Listen to Him

Each year at this time, you and I are invited to climb a certain mountain with Jesus, Peter, James, and John. The journey takes place just before Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent. It’s a strange journey, shrouded in mist, and at the same time bathed in blazing light. On this journey we are invited to see ourselves, but more importantly, we are invited to see Jesus. Not the Jesus we think we know, not the Jesus the world expects to see, but Jesus as he is, revealed by the living God.

To see Jesus in this way is disconcerting, unexpected, upsetting to the equilibrium. We stumble down the mountain rubbing our eyes and questioning our own experience. Yet each year we are brought back to this Mountain of Transfiguration in order to climb, to pray, to see the face of God revealed in Jesus of Nazareth, and to return to our ordinary lives, following him.

As a preacher I admit that I approach the Feast of the Transfiguration with considerable trepidation. Preachers like to explain things, to simplify the complicated, to reduce the ineffable to a three-point outline introduced by a funny story and summed up with a poem. The story of the Transfiguration will not yield itself to such manipulations.

I can report to you some of what careful readers have found in this story, but I cannot tell you "what it means." Ultimately, I must take my place with you, and with Peter, John, and James, as the cloud engulfs us, the glory surrounds us, and the voice summons us, "This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!"

Within Luke’s Gospel, this story is a reply to those who are wondering who Jesus is. It’s a response, for instance, to King Herod, who has heard rumors that Elijah has returned to earth, or that John the Baptist has been raised from dead and is going around the countryside calling himself "Jesus of Nazareth."

Herod doubts the rumors are true, but he’d still like to know more. "John I beheaded; but who is this about whom I hear such things?" Herod asks (9:9).

This story is an answer, too, to the crowds who have been saying that Jesus is John the Baptist, or Elijah, or one of the prophets. "No," the story seems to say, "not John, or Elijah, or Moses, but one who is greater than all of them."

Most of all, I think, this story is an answer to Peter’s own assertion that Jesus is the "Messiah of God." (9:20). It is a way of saying to Peter, "You’re right, but you don’t know the half of it. Follow Jesus all the way to Jerusalem, and you’ll discover that his messiahship is revealed not only by dazzling clothing and heavenly voices, but by rejection and defeat, by taunts and jeers, by blood and agony, by death and by resurrection"

"This is my son, my Chosen; listen to him."

"On a clear day," says the song, "you can see forever" -- especially from the top of a mountain. For these few sacred moments, all of us who have climbed up here are granted the opportunity to see Jesus for who he is, the Chosen, the Messiah, the very Son of God. But as soon as we try to capture that moment, to pin it down, to build booths, to get it all on a DVD, the mist thickens, the cloud grows dense, the moment of enlightenment is past. We stand for an instant in a shaft of light that reflects the glory of God’s only Son, and immediately the clouds roll in, the brilliant image fades, the darkness descends.

The view from the mountaintop never lasts. That’s why, I think, Luke makes it very clear that the Jesus who is revealed as the Son of God upon the mountain is the same Jesus who leads us down again. "Keep your eyes on him," Luke is telling us. "Listen to him."

The context into which you and I descend from the Mount of Transfiguration is different from the one at the foot of Luke’s mountain. In our context Herod is not King and Caesar is not Emperor. There are fewer beggars on the streets than in Jesus’ day, and none of us lives in fear that a Roman soldier will compel us to carry his pack for a mile.

In many ways, however, the scene at the foot of the Mount for us is much the same as it was for Jesus’ first disciples. Like them, we lose sight of Jesus. Like them, we forget what we saw and heard in those moments when our faith was strong and our vision clear. Lesser gods still compete for our attention and allegiance. Their names have changed, but their voices are no less alluring.

Off the mountain we must contend with the voices of post modernism. They tell us all truth is culturally conditioned, and all religions pretty much the same in their presumption that their particular meta narrative tells the truth for everyone. What we saw up there was not the truth; it was merely a projection of our cultural bias.

We must also contend with voices who accept Jesus as a wise teacher, but not the Son of God. He was merely a wondering sage dispensing wise sayings and good advice. Let me tell you something. If I have learned anything from years of preaching, it’s that people don’t listen to advice. If the world could be saved by good advice, God would have sent us a seminar and not Jesus. We don’t need advice. We need redemption.

In such an atmosphere we begin to doubt what we saw and heard on the mountain. Perhaps the voice didn’t say, "Listen to him." Perhaps it said, "Listen to your inner child." Maybe it wasn’t Moses and Elijah we saw up there. Maybe it was Dr. Phil and Rosie O'Donnell. Maybe Jesus isn’t the Messiah, the Son of God, the Chosen One in whom God’s glory abides. Maybe he’s just a metaphor for our individual spiritual journeys, a symbol of our need for self-validation.

Down here in the valley, it’s hard to be sure.

That’s why the story of Transfiguration should not be told by itself. A second story goes with it. A man brings his son who is possessed by an unclean spirit. The unclean spirit regularly seizes the child and convulses him. The father begs Jesus to cast the spirit out. "I beg you to look at my son," the man tells Jesus, "he is my only child" (9:38).

I don’t think Luke’s choice of words is accidental. On the mountain the voice from the cloud said, "This is my Son . . ." Off the mountain, this suffering man says much the same. "Look at my son . . . my only child."

It seems to me that Luke is telling us that in order to hear the first story – the story of Transfiguration – we must also hear the second story – the story of this anguished father who is desperate to relieve his son’s suffering. Jesus casts out the unclean spirit and heals this man’s only son. "And all were astounded," Luke reports, "at the greatness of God."

There will come a time in Luke’s Gospel when Jesus himself will be seized and convulsed and hung upon a cross. There will come a moment when we will be asked to look upon him without the dazzling garments, without the confirming presence of Moses and Elijah. By then he will be not the transfigured Messiah but the crucified Messiah. There will be no voice from a cloud then, just the memory of voices we hear today:

This is my son . . . my only son . . . Listen to him. Look at him . . .

Will we be astounded then by the greatness of God? Or will, we, with the rest of humankind, turn away from that sight? Jesus is the Christ on the Mount of Transfiguration this morning. Before him we are glad to sing our "Alleluia’s." But will he still be the Christ on the hill of Calvary?

I don’t know about you, but I don’t know if I can bear to look at the suffering of that Son or the anguish of that Son’s Father. Yet Luke seems convinced that the good news doesn’t hinge upon what we can bear, but upon what the Father and the Son bear for us.

Let us linger as long as we can on this mountain, where the air is fresh and clean, and where we can see forever – beyond the valley, beyond the hill scarred by three crosses, beyond the empty tomb – all the way to eternity.

Then, when we are called, let us go down, following him.