Matthew 17:1-13 - A Glimpse of His Glory

We study through books of the Bible here at the village chapel.

We have some extra copies.

If you didn't bring one and you'd like a paper copy to uh leaf through as we as we study Matthew 17 this morning, raise your hand up real high.

Somebody will drop one off into a row.

Your aisle, a couple over there, and a couple over this way as well.

Thanks so much to these folks for doing this.

This uh passage, Matthew 17, 1 through 13, is part of our greater study of Matthew, which we're calling the King and His Kingdom.

And uh today we'll be talking about uh taking a glimpse of his glory, just as uh Matt said it was his uh 32nd uh anniversary, which I'm so excited for, love that, honor that.

Um this week was my birthday since we're sharing personal things, okay?

It's my birthday, and I'm I'm I'm so glad to be 34 again uh for the second time.

Um and uh I and I I uh was reflecting back on my life and trying to remember some of the things I enjoyed doing as a kid, and I was thinking about things like, you know, I love to go outside, and I still love to go outside.

I'm I'm an outside kind of guy.

I love doing that sort of thing.

I loved riding my bike, I loved uh eating as much dessert as mom would let me.

Uh I loved watching my favorite TV shows like Zorro, Roy Rogers, and the masked man himself, the Lone Ranger.

So four of you know what I'm talking about.

That's good.

Uh and every year, as uh as I was growing up around Christmas time, we'd watch that 1939 American musical fantasy, The Wizard of Oz.

How many of you have seen The Wizard of Oz?

Oh, most of us, good, that's good.

You can fill in the blank then, Toto.

I've got a feeling we're not in we're off to sea.

And why?

Because, because, because, because, because no place like some water.

It's beautiful.

Okay, good.

Okay, that's one of those songs that we all know that first part, and then we just start making up pepperoni pizza man.

I don't know what dominoes, dominoes.

I don't know the rest of the words.

I just know somewhere over the rim.

But you know that song was actually uh eliminated by the MGM executive when they were first uh putting the movie together.

It was actually kicked out of the, it was, it slowed the movie down too much, is what they said.

Later, it got put back in and won the Academy Award for Best Original Song.

And it's had, I think, something like well over four million downloads.

One of my favorite scenes in uh that movie is when the group gets back to the wizard's throne room, they stand trembling before the great Oz.

And then they got that literal peak behind the curtain, which I really loved.

I pulled the script off of the interwebs.

Dorothy tells the wizard, we've done what you've told us.

We brought you the broomstick of the wicked witch of the west.

We melted her.

And um, she places the broomstick by the throne.

We'd like you to keep your promise to us, if you please, sir.

And then there's some back and forth.

And the wizard of Oz gets a little exasperated.

He gets furious.

He says, Do not arouse the wrath of the great and powerful Oz.

I said, Come back tomorrow.

And uh meanwhile, little Toto walks over toward where the curtain is.

Remember the little dog Todo?

Um, and Dorothy says, if you were really great and powerful, you'd keep your promises.

Faithfulness.

And great is thy faithfulness.

That is something that's so important to us, isn't it?

It really is.

The wizard responds, Do you presume to criticize the great odds?

Toto pulls back the curtain.

And there's this man pulling levers, pushing buttons, and dialing knobs.

He says, You ungrateful creatures, think yourselves lucky that I'm giving you audience tomorrow instead of 20 years from now.

He looks over his shoulder and sees that they see him.

He says, Oh, he gets back in the mic, he says, The great Oz has spoken.

Oh.

And he says, Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

You remember that line too, I'm sure, don't you?

The great and Oz has spoken.

Who are you?

Dorothy says.

And the wizard says, I'm the great and powerful.

And then in a normal voice, not in the microphone, he says, Wizard of Oz.

And Dorothy says, Are you?

I don't believe you.

So amazing.

The wizard is ashamed now.

He says, I'm afraid it's true.

There's no other wizard except me.

And it was then that the six-year-old little Jimmy Thomas, yours truly, began to cry.

Along with hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of other children all over the world.

This peek behind the curtain was such a disappointment.

The wizard turned out to be just another person you couldn't count on.

Another faithless one.

Not to worry, those of you who haven't seen it, the movie ends well, or relatively well, but I won't spoil it by giving you the details.

Our passage today, which describes not merely a fantasy story somewhere in Kansas, but what presents itself as an actual historical event.

