Stop. Look. Listen.
Have you heard that phrase before? It’s used by parents and schools to teach road safety from a young age. Children, who often aren’t aware of their surroundings but rush ahead, are taught to stop when they come to the kerb, look for oncoming cars, and listen for approaching traffic. The aim is to teach children to slow down, stop and think before they rush ahead—and that’s an appropriate message for adults too.
In today’s Gospel reading, there could have well been a ‘Stop. Look. Listen’ sign on the mountain, as Jesus is transfigured before Peter, James and John. To fully appreciate this rather unusual episode, it’s so valuable to investigate what happens beforehand. In the previous chapter, Matthew 16, Jesus has been teaching the disciples about his identity. He asks the disciples what’s the word on the street about him. They answer: “Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, and others Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.”
“But who do you say I am?” Jesus asks them. Simon Peter answers: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
Peter is spot on. He understands that Jesus is the Christ…but from what follows we can see he doesn’t understand what that means. When Jesus began to reveal to them that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised—well, this isn’t Peter’s idea of how God would work, or how the reign of the Christ is supposed to be.
Up until this point, the disciples had witnessed the Kingdom of God powerfully at work through Jesus’ ministry. Jesus had demonstrated all authority over sickness and death, the forces of nature, and even evil. There is nothing Jesus can’t overcome! So, what’s all this talk of suffering and dying? How could Jesus bring about the long hoped-for restoration of Israel if he is going to be killed? To human ears that sounds ridiculous—not victory, but defeat! Suddenly, things don’t sound so glorious anymore. It doesn’t sound like Jesus and his followers will be free, but they will continue to be under the rule of the Roman empire and injustice will win the day.
So Peter took Jesus aside to set things straight. He tells Jesus that he can’t possibly be right: “Never, Lord! This shall never happen to you.” He is the Christ, so he must surely be victorious and reign with power, triumph, and glory, wiping out all the wrongdoers in the world, bringing to account those who are guilty, creating a victorious, just and mighty community to live in freedom, success and greatness forever!
But Peter is demanding Jesus conform to his will, trying to fit the wisdom of the all-knowing, all-powerful God into a mere human mind. And so Peter receives a rebuke of his own from Jesus: “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.” (Matthew 16:21-23).
It’s easy to be hard on Peter, because wouldn’t we who confess Jesus today “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” also expect Jesus to triumph mightily over all the forces of evil, injustice and suffering? It’s what the Prophet Habakkuk longed for too, centuries before, when he lamented:
Lord, are you not from everlasting?
My God, my Holy One, you will never die…
Your eyes are too pure to look on evil;
you cannot tolerate wrongdoing.
Why then do you tolerate the treacherous?
Why are you silent while the wicked
swallow up those more righteous than themselves? (Habakkuk 1:12-13).
In other words—God why won’t you do something!?! You are eternal and holy, so why do you let mortal wicked humans triumph like this?! That’s not too far off from what Peter was thinking, and it’s what we often think—even demand—too: God do something, and wipe out evil! But if God wiped out evil…there’s one big problem with that, as the Psalmist points out: “If you, O Lord, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand? (Psalm 130:3).
If God worked in the ways we humans expect he should—if Jesus did what Peter expected of him: unleashing his authority and power in an awesome display against his enemies, taking them prisoner or putting them to the sword—none of us would be left. If Jesus did as Peter expected, coming as the long-promised Christ to bring about a triumphant empire on earth free of all evil, wrongdoing, suffering and problems…none of us would be citizens of it.
If God kept a record of sins, no-one could stand…but the Psalm continues: “But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be revered. (Psalm 130:4).
“With you there is forgiveness.” That’s why Jesus’ suffering must come before glory—to bring forgiveness of sins for the world. The Cross must come before the resurrection. The Holy One will pollute himself with the unholiness of his people. The innocent and righteous one will pay for the guilt and unrighteousness of his people. He will bring freedom by being taken prisoner himself. He will be lifted high by being lifted up on a Cross. Just one drop of his precious blood makes the foulest clean. By his death, he brings life to the world. That which makes him look weak and deserving of ridicule, ushers in his hour of glory, making him worthy of praise.
So Jesus takes Peter James and John with him up a high mountain, and was transfigured before them. Jesus wasn’t changed, because Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8). But for a moment his divine nature is revealed, the glory he had from eternity with his Father, bursting forth in dazzling brightness. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light. Just then, Moses and Elijah appeared, talking with Jesus. Perhaps their appearance represents that the Law and Prophets are fulfilled in Jesus—he has come to bring the Old Testament Law to its sharpest point, and meet its righteous requirements for us.
The disciples are granted this fleeting revelation of God’s glory for their encouragement. Jesus’ suffering and death will not be failure. Jesus’ suffering and death is precisely how God did do something to rule over evil. It is how he won forgiveness of sins, reconciling sinners and restoring his people to himself. It is how he rescues us from our body of death. It is how he won the victory over Satan and evil and ransomed you from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light (Colossians 1:13-14). And so, the disciples are given a preview of what all of God’s faithful people will finally experience in heaven for eternity.
Peter knows there is something deeply significant about this revelation. “Lord, it is good for us to be here. If you wish, I will put up three shelters―one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.” It seems he has in mind the week-long Festival of booths God instituted in Leviticus 23, commemorating how the Israelites lived in shelters after God had rescued them from Egypt; a festival which is connected with the final, joyful rescue and restoration of Israel (Zechariah 14:16).
