Transfiguration to Transformation

 

Matthew 17:1-9

 This mountaintop experience is supposed to make us think of God’s revelation to Moses, and later Elijah, on Sinai, though it is most certainly another mountaintop.  Unlike Moses at his last mountaintop experience, Jesus WILL go down into the valley, though like Moses, to die.

 It is clear in verse 21, that Jesus is now going toward Jerusalem, and it is clear why.  His mission is before Him.

Peter, James and John secure a true witness to this transfiguration event.  They are caught up in something that is far greater than are they, and their reaction shows it.  Peter is still lobbying to avoid any movement toward a mission that ends in Jesus’s death, despite the rather harsh lesson he was taught by Jesus previously.  Jesus is determined to fulfill it, so they would not stay on the mountaintop to bask in Jesus’ glory.

 Jesus, on the mountaintop, is joined by Moses and Elijah – the Law and Prophets, the Deliverer and the Agitator.  They are all that is great of God’s activity on behalf of God’s people.  They are about Justice and an end of oppression.  They are about service to God through serving God’s people.  These are the greatest, most awesome authority figures of the past.

 God’s voice instructs the Disciples to listen to JESUS.  He is now Law and Prophets, Deliverer and Agitator, bringer of justice and an end to oppression.  Jesus will serve God by serving God’s people, even to giving His life for them/us.  Listen to HIM.  Jesus is your authority on faithfulness to God.  Jesus is the one who will now stand up to empire’s rulers, corrupt Kings of Israel and the religious leaders who support them.  Jesus will speak truth to power and take God’s people from the bonds of servitude in their hearts and minds, delivering them to a place of empowerment and the transformation of the world.  Jesus is the voice of God, the logos made flesh, who dwells among us, giving up His glory until His mission is done.  Jesus redeems lives and transforms the world through His Good News of agaph.  Listen to HIM!

 Though some would like to stay on the mountaintop and bask in the glory of Jesus, we as the followers of Jesus are called to go down with Him into the plain, toward the seats of corrupt power in order to reclaim them from empire.  Like Peter, we know that nothing is better for us than to bask in the enshrined moment of glory.  But the people of God are being oppressed, abused and victimized in the plain, where they live.  We are called to be with the people in their oppression as the church, transforming the world with the agaph that Jesus, our authority on faithfulness to God, has commanded us to live.  That means actively committing our lives to resistance to the ways of empire.  It means living the Way of Jesus in the world and addressing the insidious evils of empire with the Good News of transformative agaph.  We are commanded to committed action on behalf of those who are being oppressed.   We are ekklesia, the called-out ones, like Moses, like Elijah and like Jesus, who speak truth to power and demand justice in the world.  In order to do that, our hearts and minds and bodies must not be removed from the world and secluded from the ways of it, but in the midst of it, addressing these evils. 

 The church is not to be about staying in comfort or glory, but about addressing and confronting the evils of empire in the world that hurt so many of God’s children.  We are called out to go where Jesus went.  It is about the work of sacrifice for all.  Being servants of God’s Will, we are to know the Glory of Jesus, that Glory which Jesus gave up, but take that message from transfiguration to transformation in the world.  It is a fearsome thing, but Jesus tells us not to be afraid.  We are on the right side of this, regardless of what others who give their devotion to empire might say or do.  Our faithfulness to God and God’s children means that we must boldly and with great determination engage in committed action that rights the wrongs of empire through the living of agaph in the world.  The Glory of Jesus is in faithful obedience to the Will of God that all of God’s people have Shalom (completeness, wholeness, well-being that bring real peace) in the world.  Our only glory is in following Jesus’ Way of agaph to bring that about in this part of God’s Kin-dom, here and now.

 Any denomination, congregation or follower that bears the name of Jesus is called to do this agaph work, off the mountaintop, in the lives of the people and in the face of those in corrupt power.  Witnessing the Glory of God in Jesus, we are called to move from Transfiguration to Transformation of the world through agaph.

 HOW GOOD, LORD, TO BE HERE!  YOUR GLORY FILLS THE NIGHT; YOUR FACE AND GARMENTS, LIKE THE SUN, SHINE WITH UNBORROWED LIGHT.

HOW GOOD, LORD, TO BE HERE!  YOUR BEAUTY TO BEHOLD WHERE MOSES AND ELIJAH STAND, YOUR MESSENGERS OF OLD.  

FULFILLER OF THE PAST AND HOPE OF THINGS TO BE, WE HAIL YOUR BODY GLORIFIED AND OUR REDEMPTION SEE.

BEFORE WE TASTE OF DEATH, WE SEE YOUR KINGDOM COME; WE LONG TO HOLD THE VISION BRIGHT AND MAKE THIS HILL OUR HOME.

HOW GOOD, LORD, TO BE HERE!  YET WE MAY NOT REMAIN; BUT SINCE YOU BID US LEAVE THE MOUNT, COME WITH US TO THE PLAIN.

                                                                                                                 Joseph A. Robinson 1858-1933