Transfiguration: future and present Ps 99; Ex 34:29-35; 2 Cor 3:12-4:2; Luke 9:28-36

Introduction  https://youtu.be/MzkaAVSLJEw

Although relatively neglected in many churches[1], the story of the transfiguration is one of the most memorable parts of the Gospels, and one of my personal favourites[2]. Without elaborating on the many heavy theological issues in the passage[3], I think the key question is what the transfiguration meant for Jesus, and therefore what it means for us. Last week I made the point that in going to the cross, Jesus fulfilled his own seemingly impossible commandments (Luke 6:27-38), so that as we depend on him, we can fulfil his command through his presence and authority in our lives (Matt 28:18-20). I believe that the transfiguration is neglected because we largely focus on its wonderful, extraordinary dimensions and miss that it is a story for struggling people, which includes all the characters in the story itself. Hopefully this will become clearer as we go on.

Peter James and John

The first thing in this story that grasps our attention is that “Jesus took with him Peter and John and James and went up on the mountain[4] to pray” (Luke 9:28). Peter, James and John[5] are Jesus’ most intimate companions throughout the Gospels[6], they are the three within the inner circle of the twelve[7] because each of them will need prophetic revelation to fulfil God’s call on their lives. Peter needed to witness the glory of Christ because in time he would bear the weight of being the public leader of the Church (Acts 2:14 etc.), James needed to be strengthened because he would be the first of the twelve apostles put to death (Acts 12:1-2), and John needed a heavenly disclosure for his long intimacy with Jesus[8] which would climax in his writing of the book of Revelation being written as the testimony of Jesus, indispensable to the Church[9] for its faithfulness of witness to the glorified Lord (Rev 1:1ff.)[10] under persecution. We are told that Jesus went up the mountain to pray. Speaking of the importance of prayer, are you aware that some folk are foretelling that the diocese of Perth will split over the ordination and acceptance of practising homosexual clergy[11]. As far as I am aware, no one has called the diocese to prayer over this controversy. I cannot understand this at all![12] In Luke’s Gospel especially, dynamic things happen when Jesus prays[13]. Likewise, virtually all the major revelations of Christ in my life have come whilst I was in prayer. Now for the main part of this story.

The Cloud of Glory

The centrepiece of this story is the transfiguration of Jesus’ appearance, “as he was praying, the appearance of his face was altered, and his clothing became dazzling white.”[14] (Luke 9:29). Some scholars have argued that this alteration of Christ’s appearance was an unveiling of the glory he had with the Father in eternity before he became human[15]. I believe that this is looking in the wrong direction, most importantly for us[16], the transfiguration is a prophetic foretaste of all Jesus will become in his future glorification as a human being. This interpretation is strengthened when we notice that Moses and Elijah were talking with Jesus of “his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem” (Luke 9:31). The word translated as “departure” is literally “exodus” (έξοδος), like the supernatural exodus of the Israelites out of Egypt. It points us to Jesus coming Passover lamb like sacrifice (1 Cor 5:7), his resurrection from the dead and ascension into heaven. If the fall of humanity into sin brought our disfiguration into a jumbled human mass deprived of glory[17] (Rom 3:23) and unlike God (Gen 5:1), the transfiguration is a vision of what we will be like at the End when everything that Jesus has attained for us will be fully revealed in us[18]. Popular artists sometimes write and sing about human beings as “perfect”[19] but the hard reality in this week’s news report is that record numbers of Australians are on antidepressants[20]. I can never forget how as a young person I became incredibly depressed when I tried to think about life logically, “if this life goes nowhere, its worth nothing”. Thankfully there’s good news in the gospel, “Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. 3 And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.” (1 John 3:2-3)[21]. The key, or secret if you like[22], of living as a Christian is to live in this currently broken world through the presence and power of the future which has broken into the present in Christ[23]. Everything depends on Jesus accomplishing his “exodus” from Jerusalem[24]. It is in Jerusalem that Jesus must fulfil[25]/bring to the fullness every promise given by his Father for God’s people through the Law and the Prophets, whom Moses and Elijah symbolise. All that Jerusalem represents[26] in the Bible will come to completion in Christ her King (Ps 48:2; Matt 5:35) who will die and rise there.