Complete with eyewitnesses.

In a real place, real geography, real people who later testified to being eyewitnesses of the event.

And we'll find out that this account is not just a nostalgic tale about going home and about having faith in yourself or clicking your heels three times.

Certainly not about just having faith in faith.

But it's about placing our trusting faith in the real person, Jesus Christ of Nazareth, the real Jesus of history, who, according to these rational eyewitnesses that we will hear from today, actually stood with one foot in the heavenly realm and one foot in the temporal realm.

And allowed Peter, James, and John a peek behind the curtain, us by extension.

And here, it's not just a clever little dog that pulls back the curtain on reality, but it's God Himself who literally rips the curtain in two.

And he invites us to catch a glimpse of his glory.

He pulls back the curtain on ultimate reality itself.

It's the story of Jesus in all of his splendor and all of his glory.

Reminding us that we need look no further.

He really is the one.

He really is powerful enough.

He really is loving and true and faithful.

And he can and he will keep his promises.

Let's take a closer look at Matthew chapter 17.

Matthew 17 · chapter mention

We'll read uh just really these 13 verses.

Uh, six days later, six days later from what?

What we read and studied last week.

So much thanks to our director of youth ministries, Ryan Mata, did such a great job leading us through this.

That last verse of chapter 16, truly Jesus speaking, truly I say to you, he's just predicted his death, by the way, and his resurrection.

He says, Truly I say to you, there are some of those who are standing here who shall not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.

Scholars debate back and forth, what does it mean till they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom?

What does that mean?

Is that the resurrection?

Is that the second coming of Christ?

Is that perhaps this thing we're going to read about today?

I lean in the direction of what we're going to read about today.

Why?

Because of its juxtaposition.

I think Matthew's very intentional about the way he orders his material and his themes.

And he wants to connect the dots.

But I think it could have a near fulfillment, a medium far fulfillment and a distant fulfillment, like much of Old Testament prophecy as well.

So six days later, connected to what just happened, Jesus took with him Peter, James, and John, his brother, and brought them up to a high mountain by themselves.

Don't know which high mountain it is.

Some have suggested Mount Hermon.

It's 25 miles north of the Sea of Galilee.

It's up near Caesarea Philippi, where chapter 16, most of that took place there at Caesarea Philippi.

So perhaps it's Mount Hermon.

It is a high mountain.

It is, it's 9,200 feet above sea level.

That's a high mountain.

It's snow-capped most of the year.

And that might have been the reason why Matthew included that adjectival modifier, high, when he said high mountain.

I don't know.

It could be Mount Tabor as well.

He was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his garments became as white as light.

That's fascinating.

For Jewish people, this would sound like the echo of another mountain experience in their long distant history.

When another really important figure shows up as he comes down the mountain with his face shining so brightly, he has to put a veil over it because he's really scaring the people quite a bit.

Exodus 32 tells that story.

You're welcome to look it up later.

Well, here Jesus is transfigured.

Peter, James, and John are seeing all this, his face shone like the sun.

That's pretty bright.

And his garments became white as light, and that's not an advertisement for some kind of new detergent.

This is just the description of an ancient man, an ancient, you know, accountant who's doing the best he can to describe something that was told to him by these three eyewitnesses.

And he's just saying, it was unbelievably bright.

The old Moses and Elijah appeared to them talking with him, talking with Jesus.

Interesting, Moses and Elijah both had mountaintop experiences as well.

You can read about those on your own if you would like to.

Peter answered and said, he responds, of course, he's the first one to respond most of the time.

He is quick with his mouth and sometimes slow with his mind.

But he's quick with his mouth here.

Lord, it is good for us to be here.

That's great.

What do you have a greeter at the door here?

That's always so glad you're here.

You know, just awesome.

Glad you're here.

And Peter's like, you're so glad I'm here.

You know, so aren't you?

It's good for us to be here.

If you wish, I'll make three tabernacles here.

One for two, you may have a translation that says three tents or three booths.

Uh one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.

And um so again, uh Peter's motto is if you don't have anything to say, say it anyway.

Um and just make sure it's about you.

You know, it's really important.

And um and here he wants to, and probably in his Jewish mindset, he's he's probably thinking back to the story of Moses and to the story of the Exodus and to the festival or the feast of booths, and and maybe it's that.

