Episode 186: The Importance of Jesus' Transfiguration | +Quigg Lawrence

Introduction

Please, sir. We know what you told us. We brought you the broomstick of the wicked witch of the West. We melted her. You liquidated her. Very resourceful. Yes, sir. So we'd like you to keep your promise to us, if you please do.

Not so fast. Not so fast. I'll have to give the matter a little thought. Go away and come back tomorrow.

Tomorrow? Oh, but I wanna go home now. You’ve had plenty of time already.

Yeah. Do not arouse the wrath of the great and powerful Oz. I said come back tomorrow. If you are really great and powerful, you keep your promises.

Do you presume to criticize the great Oz? You ungrateful creatures. Think yourselves lucky that I’m giving you an audience tomorrow instead of twenty years from now.

Oh. The great Oz has spoken. Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain. The great Oz has spoken.

Who are you?

Oh, I am the great and powerful wizard of Oz.

You are? I don't believe you.

No. I'm afraid it's true. There's no other wizard except me.

You humpback.

Yes. Yes. It’s a...

You guys remember that?

Yes. That is kind of like the untransfiguration. All it took was a little dog named Aww to unveil that the Wizard of Oz was a fake. Right? The big and powerful Oz, and all his glory was just a man behind a curtain. And he was undone by a little dog.

It's interesting that I believe they were thinking about the transfiguration when they did that. Is that too Christian? I actually think they had that in mind.

The Transfiguration of Jesus

So today, we're in Luke nine. I want you to turn in your Bible, or if you have a Bible app, or you can just Google Luke nine. We'll begin at verse 28. Today is transfiguration Sunday. Obviously, bottom line up front: Jesus takes Peter, James, and John up the mountain. Then while they're praying on the mountain, the Father basically transfigures Jesus and reveals that he is very God of very God or as the creed says, here, let me pull it up for you.

I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds. God of God, light of light, very God, a very God, begotten, not made, of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made.

And so that's what the church in its wisdom has garnered from the scriptures—that Jesus is God himself, God in the flesh, the expressed image of the Father. Jesus said,

if you've seen me, you've seen the Father. The Father and I are one.

And so in the Mount of Transfiguration, Jesus is going to, like Toto, pull back the curtain and reveal to his disciples his glory. Reveal to the disciples that he's not simply an amazing rabbi. He's not simply a guy who can pray for people and they get well. He is, in fact, very God, a very God.

Let's look at it. Luke 9:28:

Now, about eight days after these sayings, he took with him Peter and John and James, and they went on the mountain to pray.

Now, about eight days after these sayings. Here's something I love—I’m going to throw this in for notes of charge. If you read Mark's account, not Luke's account, he says, about after six days. Yet, here in Luke, Luke's the doctor. He's very precise. He says, after eight days.

Some people go, See, the Bible's not true.

Actually, when I first started to read the Bible, the very fact that there are differences actually spoke to me and said, You know what? These are not coached witnesses. These stories about Jesus, they should be told a little bit differently because different people saw them. And so rather than tear away my confidence in the authority of God's word, it actually raised it.

It says, Now about eight days after these sayings, he took Peter, James, and John.

Now, what we want to hone in on to get context is: it says, Now about eight days after these sayings, what had Jesus been saying? What did he say that had prompted him to take Peter, James, and John up to a mountain away to pray? Let's look.

Look up just a couple of verses. Luke 9:22:

Jesus says this to the apostles: The Son of Man must suffer many things. In other words, I, Jesus, I'm going to suffer. I'm also going to be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and I'm going to be killed, and on the third day, I'm going to be raised.

So he had just told his followers what? Not only that he's going to be raised, but that he's going to have to suffer and that he's going to be killed. That's a hard thing to hear.

No, Jesus. Let it never be.

And so when Jesus reveals this hard truth that he's walking to Jerusalem, the game's almost up for him. Right? We're getting near the end. To my knowledge, this is the first time Jesus ever explicitly, in the synoptic gospels, the first time he ever revealed that he's going to suffer, be killed, and be raised again. John's gospel, maybe there are a few hints, but in Matthew, Mark, Luke, this is the first time.

And so it says, now after eight days, these sayings that he's going to have to suffer and be killed and be raised, he took with him Peter, James, and John. And they went up on the mountain to pray.

Isn't that nice? We should all pray more, shouldn't we? We should. We ought, and yet we don't. Why don't we? Because somehow in the economy of things, we just figure it ain't worth our time. Like if we thought it was worth our time, we'd actually do it.

Prayer looks like this. I remember the hymn, Sweet Hour of Prayer. I think in the new hymnal, they ought to do Sweet Minute of Prayer. You know, when you shoot a foul shot. Do you see this when you were a kid? People do that.