Peter definitely wants to stay in the moment. He wants this mountain top experience to remain. But he’s forgotten the lesson he was just taught: his ideas are totally out of sync with God’s. He should stop, look and listen before making such bold plans. So before Peter can even put on his hard hat and toolbelt, God puts a stop to it: a bright cloud enveloped the disciples, from which came the Father’s voice: “This is my Beloved Son, with him I am well pleased. Listen to him.”
When the disciples heard this, they fell facedown to the ground, terrified. I would have thought the disciples would have been frightened by the sudden change in Jesus’ appearance; trembling in the presence of the dazzling light of the Lord. Yet did you notice that it isn’t the dazzling appearance of Jesus that makes them terrified, but what the Father says. God’s holy word is a fearsome thing: “This is my Beloved Son, with him I am well pleased. Listen to him.” Just as God spoke atop Mount Sinai, these words are words of law also, because the Father is telling Peter he must turn away from his own assumptions about God’s will. He must not look to his vision of what he thinks he should be doing, and God should be doing. He must stop running ahead, railroading his plans into God’s. He needs to stop, look and listen to Jesus.
Terrified, the disciples fall facedown to the ground. The Father has brought a stop to Peter’s plan.
He has brought them low, to a posture of humility, to one of submitting under his authority. He has brought them to look away from their ideas and strategies. They can’t look at anything else in that posture, other than dusty, rocky ground.
But God’s Law is for the purpose of pointing to the gospel. Jesus came and touched them. “Get up,” he said. “Don’t be afraid”—another way of Jesus saying “Peace be with you” to bestow peace on his people. When the disciples look up, they see Jesus only. They have received peace so that they might no longer be afraid, but get up as free people, focus on Jesus alone, listen to him, and follow him in peace as they travel back down the mountain to walk along the plain.
How might the disciples’ experience of Jesus’ transfiguration be our own? Don’t we also long for God to bring an end to the evil, injustice, selfishness, greed and violence we hear of in the news each day, expecting good things to happen to those who we judge as good, and expecting evil to those who we judge as evil? When do we set our mind on the things of man, not on the things of God?” What image of God do we try to confine him to? What shelters of our own making do we look for refuge in? How are we like Peter, imposing our own plans of what we will build for our life according to our blueprint, while in the next breath saying we are following Jesus?
Lent is just three days away now, and the Cross is looming large. Like the disciples, we too can easily be discouraged. It might seem that God is out of control, inept or weak. But Christ is the victor and his Kingdom reigns on earth. God would have us to stop, fix our focus on Jesus, and listen to him. Sometimes God puts a stop to our plans so that the only shelter we have left is Jesus. Sometimes he shifts our focus away from the things we gaze upon, so that we would again look only to Jesus. We are not to build other shelters in which to huddle, but Jesus is to be our only refuge from the evil and storms we see and experience. The Cross is the only place that gives sure hope to people in the world, and even the church, who are anxious and afraid. His word is to be the only guide for our path.
When the disciples heard the Father speak from the cloud, they fell facedown to the ground, terrified. Maybe because the magnitude of God’s glory showed them their sins, failures, and guilt, highlighting their unworthiness to be in the blinding light of God’s holy presence. Maybe they were terrified because they dared to tell God how it should be, and what he needed to do to fit into their will, their plans.
We too are unworthy to be in the presence of God’s brilliant light. But Jesus reaches out to you and says, “Don’t be afraid.” Don’t be afraid of your past, present or future. Don’t be afraid of what you see or hear of escalating violence and lawlessness. Don’t be afraid of what might become of the world, the church, or of your life. Don’t be afraid of grief, or loss, or even of death. Don’t be afraid of not having enough. Don’t be afraid in your journey of sickness. Don’t be afraid of being unloved. Don’t be afraid when you can’t see the light, but only darkness. Don’t be afraid when your situation seems too broken to be mended. For Jesus was crucified for you, and on the third day rose again, to be the living Lord with you. He comes to make his face to shine on you, raise you up, and transfigure shame, guilt, fear, hurt, pain and darkness to wholeness, light and life eternal. So: Stop. Look. Listen. Because through faith in his Son, your Father in heaven says to you: “You are my beloved with whom I am well pleased.” Amen.
Pastor Tim Ebbs
St Paul’s Lutheran Church, Glenelg
Transfiguration Sunday, 2023
QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION:
“Sometimes God puts a stop to our plans so that the only shelter we have left is Jesus.”
- How does Peter’s experience of Jesus’ transfiguration show us that God’s ways are not our ways?
- What picture do you have of God? What do you expect him to be doing?
- Have you ever found yourself trying to bargain with God, coaxing him to provide certain outcomes?
- Did God comply, or do something different? Could you learn anything from this experience?
- What shelters do you/have you built to cope in the struggles of life? What (or who) is the shelter God has provided?
- At what times in your life did you need to stop, look, listen (to God)?
- What caused Peter, James and John to fall facedown in fear?
- What did Jesus do after his Father spoke from the cloud?
- What are Jesus’ only words in this text? What do they mean for you?
- In what situations in your life at the moment do you need peace?
- How can looking to Jesus only, help you?