Um others have flippantly said, no, he just was setting up three merch tables, one for each, you know, of Jesus, uh Moses and Elijah, and he was just wanting to keep them together and and sort of move forward with the unfolding of the kingdom.

Now with this this dream team, this amazing group, you know, the Jesus, Moses and Elijah, move forward, right?

And just do it to get stay together.

While he was still speaking, and love this, verse five is awesome.

While he was still speaking, that is, literally while he's talking, okay, um, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them.

And a behold, a voice out of the cloud saying, This is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased.

Listen to him.

Okay, that's God the Father, um, literally saying, Peter, zip it.

It's time for you to stop talking because I really want you to hear from Jesus.

And I don't know about you, but I just sometimes that happens to me too.

I get into my prayers and I start doing all the talking, and I even start suggesting plans and timing schedules for the way God ought to do things, the way he ought to answer my prayers.

As if God needs my help in putting together the plan and determining which outcome is the best.

You know?

Is that you?

Some of you are smiling.

You know what I'm talking about.

You you've drifted it that direction with your prayers as well, perhaps.

And so the Lord speaks from this is my look at Jesus.

And when the disciples heard this, they fell on their faces and were much afraid.

And I think worship and submission like that is such a great response.

I think when you have an encounter with the living God, and by the way, if you've never trembled before the Lord, it man, I wonder how aware we are of how great he is, how holy he is.

I wonder if it's because we don't really recognize how great and holy and righteous he is.

I wonder if it's because we think we're smarter and like Peter.

We've got the plan.

Here, Lord, do this.

I wonder if that's what it is.

I wonder if my pride just gets in the way and I don't tremble enough.

And then, oddly enough, when I don't tremble before the Lord, I seem to tremble before other things.

I seem to fall into trembling about my career.

I seem to tremble about my significance.

I seem to tremble about aging.

I seem to tremble about all kinds of things because I'm not trembling before the Lord.

Well, Jesus came to them, and this is amazing.

Look at the way Jesus responds.

Jesus came to them and he touched them and he said, Arise, do not be afraid.

Most often repeated command of Jesus and of the heavenly representatives who come to the earth and appear, and this happens over and over again, all the way into the Old Testament with Gideon.

You know, we see it over and over and over again.

There's there's an angel, angelic figure, and they show up and they have a message from God, and they basically have to say, first of all, do not be afraid.

And that's good for us to be reminded.

He doesn't want us to be afraid.

He's alright with us trembling.

He doesn't want us to be afraid, though.

Lifting up their eyes, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone.

What that means, let me retranslate verse 8.

Moses and Elijah just disappeared when the subject of what we're trembling at came up.

God takes them out of the picture so that Peter doesn't try to equate Moses and Elijah with Jesus.

Because Jesus is a completely different thing.

Not to take anything away from Moses and Elijah, significant persons, to be sure.

I've got much to learn from them and how God worked in their lives.

But Jesus is altogether different, higher, more beautiful, more able.

Moses representing the law, Elijah representing the prophets, two really important figures in the Old Testament.

But God the Father said, no, no, no, no.

Jesus is different.

And I sometimes will say, you may have heard this, Jesus the greater Moses, Jesus is the greater Elijah.

And in a way, true.

But in another way, it just doesn't even work to put Jesus in the same sentence with any human person.

Because he's greater, exponentially greater, of a different kind of greatness altogether.

And so they saw nothing.

Now, 9 through 13, we'll read those as well, and then just make some comments.

9 through 13 is kind of interesting.

Much ink has been spilt trying to discern what this is all about right here.

So I'm going to start with letting you know that there's a little bit of kind of mystery here and a little bit of, wow, that's kind of interesting.

That's right.

And his disciples asked him, saying, What then, uh, or why then do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?

Interesting.

I didn't read verse 9, though.

I should read that.

As they were coming down from the mountain, Jesus commanded them, saying, Tell the vision to no one until the Son of Man is risen from the dead.

In other words, this thing you've just seen with Elijah, Moses, with the voice from heaven, with the clouds, the light, and all that stuff, don't tell anybody about that until the Son of Man is risen from the dead.

Isn't that interesting?

He just predicted his death and his burial and his resurrection back to the previous chapter.

And it's fascinating that he now is tying that back in again to this experience they've just had.

