(Luke 9:28-36) - Episode 31

Hey, welcome to the Sunday sit down where it's not Sunday, but

we are sitting down and I'm here with Pastor Grant back after a

few weeks away. And we're looking forward to

going a little deeper into this past week where we explored the

transfiguration from Luke Chapter 9.

Luke 9 · chapter mention

And this is like, it's a it's a bit of an odd story in some

ways. I know that like, you know, we

grew up. If you grew up in church, you

would have grown up listening to this story and reading about

this story and learning about this story.

But like when you sit back, it is a little odd.

It is, yeah. Yeah.

Can I just say it's great to be back, though.

Like, it's so much fun to be back.

We've taken too many tries getting this podcast started,

which has been wonderful. Like it's great to be back in

into the regular weekly flow of things, minus a vacation day

yesterday or a holiday for all of us.

But yes, transfiguration, it is a little bit strange, which

oddly didn't mention this explicitly in the sermon.

I think Luke kind of picks up on because he doesn't actually use

the word transfiguration, which I did mention.

So like in Luke's account, as opposed to Matthew and Mark,

when they tell the story, Matthew and Mark both use that

Greek word, which is the, you know, where we get the word

metamorphosis from. So they use the word that's

literally translated. He was transfigured, which does

have this seemingly like like big mysterious, like does he

look like himself kind of questioned behind it?

Like what really does he appear like?

Whereas Luke just says his his his face is closed.

Like everything was shining as bright as lightning, which is

still like really dramatic. But I think I said on Sunday,

like he doesn't shape shift. It's not like he becomes this

completely different person. He just reveals the fullness

like more of who he is right in his being.

Like I, I think we, you know, when we, when we picture Jesus

walking around with the disciples, I assume anyways, for

many of us, like it's easy to picture him walking around as a

human being. But we have this like theology

where we say Jesus is fully human, but he's fully God.

And then when he begins to reveal himself as fully God in

that full glory, power, awe and fear, the disciples are afraid.

We kind of go, yeah, we have a hard time picturing that.

And I think that's OK. You know, I think this is part

of the challenge of holding that theology of Jesus being fully

God and fully man. So we go, OK, I like the fully

human piece. I can picture that.

I can imagine what it looks like for Jesus to walk around.

And then we go, OK, fully God. But these are the moments where

given those glimpses into that full nature.

I wonder if, and I'm just picking up on this as you're

talking there, like I'm now thinking about, you know, Fast

forward, Jesus has died and been raised and, and they're

struggling to recognize him. Like they're, they're like,

they, it's like, it's like, it's him, but it's different, you

know, like he. Walks through walls.

Yeah, like. Beers.

Places. There, there is, there is an

element that that I'm kind of just thinking like, you know,

when, when Jesus is glorified in that way, you know, like it, it

feels like, yeah, something's different in his, in his

appearance to people. Yeah.

Yeah, but I think it is. So, you know, Luke, Luke

definitely describes the events in largely the same way as as

Matthew and as Mark, the two of the other gospel writers.

But he does it in a way that I think does kind of wrestle with

the, yeah, like, you're never gonna believe what happened, but

yeah, this is what happened. And the disciples, too, you

know, at the end. We didn't talk much about this

on Sunday, now through. So we've just come through a

chunk of nine of, of Luke 9 where Jesus tells people to be

silent. And in many instances where

Jesus tells somebody to be silent, they're not here.

Jesus doesn't say, oh, be quiet about this.

Don't tell anybody. They're so struck by awe and

fear, reverence, like the full, like the fullness of this.

They don't tell anybody they're silent almost by choice in this,

in this moment. So I think they're wrestling it

out as well, like what has just happened.

But it it is certainly a, it is a different event than many of

the ones like, I can't remember which commentary I was reading

in actually again today, pushing forward into the next few

passages over the next few weeks.

And one of the commentators writes along those lines, like,

we have better language. We see the healings.

We see these other things happen and they're miraculous.

But, you know, I think maybe it's because human beings are

involved here. It's like the only actor, the

only actor is God, right? Like everybody else is just

standing there witnessing the thing, you know, Jesus having

this conversation with Moses and Elijah, which maybe adds to like

the the mystery of it. It does for me because it it, it

kind of feels like I started thinking about it and I and I

started thinking about felt Star Wars.

And by that I by that I mean, I kind of like picture, like the

end of spoiler alert. If you have not seen the return

of the Jedi, that's the, the episode 6 right.

Return of the Jedi. Anyway, we're like, you know,

like at the very end and like you got like Darth Vader or

like, you know, Anakin, he was like, you know, in like a little

bubble in the they're kind of like, you know, saying hi,

waving away. The same thing happened 1 Obi

Wan Kenobi like. Same thing happens in Happy

Gilmore. Yeah, I wonder if that was

inspired. By for sure.

