great salvific Exodus by employing the Feast of Booths or Tabernacles. “Jesus, let’s do what our people did in the wilderness.”

But God is wanting to announce the new and greater salvific Exodus. God instructs the disciples to listen to--pay attention to--heed God’s Chosen One. In other words: Follow him!

And where is Jesus going to lead them? To the foot of a cross; from wonder and miracle to suffering and death.

Jesus takes himself and all of us to the cross: to a cosmic Exodus, a cosmic Crossing Over. To the fulfillment of complete Covenant satisfaction, to the fulfillment of all that the Law of Moses tried to answer, to the fulfillment of the prophetic declarations of the likes of Elijah, to the fulfillment of all that God had and would speak; to the Exodus that leads us from slavery to freedom, from death to life.

So what’s this story to us? Who of us has seen Jesus in the flesh, radiating glory with the likes of Moses and Elijah. No?

Well, have you ever experienced an ecstatic moment of insight? Have you ever experienced your own warm sweeping sense of God’s presence? Have you ever been stunned by the realization that God did indeed answer your desperate prayer or awaken you to that deep-seated confidence that God does indeed love you no matter what?

But what do we do with these glories? We tend to freeze dry them in a booth, do we not? Compartmentalize them; confining them, not allowing them to move us from slavery to freedom, death to life. 

I’ve certainly been guilty of this. I remember a moment in my youth when I came face to face with a glorious revelation, and what did I do? I kept it to myself. I built a booth around it. 

But that doesn’t serve the purpose of such moments, does it? These moments are meant to prepare us for something else. They’re meant to equip us to enter the foray of difficulties with Jesus; to die to our own desires allowing God to enliven us with God’s desire.

Compare the thing that Peter says when he sees the glory on that mountain:
Let us make three dwellings (let us stay here!) with what the Centurion says
at the foot of the cross as he witnesses the transfiguration’s fulfillment  
Truly this Was the Son of God.

Both were a response of worship, but the one sought to seclude the glory; the other translated it into an awe-filled living declaration: This! This was/is the Son of God. Here, before me, is none other than God. What indeed has God done? 

Don’t you know that that revelation transformed that man? Propelled him to a life-changing response that unfolded into his future? Can we believe that in that moment, Jesus effected the cosmic Exodus for that man’s soul, moving him from slavery to true freedom, radiating out to his family and friends and, likely, his fellow Roman soldiers I ask myself, how many of those gentile believers who responded to Peter’s Pentecost sermon had heard a testimony from that Centurion.

How might we be changed, what Exodus might we experience if we put ourselves in that man’s shoes and looking, as we’re privileged to do, at both the mountain top transfiguration and the crucifixion transfiguration, realizing God has accomplished our salvation--not for a booth-enclosed sigh of relief, but for a resounding testimony that reaches the ears, awakens the hearts of those longing for a true saved-by-God life: a life made whole by living into that Cosmic Exodus: that Exodus from slavery to freedom; from death to life.

L Quanstrom, Pastor 

Cornelius UMC