But he's telling them here's how you're going to be able to process that better.

Wait until I rise again from the dead.

Then it will make sense.

Okay?

And so they've been asked to kind of zip it in a way.

Hold, here's a secret.

Hold on to that secret.

Don't tell anybody about this.

And I can see them walking down the mountain going, dude, don't tell.

No, you've got the big mouth, Peter.

Don't tell anybody.

You know, and back and forth a little bit as they're heading, and they see the other disciples down the nine on the, you know, down on the bottom at the bottom of the hill or bottom of the mountain there.

But they do ask Jesus this, why then do the scribes say Elijah must come first?

He answered and said, Elijah is coming and will restore all things.

But I say to you that Elijah already came.

And they did not recognize him, but did to him whatever they wished, so also the Son of Man is going to suffer at their hands.

And then, verse 13, it's fascinating.

Matthew says, The disciples understood that he, Jesus, had spoken to them about John the Baptist.

Now you can look back if you want to in chapter 11, and you'll see that Jesus clearly says that John the Baptist is this voice of the one who's going to come and herald or announce the arrival of Messiah, and that he is Elijah.

I mean, Jesus makes it really clear.

And so it's one of those times where you find yourself going, which is it?

What's he talking about?

Is there a historical Elijah and also a symbolic Elijah?

That we would it would help us to understand it that way.

Are there Elijah-like things that are being done through a person like John the Baptist?

And perhaps even some Elijah-like things that we'll see in the life of Jesus Himself.

Or is this like on the mountain there, that kind of guy that was standing there with Moses and Jesus and talking, is that the historical Elijah and the historical Moses?

And then the combining of all of those thoughts make it quite an interesting mystery.

And as I say, much ink has been spilt on it.

But it it does nothing for somebody like me but make me go, wow.

Can't wait to have coffee with Elijah and with Moses when we all get home someday.

We're calling this a glimpse of his glory.

What's a glimpse?

Mike Demas used to come to this church, and he'd say a glimpse is the plural of glimpse.

Glimpse.

Bunch of glimpse.

I don't know what that is.

A glimpse is a temporary vision, a partial view, if you will, a glance at something.

And here we are, I think, given a glimpse of Jesus.

And it's really an amazing experience for Peter, James, and John.

But on Jesus' side of it, I don't think it was actually a big deal.

It's almost as if, in my crazy little mind, it's almost as if all he did was loosen his collar.

And there he is in the heavenly realm, and there he is in the human realm, both at the same time.

And yet he intentionally took these three guys up the mountain.

He took them up the mountain.

He wanted them to see this for a reason, and he wants us to see this for a Reason because he is working very hard to show us something more about himself without completely blowing us away with all of who he is.

And so my view is he just loosens his collar a little, and it's this big of an experience with him just doing that.

But then we shall see him face to face.

And one day is coming when he will set all things right and literally burn away everything that is at odds with God and at odds with God's true, good, and beautiful plan for God's creation.

Really interesting to me.

Well, I'm gonna just look at the four things that I think uh this thing uh helps remind us of about Jesus and the person of Jesus, if you'll allow me to do that.

The event in Matthew 17, commonly referred to as the Transfiguration, also presented in Mark 9 and Luke 9, if you'd like to read those this afternoon and just see.

There's some interesting uh additional material in Luke 9, for instance, uh from these records.

We can deduce that this event is probably about six months before uh the crucifixion.

By that time, the official religious establishment had pretty much rejected Jesus.

Some of them were even now planning to kill Jesus.

Since his own people were rejecting him, but it wasn't time for him to lay down his life just yet.

Jesus moved toward the geographic fringes of Israel.

There he is, way up north, Caesarea Philippi, really in pantheistic, polytheistic, and pantheistic territory, where all kinds of pagan deities are worshipped.

And that's where he says, Who do they say I am?

And that's a great question for us to ask in our day and time when people think that there are all kinds of different Jesuses, or there are all kinds of different gods and different ideas of who God is.

And the real question from the Bible is always this Who is Jesus?

That's what matters.

That's what the Bible keeps taking us back to.

And this event, indeed, was an astonishing revelation of his true self to these three disciples, so that they could become eyewitnesses to this whole thing.

Again, uh, probably Mount Hermon is my guess on it.

But I think this event has a strange parallel and a contrast to another upcoming major event in the life of Jesus.

