Christ Church, February 6^th, 2005: 6.00pm

Matt 17:1-8

It seems very fitting that we turn our thoughts to the Transfiguration on this last Sunday before the start of Lent. It places firmly before us who Jesus is, before we concentrate our minds on his passion and his death on the Cross. It reminds us of his divine glory, but also on the fact that there can be no glory without suffering.

So often we want to short-cut the suffering bit and as we read the Transfiguration narrative we can see that it was just the same for the disciples, and how fitting that when Peter, James and John come down off the mountain with Jesus they are confronted with the other disciples struggling with how to deal with a demon-possessed lad. How Satan tries to get in on the act after any ‘mountain-top’ experience which we are granted. He wants to abort what happened!

Jesus takes that core group of his disciples up a mountain and there he is ‘transfigured’ before them. They see, if you will, the ‘human veil’ torn away form Jesus; they see him in all his radiance and beauty, they see him with those patriarchs, Moses and Elijah, speaking of what must pass. Initially, and not surprisingly they are scared witless, but then after Jesus reassures them, they obviously enjoy it all, so that Peter wants to stay there with Jesus and build tabernacles for Jesus and for Moses and Elijah as well.
 Yet, although the disciples were bathing in a sort of spiritual sauna, in the light of the divine glory, they remained in the dark concerning the true mission of Jesus. For them, the glory is all they can see and its allure is captivating. They are not alone. We also try to escape from the ugliness of world and from the continual humiliation, hardship and suffering which our daily responsibilities force upon us. Basically we just want to sit down and enjoy the light of the glory. Even in the church, the theology of glory seems more appealing, more captivating, than the theology of the cross.

Peter, you see, had trouble distinguishing Jesus' preaching from that of Elijah and Moses. He does not yet recognize that with Jesus, something radically new is taking place; something radically new in God’s dealing with mankind.  He wants to make  tents for everyone who seems glorious. He didn’t realize that the glory of God, as preached by Moses and Elijah's under the terms of the Old Sinai Covenant, would, with its intense demands, rightfully kill him and anyone else whom it exposes. We also are easily blinded by a multitude of demands and confused by the persuasive voices which surround us, and we misconstrue God's glory as some sort of beautiful image or idea which we someday, somehow might attain. This image of glory is of our own making, however. It is shallow and has little to do with God’s real glory.
How frightening it is when the illusions we nurse are torn away, and God's glory descends upon us with crushing power! God's glory has no shimmering beauty for people who live by the Law and worship prescriptions for "success," religious or otherwise. God’s glory is a consuming fire, as the writer of Hebrews reminds us. At Sinai, Moes trembled with fear as God’s glory blazed.

For those who live by their ability to perform for him, God is finally an inferno of demanding wrath. The disciples initially cower on their knees in craven fear, because the God of glory had been revealed. Basically they realized, if unwittingly that they were way behind in their covenantal obligations, and the glory of God will ultimately consume them.

God’s glory and God’s wrath against sin are things we are not very comfortable with. But with the coming of Jesus, once we see this and recognize our plight there is hope, there is rescue
What those disciples needed  -- what we need -- is someone to stand between us and the consuming glory and purity of God. So, when we are weighed down by the infernal glory of God and struggling under God's legal-covenantal demands, someone touches us lovingly and says "Get up and do not be afraid." This is the Lord, who has placed himself in the line of fire for us. He is willing to be burned in order to be our shield. And his merciful touch wins out over the consuming hand of fire. Still, that was his vision that he had to bring all along -- as the voice echoes the words at his baptism “This is my beloved Son. Hear him”
This is the lesson of the Transfiguration; the lesson as we move on into Lent: Listen to Jesus! To listen to him; to have faith: that  transforms us with freedom in the midst of consuming glories. God has entered a world full of competing claims and voices, and has given us the voice of One we can trust. By faith, we (as Paul reminds us in Romans 6) die with him, and rise with him, the Law has lost its power to kill us. We need not listen to new-sounding versions of the deadly old prescription. Trusting Jesus' vision, we no longer seek glorious works or visions. We live fearlessly in Jesus' vision now and always -- the glory in the cross which only faith can grasp.

Now we are free!; free to do his work. Dying to ourselves and rising with Christ, we need no longer fear losing our glory through servanthood.. We become instruments of Jesus' life-giving voice and touch. We can now see Jesus’ glory fow what it is, and see and not be stricken with fear, with craven fear but with the fear of holy awe, in the certitude we have One who covers us, who reveals himself to us for who he is: Saviour, Redeemer and Lord. What a vision! What a Lord!