Jesus sets an example for us. It is so vital. I admit, it's hard to pray. It's hard to pray. It's maybe not that hard to tell God things. Right? Just blah. But it's hard to sit in the presence of the Lord and do nothing but be with him.

Friends, I tell you, I struggle with that. I do, because I want to do things. Let's make it happen. Yet, Jesus, the Son of God, very God of very God, took time away to be with the Father.

Now, I could tell you, hey, you need to pray. You should pray. Jesus prayed. And you go, thank you very much. I'm just not into that. What I'm going to tell you is we are missing such a gift, such a grace. And maybe we just start with baby steps instead of going Sweet Hour of Prayer. That ain't going to happen. Maybe we start with a minute. Maybe we start with three minutes. Maybe we read a scripture and we say, Lord, speak to me.

God knows we are pretty good at telling him all about it, but there is another part of prayer. Grab your ears. How many ears you got? Most of you. You got two ears. How about mouths? Two, one, two, one. What is the ratio? Two to one. Two ears for listening. One mouth for speaking.

Is that instructive? I think so.

Anyway, they're up on the mountain. They're praying. And it says, as he was praying, man, some crazy stuff happened, y'all. Crazy. It says, while he was praying, the appearance of Jesus' face was altered. It was altered. His clothing became dazzling white. In other words, he was transfigured. In other words, the very glory of God, which is actually scripture says 300 times it mentions the glory of God. Yet when you hear people talk about the glory of God, commentators, theologians, Bible teachers, they can tell you the word in Hebrew. They can tell you the word in Greek. What they cannot do is explain it in English. How do you describe the glory of God? How do you describe what you experience when you see a baby born? And yet the glory of God is so much greater even than that. And so we try to use words to explain the glory of God. It's his beauty, his imminence, his presence, his holiness, his radiance. None of those words are fit to even describe the King of kings and the Lord of Lords.

And so as they were praying, Jesus is transfigured, he's altered, his clothes begin dazzling white. And then this is kind of strange. Look at verse 30. It says, and behold, two men were talking with Jesus. I mean, this is the thing that seems like they're on acid or something. This is crazy. Y'all. Jesus is transfigured. The glory of the Father. Remember when Moses was in the presence of God and his face shone with the glory of God and just the very fact that God passed by Moses. When he came down, people were like, Woah.

It says, behold, two men were talking with Jesus. Who were they, y'all? Moses and Elijah. It's not by accident that it's Moses and Elijah. What is Moses known for? He was the one who wrote what? The law. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. He was the one that led God's people out of their bondage in Egypt to the land of promise.

Moses is great. Moses is loved and respected. He is the lawgiver. And what about Elijah? Who was he? He was a prophet. Right? He was a great prophet. In fact, Elijah, if my memory serves correct, Elijah never died. There's only two men in the Bible, two people in the Bible that never died. One is named Enoch and the other is named Elijah. So here we see Moses, the great lawgiver, and Elijah, the great prophet, both appearing on this Mount of Transfiguration.

When Jesus' God's glory is being revealed through Jesus, he's talking. He's having with Moses, the lawgiver, and Elijah, the prophet. One who we know died, Moses, and one who did not, which is really strange—Elijah. The law and the prophets. The law and the prophets.

The text continues:

They appeared in glory, and Moses and Elijah are talking about Jesus' what? Departure.

Now, this is a scary verse for me. This is kind of weird. Just stay with me. Do you ever wonder when somebody you love dies, do they know what's going on down here? Oh God, I hope not. I tried to hide so many things from my mother when I was young, but imagine if she has a bird's eye view and can see everything and know everything. Oh Lord have mercy. I don't know whether my mom knows everything that's going on or not, but apparently Moses and Elijah did. They knew that Jesus was going to his death and they're having a discussion with Jesus about his departure as he heads to Jerusalem.

Now look at verse 32. It says, Now Peter, you know him, Simon Peter, the one who came with James and John up the mountain with Jesus. Now Peter and those who were with him were heavy with sleep. Some are like you all right now are heavy with sleep, I get it, and I'm not mad at you because I used to sleep during sermons.

In my church, we had pews, not these comfortable, sissy pews like you all are in. We had hard wooden pews with Puritan backs, and I would literally sit in my pew and then start to kneel, look very spiritual. I put my head down like I was praying, and friends, I promise you, more than once I would wake up during the sermon or after the sermon with drool on my feet. And I'm not sure why I mentioned that. Oh, Peter. Yes. He was heavy with sleep. He was on the mountain. It says, so I mean, basically, the ones Jesus brought with him, they're tired. It's not a sin. They just fell asleep. But while they did, they became fully awake. They, too, began to see God's glory revealed in God's Son.