It will happen on a hillside, not on a mountainside.

It will be right outside of Jerusalem.

Because what's interesting to me in part is where this event, the transfiguration, did not happen.

It did not happen in the temple.

It did not happen in Jerusalem.

It did not happen in a synagogue.

It happened up on a mountain, kind of on the fringes of Israel.

But here he's flanked by two of the Old Testament's most significant religious figures, Moses and Elijah.

In six months' time, Jesus will be flanked again by two other figures, brigands, thieves, criminals, only one of which will show Jesus any respect at all.

On this hilltop, or this mountaintop here, Jesus was bathed in the glory of heaven.

On the hilltop outside of Jerusalem, he'll be bathed in the sins of the world, including mine, including yours, and the darkness of all of that.

But here it's all splendor and glorious light.

There on the hillside at Calvary, clouds and darkness, as the light of the world will lay down his life for all of those whose redemption required his death.

The gospel, according to Luke, adds some other details in chapter 9, verses 28 through 36.

Read it on your own if you'd like later.

But they went up the mountaintop to pray, we were told.

And by Luke's.

And remember, Luke's the guy, he wasn't an eyewitness himself.

He did a lot of research and he wanted to present the exact facts to his friend Theophilus of what actually happened.

And so he did all this research.

And so the people he talked to said, yeah, they went up there to pray.

May he have even talked, Luke may have even talked to uh Peter, James, and John.

Um but one of them told them that the disciples also fell asleep during their prayers.

Raise your hands.

Is that you?

Fall asleep during your prayers?

Okay, nobody wants to be honest today.

Okay.

Okay, all the people online are raising their hands.

Good.

We love you.

Thank you for your honesty.

Um, Luke also tells us not just that Jesus, Moses, and Elijah were talking, but Luke tells us what they were talking about.

They weren't like just organizing a potluck dinner or thinking, how do we get Peter to set up a merch table for us?

That's not what they were talking about.

They were talking about his departure.

The word is exodus.

And it's his his being, his bringing the deliverance of God once again for the people of God.

Peter's mentioned building these three booths, as I say, may have been a reference to what happened in the Old Testament, that same event, the Exodus, if you will.

But the transfiguration of Jesus and how it offers such a clear revelation of Jesus as the ultimate fulfillment of God's promises of Messiah coming, of Messiah actually being able to save God's people, to save us.

Because he lived the life we couldn't live.

He fulfilled the law represented there by Moses, right?

He lived the life I can't live.

He fulfilled the law.

And they also fulfilled all of God's prophetic promises about Messiah coming.

Also, I love what this says about the nearness, the proximity.

It just implies that I can't venture too far this way.

But for all of us who have lost loved ones, this starts to, you know, we start to look at this, we go, my hope is in Jesus then, because Jesus is the one that actually can reach back into history somehow or another and pull two human personalities with visible bodies of some kind into the reality of the present, the eternal now that he lives in.

And somehow or another he does that.

He's the one we can trust.

What's interesting to me is that Moses and Elijah didn't come in on a spaceship.

They didn't come from some huge black hole in outer space, then just appear.

They did just appear.

And it happens over and over again throughout the scriptures.

Happened to Jacob, Joshua, Gideon, happened to Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace when everybody looked, and so is three, and then all of a sudden they look again, there's four in the fire.

And the fourth one is like a son of God.

You know.

What does this tell us?

There's a sense in which the heavenly realm is nearer than we think, is what I think it tells us.

But I'm speculating.

I can't, I don't think we can become uh really um uh very detailed about that, other than to say it's a gap that can be bridged by Jesus.

Uh it's a gap that God can bridge whenever He wants to.

And just to, you know, what's really great about it is to think that, good grief, you don't have to fly through Atlanta to get to heaven.

That's really great, right?

I would like it to be near, but I don't want to have to fly through Atlanta to get there.

That's really good for me.

I'm good with that.

Um I think we I think what we have here is a strong case for the continuity of human personality.

See, in our imaginations, in our fictional renditions of what we think of eternity and all that sort of thing, we can imagine, even into the future, we can imagine that we might get absorbed after we leave here.

We might get absorbed into the battery of the universe, you know, or something like that.

We can imagine all kinds of different things.