You will find what I am now about to teach either shocking or liberating. If you understand it that is. In being a real person who took on a weakened human nature[27], to endure until the end (Matt 10:22; 24:13; Heb 3:14; :11; Rev 2:26), Jesus needed the encouragement of what Moses and Elijah had become. Both men had such painful lives in dealing with the rebellious Israelites that they pleaded with the Lord to take their lives (Ex 32:32; 1 Ki 19:4), now however they “appear in glory” (Luke 9:30-31) to strengthen Jesus on his way to the cross. One of the stories in the Bible that reminds me most of the transfiguration is the story of the stoning of Stephen as the first Christian martyr. When Stephen testifies to the Jewish leaders, who had recently handed Jesus over for crucifixion, “I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”, they lost all self-control cast him out of Jerusalem and stoned him to death. They refused to believe that the future glory of Israel was in Jesus alone and held on to the glories of the old[28] covenant. Just as the glory which shone around Jesus at the transfiguration strengthened him for his coming final trials, so Stephen’s vision of Christ empowered him to die for the Lord.

The Cloud of Witnesses[29]

At the conclusion of its chapter on faith (ch. 11), the book of Hebrews tells its hard pressed readers[30], “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” (12:1-2). For the first century audience the witnesses were the saints and prophets of the old covenant. Jesus himself was inspired from childhood by the stories he heard in the synagogue about God’s power in the lives of the likes of Samuel, David and the prophets. Now he needs two of this great cloud of witnesses to be sent down by the Father from heaven in their glory to encourage him to keep going until the end no matter how hard the race may be. If you are a follower of Jesus, you need the presence and power of future glory to faithfully get through the trials and tribulations of present life (John 15:20; 16:33; 1 Thess. 3:3; 2 Tim. 3:12; [Mark 10:30; Luke 22:28, 29; Rom. 8:17; Phil. 1:20; 2 Thess. 1:5; 2 Tim. 2:12; 1 Pet. 5:10; Rev. 1:9]).

If in following Christ the early believers needed to be encouraged by a cloud of witnesses, we too need such spiritual witnesses if we are to, “fight the good fight…finish the race…keep the faith.” (2 Tim 4:7). Let me give a simple practical example of what I am saying. Here are a few biographies of Christian people that I’ve read over the years: St Francis of Assisi, Francis Xavier, George Whitfield, John Paton, Hudson Taylor, William Booth, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Amy Carmichael, Geoff Bingham, David Wilkinson.  Presently I am reading the life story of Karl Barth. I read these works for their testimony of how the Lord worked in the lives of the men and women in the story. Reading the witness of men and women of God imparts insights into the glory which is ours in Christ. I cannot afford not to read stories like these, and I exhort you to do the same. Why spend time in reading about people who have nothing to teach you for eternity!

Conclusion

The transfiguration teaches us that we need to live with our “head in the clouds”, not in the sense of an escapist abstract daydream world but having our thinking in the future glory which is revealed to us in Christ[31].  As I read the Bible, consider the “great cloud of witnesses” from across the history of the Church, and reflect on my own life following Jesus, I inevitably conclude that struggle and suffering are integral to what it means to be a disciple[32]. The message of the transfiguration, delivered first by Moses and Elijah to Jesus, and to Peter, James and John, and now through the scriptures to us, is that all the struggle and suffering to remain faithful to the Lord, whether in small things or large, is worth it.

In one of his books my old mentor Geoff Bingham tells how being in a Japanese P.O.W. camp for 31/2 years gave him X ray vision into the human condition[33]. This included the condition of his own soul. The prisoners in Changi camp were slowly starving and received a meagre ration of rice cakes daily for lunch. Geoff was in the habit, by strength of human will, as a “good Christian” to sacrificially always take the smallest cake on the plate. One day he was totally exhausted at this effort and on the edge of giving everything up for good, including his faith in God and his Christian conscience by reaching out and taking the largest of the cakes[34]. Then he had a miraculous inner revelation of the beauty and goodness of God’s commandments which empowered him through prayer and the love of God for others to keep on taking the smallest cake, no matter what anyone else could see or think about his reasons for such a sacrifice. This was a transfiguration moment for Geoff, so that later in life everyone who heard him teach or preach (ask Donna) knew there was something different about him. You could see something in him of the glory of the Lord.

Not everyone has had the privilege of such traumatic circumstances in which to experience a moment of transfiguration, but all of us have daily trials in which we struggle[35] and which are too hard for us to manage alone. These trials are God-given opportunities to overcome temptation for the sake of the coming of the kingdom of God. And the more we overcome trials in Christ’s strength (Rom 8:37) the more we have a revelation from the glorious future of what “God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Cor 2:9-10), so that, like Jesus, Peter, James, John, Stephen and the great cloud of witnesses, we can testify to the end that it has all been worthwhile for Jesus’ sake. No struggle to overcome means no transfiguration. So, I exhort you to join in the struggle to the end, for Christ’s sake.