They began to see the transfiguration. Right? They began to see that Jesus is not simply a good man. Jesus said,

no one's good but God alone.

They're seeing. God is pulling back for them so they can see that the one who is going to Jerusalem, who is going to suffer, who is going to be killed, who is also going to be raised on the third day, is in fact not just an itinerant Jewish rabbi, but he is king of kings and lord of lords.

Now, Peter, I love Peter. He's so impetuous. Can you say that word? Impetuous. I love that word.

He says, Hey Jesus, I got an idea. What if we just—I build like three tents here. What if I build three booths? This is awesome. I mean, this is like Floyd Fest for Christians. Okay? This is amazing. I don't want to leave the mountain. Can we stay here?

Jesus is like, Look, man, I know this is a good time. I know this is a spiritual experience, but we have an assignment. I have an assignment. We have an assignment. And it's not about staying on the mountain. I brought you up here so you could see who I am in fullness. But no, don't build booths. Don't pitch a tent because we're not staying up here. We got work to do. We got a kingdom assignment.

And so we pick up in verse 34. It says, as he was saying these things, a cloud came and overshadowed them. Now, in the scriptures, you know in the Old Testament, how did God lead his people? Something by day and a something by night.

A cloud by day. And a fire by night.

And a fire by night.

How about when Moses went up on the mountain, Mount Horeb and Mount Sinai, same mountain, when he went up there to get the Ten Commandments? What was encamped on and around the mountain? A cloud. It was the glory of God—the holy glory of God.

How about when they're in the temple in the Holy of Holies, and it says, the Shekinah—then Hebrew doesn’t say that, but it was the Shekinah glory—the glory of God filled the temple and they were unable to minister. And so the cloud comes and it overshadows them, and they’re afraid as they enter the cloud.

Do you think it's scary to go to the Wizard of Oz? Imagine if you're standing face to face with the living God and we all will. Every man, every woman, every tribe. God's not going to care. Are you a Republican? Are you a Democrat? Are an Independent? Are a Libertarian? Whoop de doo. Whoop de doo. What did you do with your life? Did you trust me? Did you receive the gift? Did you live for yourself? I.E., you're your own God.

So we're all going to appear. As the cloud encamping around Peter, James, John, Jesus, Moses, Elijah. Not only do we see something, now we hear something.

What do we hear, y'all?

It's a voice. This reminds me so much of Jesus' baptism. But it says, and a voice came, and God himself, God the Father speaking. He's not only showing that Jesus is God, now he's going to tell you so there's no mistake about it. So you can't get away, as C.S. Lewis says, with this patronizing nonsense that Jesus was just a good man.

The voice says this:

This is my son, my chosen one. Listen to him.

Friends, that's the problem with the church today. The problem isn't how many hymns we sang or how many beats, even though sometimes I think that's the problem. How many beats per measure? Do we have alpha? Do not have alpha? Do we have wine? Do we have grape juice?

The problem is we don't listen to our captain. We don't listen to our king. So basically, here we are trying to live life in this broken and very hard world. Have you noticed? Think about the people in Ukraine. I think they're pouring their hearts out to Jesus right now. I think the Lord is speaking to them, and I think they're listening. I don't think they're grabbing for fool's gold and things that will never give life. They don't have that luxury right now.

They're making time, like Jesus, to be alone with God. They're pouring their hearts out to God, and they're listening. They're saying, Save us, Lord. Be with us. Help us to be faithful even unto death.

Unless you think Jesus is equal with Moses and Elijah, the great lawgiver and the great prophet, God says, no. This one's my son. He's chosen. Listen to him.

And when the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone.

Friends, couldn't be any clearer. This is God's way of saying, Moses is great. Elijah is great. They’re all servants of mine. But Jesus is my Son. Jesus is God of God, light of light, very God of very God. And not only is he that, but I’m giving you a command. Listen. Listen to him.

Application

And what ways starting today might you listen? Again, let’s don’t go for the Hail Mary home run, you know, 99-yard pass. Could we start simply? Could it start this week where maybe you take a passage of scripture, and even if you’re—I’m not a Bible scholar. You don’t have to be a Bible scholar to read the Bible. Right? I know no godless people, that aren’t very smart. They can read the Bible. You can read the Bible.

You read a passage. You say, Lord, what’s the context? What happens right before? What happens afterwards? Now, let’s go to the text. What does it say? What does it mean? Now, Father, apply it to my life. Apply it to my life. Show me, God, what you have for me. You have two ears and one mouth. Listen ye to him.

Conclusion

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.