But here's God in this experience with Jesus, the real Jesus of history, with these three eyewitnesses that are actually going to remember this and write about it 30 years later.

And he's basically saying Moses and Elijah are recognizable, they can communicate, and it was a meaningful exchange with Jesus.

Perhaps in the new heavens and the new earth we'll recognize each other in some amazing way that we cannot even imagine right now, which I'm really excited about.

I look forward to meeting Moses, Elijah, Peter, James, and John.

I look forward to sitting down with Augustine Bernard of Clairvaux, whom this building is named after Francois Fenelon, C.S.

Lewis, D.L.

Moody, your loved ones, my own dad, who died when I was one.

I look forward to all of that one day.

And I think that this tells me right here that there is a continuity to our human personality.

So, that all said, I think the most important thing here is the glory of the sun.

This Jesus is completely different, completely other than anything we can imagine.

And so the glory of the Son is really on full display here.

The Bible tells us Jesus is the most unique individual who ever walked this planet.

He is one with God the Father.

He makes that claim.

You cannot trivialize his claims.

You have to take him at his word.

If he says, You've seen me, you've seen the Father, he's saying, I'm the same as God the Father.

So none of this nonsense about him just being a nice guy.

He's the unique Son of God, he's the living word of God, he's God's Messiah, he's the King of Kings, the Prince of Peace, Lamb of God, bread of life, the door or the way into God's kingdom.

He's the good shepherd, he's the light of the world, the way, the truth and the life, the resurrection and the life, and he's the true vine.

And this same John will later write, probably 60, 80, 90 years later, the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

He didn't just smite us on that mountain.

He could have, but his words are full of grace and truth.

Boy, I keep those two together.

I'm not so good at that.

That's one of the reasons our witness is not as strong as it could be in this world.

I tend to let one of the two sides of that slip.

Grace and truth.

Both.

One of the other guys up on that mountain that day, uh probably 30 years after, I'm gonna guess, around the time 2 Peter was written, the word became flesh and dwelled among us, and we have seen his glory.

Uh, excuse me, I'm reading John again.

Um Peter writes, For we did not follow cleverly devised tales when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

But we were what?

Eyewitnesses of his majesty.

For when he received honor and glory from God the Father, such an utterance as this was made to him by the majestic glory.

This is my beloved son, with whom I'm well pleased.

Exactly what God the Father said in Matthew chapter 17.

Matthew 17 · chapter mention

We ourselves heard this utterance made from heaven when we were with him on the holy mountain.

What made the mountain holy?

Not just that it might have had some Old Testament sort of storyline or anything of that.

What made that mountain holy was that Jesus was on that mountain.

And he was revealing himself on that mountain.

And when God's at work doing that kind of stuff, you are on holy ground.

Is he the greater Moses?

Yeah.

Is he the greater Elijah?

Yes, he is.

But he's greater than that, too.

Because like we've said before, uh, you just can't really find the words to describe how great he really is.

Secondly, here we see the imprimatur of the Father.

It's a second endorsement from the Father's voice booming from the heavens.

Our English word imprimatur comes from the 17th century Latin word imprimiere.

And I may or may not be saying that correctly, but you can look it up yourself later, which means let it be printed.

In other words, you want to know what God's like?

Jesus is what God is like.

He's the print.

He's the, if we could somehow or another get a picture, get a view of what God is like, it's Jesus.

The writer of Hebrews put it this way.

He's the radiance of the glory of God.

He's the exact imprint of his nature.

And he upholds the universe by the word of his power.

After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Mazen on high.

See, if Jesus holds together the universe by the word of his power, that makes him altogether different from Moses and Elijah and Jim and everybody else that ever lived.

He's the most unique one that ever lived.

I like the way John Clark and Marcus Johnson put this.

They said, God is fond of shattering the puny notions we harbor about him and the grand delusions we cherish about ourselves.

He shatters both simultaneously in his incarnation.

For in ironic and astonishing fashion, God brings about reconciliation between God and humanity from the side of God, not by repudiating our humanity, but by assuming it and becoming one of us.

He bridged the gap.

He threw open the curtain and said, see, it's not just a phony man pushing buttons and pulling levers.

There really is a connection with the heavens and with your creator if you want it.

And it's made not by you discovering him, but by him revealing himself to us.

I love the third point too, because the communion of the saints is here displayed as well.

One is uh surprisingly astonished by so many of the Old Testament connections right here in this story.

Images of a mountain, for instance.

There's uh Eden itself.

The Garden of Eden is referred to as Mount Eden over and over again in the Old Testament.

Mount Moriah, of course, we hear about Mount Sinai, Mount Hermon, Mount Tabor.

But those are that things get done on mountains is pretty interesting as you read through the Old Testament and even in the New Testament, the Sermon on the Mount.

There's a cloud thing here that's happening in verse 5.

Um, and of course, the Lord used a cloud to lead the children of Israel by day.

The same word overshadowed, you know, is being used here.

The same kind of word that's used of the language of the cloud that overshadowed the tabernacle with the glory of the Lord.

And a thick cloud covered it.

Um, the image from the Old Testament of tents and tabernacles, as I said earlier, is there, and that Peter wants to celebrate that event, which I think is what he's doing there.

If I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt in that whole thing, the persons and what they represent, Moses, the law, Elijah, the prophets, the connections to the Old Testament here with Matthew 17 are amazing.

And we've said it before.

Matthew is working really hard to connect the Old Testament for his Jewish audience to the person Jesus.

He quotes the Old Testament nearly 100 times.

Um does it say again about this life and everything that these Old Testament figures show up.

I think that's really possible.

Really, really amazing, really hopeful.

There's one simple and hopeful doctrine strongly implied in this event, and that's the communion of the saints.

Here he is, literally talking to Moses and Elijah.

And I wish we would have gotten a little snapshot, other than what we get in Luke, about them talking about his departure.

But I mean, it would have been just great to hear what kind of a voice does Moses have.

Does he sound like Charlton Eston?

I mean, what would he sound like?

I mean, what if he sounded more like Don Knotts?

I mean, wouldn't we wouldn't we find ourselves going, yo, what's going on with that voice, dude?

You know, no wonder some people were rebellious toward you all the time.

The communion of the saints.

The Christian hope is not the is not the immortality of the soul, a shadowy, disembodied existence, but the resurrection of the body, a perfect instrument for the expression of new life.

That from John Stott in a book that's out of print now called The Authentic Jesus.

But really, I love this because it reminds us a bit of what Sam Alberry, if you didn't hear the talk that he gave here, about what does God think about our bodies or what God has to say about our bodies.

I really encourage you to go back and watch that.

A great study about how you don't just have a body, you are your body.

And the connection of the two, designed by God.

So none of this sort of separate myself out and all that sort of thing.

No, this is your identity, it is a gift from God.

And you go, well, why'd you give me these ears?

Why'd you give me this nose?

You know, listen, raise your hand if you would change something about your body right now, if you could just snap your fingers.

Look at all the hands up, okay?

I can see hands up even online.

I mean, we'd all we'd all change something about ourselves.

We all find ourselves in that awkward position of going, this is a gift.

Yes, it's a gift.

And uh, and you just need to trust him.

He knows, he knows what he's doing.

See?

And there they are on the mountaintop, and he's getting ready to go to the cross.

And he's just said, I'm gonna be arrested, I'm gonna be killed, I'm gonna die, I'm gonna go to the cross.

And the disciples go, I don't understand what you're talking about, you know.

And and and and Peter tries to rebuke him, and then Jesus calls him Satan, rebukes him.

It's just this, we we always struggle because God's ways are not our ways.

His thoughts are not our thoughts, his thoughts are higher than our thoughts, and we just don't get it.

But there's a resurrection on the other side, and Jesus knows that.

The resurrection is a supreme vindication of Jesus' identity and his inspired teaching.

It's the proof of his triumph over sin and death.

It's a foreshadowing of the resurrection of his followers.

It's the basis of Christian hope.

It's a miracle of all miracles, and so the transfiguration for us, what does it mean to us?

Why, what's the bot, what's all the bother about this particular event?

It's Jesus saying, Look, you can trust me.

Not only am I so powerful as to be beyond description in terms of brilliant white, hot light, just from loosening my collar.

But not only that, but I can literally put personalities from literally 1,500 years ago and 900 years ago, respectively, and put them right here.

They're at my beck and call.

And that's not just ghosts, those are Moses and Elijah there.

He's gonna call my name, he's gonna call your name one day after he finishes with human history and does what he wants to do.

All right, so that changes everything for us.

The transformation of these disciples begins here as well.

The Greek word is uh metamorphoo.

I know I'm not saying it right.

It's metamorpho-o, something like that.

It's only used four times in the New Testament, two times in reference to the transfiguration of Jesus, here and in Mark chapter 9.

Mark 9 · chapter mention

And then that same Greek word, only four times in the whole New Testament, right?

That same Greek word is used not of Jesus later, but of you and me.

So what does a transfiguration mean?

If he can do that, what can he do with you?

What can he do with me?

Who have much smaller needs than his.

He's going to save the world.

I just have to learn how to get along with my neighbors, and not get crabby and grumpy when I don't have food in my body or something like that.

The Apostle Paul got a glimpse of this.

He said, Don't be conformed to this world, be transformed.

Metamorpho.

Be transformed by the renewing of your mind so that you may prove what the will of God is that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

And then the fourth and final use of that word in the Greek in the New Testament is, but we all with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror, the glory of the Lord.

Did you catch a glimpse of his glory this morning in reading this passage?

And again, for him, that's just an everyday experience.

That's not that big of a deal.

Um but we being uh being able to uh with unveiled face, behold as in the mirror the glory of the Lord, or being transformed, same word, into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord the Spirit.

In other words, you can.

Be patient with the work that God is doing in you.

Or let me rephrase that.

You can be patient with the work that God is doing in your spouse.

Or let me rephrase it.

You can be patient with the work that God is doing in your co-workers.

Or you, your neighbors, your spouses, your co-workers, all of that.

You can be patient.

Why?

Because he is doing something and he continues to work.

And he's just starting to roll up his sleeves to wrap this thing up.

See?

He's just loosening his collar.

And when he starts rolling up his sleeves, good grief, watch out.

What could he do?

What would he do here?

No other explanations have been offered in 2,000 years of sneering skepticism that can satisfactorily account for how the tomb came to be empty, how the disciples came to see Jesus, how their lives and worldviews were transformed.

These guys, these same guys, Peter included, will go back down off the mountain scratching their heads.

What about this Elijah thing?

I don't care what's going to be first?

I don't know.

I think I'm going to be first.

You're going to be first.

They're so they're going all over the place.

Their theology is developing as they go along.

Their Christology is being developed as they go along.

They're learning more and more about who He is, even as He reveals Himself to them.

But they're transformed because when Jesus is arrested and taken to be crucified, they scatter like whipped puppies.

They're so afraid.

And then God uses these very fearful cowards, inconsistent in their faith, uses those twelve guys to literally turn the world upside down.

Without firing a shot.

No guns, but okay, without firing an arrow, without firing anything, they turn the world upside down.

Why?

Because they have the story of this Jesus who literally can rise up from the dead.

I have two more quotes and then I'll finish up.

Perhaps you find yourself in need of fresh language for attributing greatness and power and glory to the God whom you worship in Christ.

He is not only great, but good.

Good in his greatness and great in his goodness.

That's beautiful.

He's not only big, strong, imposing, indomitable, omnipotent, he's beautiful, attractive, stunning, compelling, glorious.

He's the majestic one.

He delivered Israel at the sea.

And he delivered his church at the cross.

Isn't that interesting?

When you're backed up against the Red Sea, He can part the waters.

When you have to face death itself, which last time I checked, 100% of us will face at some point in time, unless the Lord returns before them.

But no matter, we know who has gone there and come back and who will one day call us from out of the grave as well.

I hope you'll pay attention this week.

Stay awake spiritually, watch for him, listen for him to call your name and speak to you.

Keep in mind who Jesus is and what he intends to do.

Lewis, I'll close with this quote from Lewis.

This world's a great sculptor's shop.

We're the statues, and there's a rumor going around the shop, that some of us are someday gonna come to life.

Let's pray.

Lord, thank you for bringing life to us.

Animate our souls and our spirits in a way that we can't do on our own.

We need you so desperately.

Um blow away the dark clouds that have beset some of us.

Um break open the stone crust around some of our hearts.

Um Lord, do do whatever you need to do to help us see you.

If it means climbing a mountain, if it means trembling and fearing a little bit, whatever.

But Lord, we need you.

You're our greatest need.

Um and so I pray for each and every one of us that we'll catch a glimpse of your glory today in Jesus' name.

Amen.

And amen.