Absolutely it was, but like you almost kind of like picture

like, OK, how, how are our how is Moses and Elijah present?

In what way are they present? And I know that like in some

ways it doesn't matter, but I think for for, for in some ways

it's, it's, it's important to consider like what was the

nature of this event, right? And I know that, you know, when

you look at like Elijah, Elijah technically is one of the only

other years in the Scripture that doesn't die in the classic

sense. We think of.

We think of Elijah and then Enoch.

And so there was some sense even earlier in Luke 9 that, you

know, that Jesus was sort of the return of Elijah in some way

like that. He was the, the, this prophetic

figure in the same way of Elijah.

And maybe Elijah didn't die somebody, Elijah somehow

returned all these hundreds of years later.

Moses, however, did very clearly die, you know, and and so it's

just, yeah, it's, it's interesting.

It feels it's like it's, it's fascinating, fantastical, a

little a little challenging to grapple with.

Hmm Yeah, yeah, I I don't know how far we wanna go down this

path, but did you find it interesting that yeah, like

Elijah is one of these figures like you've mentioned who, who

doesn't die in the way that we, you know, we we would think of

or describe death. So in second Kings, I just

pulled this up, but it's second Kings 211.

He he's whisked away on on a chariot and it's literally it's

like mid conversation with Elijah.

So he in 10 he's Elijah says you've asked a difficult thing.

Elijah said. Yet if you see me when I am

taken from you, it will be yours.

Otherwise it will not. And then 11 as they were walking

along and talking together, suddenly a chariot of fire and

horses fire fire appeared separated the two of them.

Elijah went up to heaven in a whirlwind.

Elijah saw this and cried out like that's it.

Like mid conversation walking and talking.

Really fantastical. Equally, equally so, yeah.

But, you know, I think in terms of the way Scripture talks about

the interaction between what would what we would describe as

like heaven or the heavens and earth, like we really, you and

I've talked about this, I think on the podcast, like human

beings. I think certainly like 2025,

like we really like good solid delineation, borders,

boundaries. You know, I think we really like

to compartmentalize things. And so we think of, you know,

heaven's the place where we go when we die, uh, completely

spiritual. Spiritual is other, you know, if

we, if we have that even sort of theology or vision of what life

after death looks like, it is very different separated from

this like physical earth. We like to separate what is

physical from what is spiritual. And the scripture doesn't tell

that story. One of where there are these

separated realms of in heaven away up there somewhere like

that's, you know, medieval like, like we gotta work our way long

into the history of Christianity to kind of work our way toward

that level of like separation between heaven and earth.

And so a really good example of it is Isaiah 6 where like Isaiah

sees Jesus. So you get this like vision

Isaiah and says in the year that King Uziah died, I saw the Lord

high and exalted seated on a throne, right.

And so a lot of people talk about, you know, want to

understand that it's like Elijah seeing seeing Jesus pre, you

know, pre incarnation. And I go, OK, like we can talk

about that and debate what does it mean when referring to Lord

here? All of that like, you know, but

there are these moments where figures in the scripture have

these, um, you know, these visions, these experiences,

these moments where like heaven and earth just collapse.

The different like the the distinction between the distance

between just collapse. And you use that language of

thin spaces which which? Where did that come from?

Again, that was. So yeah, like Celtic

Christianity. So the best example of it is

Iona, like the island off Scotland and lots of good

Presbyterian minister got to talk about it, right.

But you know, Scottish heritage we that that's a place that's

described as a thin space, the island of Iona where you can go

and make your way to a building. There is name is gone from my

head but. Yeah.

And so I could imagine, you know, with like these thin

spaces when we think about, you know, not delineating heaven and

earth in the same way that we are prone to doing, and I'm

still very prone to doing. It's, it's like our natural

ingrained bent I think is to is to delineate those things.

And so when we we need that reminder that like, hey, what's

happening here is that is that like there's, there's a little

bit of heaven happening here, you know, and, and I'm just

trying to tease this out a little bit for my own, for my

own brain a little bit even. Yeah, like there's a little bit

of heaven happening here. And so when we think about

having and the potential reuniting of those who came

before us and loved ones, etcetera.

OK, yeah, it could make sense. It makes a lot of sense actually

that that these two significant, two of the most significant

figures in in their in their spiritual heritage have have

turned up for this event. Yeah, yeah, I think so.

And again, like I referenced this, but I didn't, we didn't do

a deep dive into it on Sunday. The like the fact that it is

Moses and Elijah, I think is very like theologically pointed.

It's a very specific, so you have Moses who represents all of

the law of Israel, like Israel's history between the people of

Israel and God as covenant people and all of the law that

was given pointing toward Jesus and Elijah really representing

all of the prophets. So you know, when we hear those

two reference together, essentially what we're saying

is, and what we're seeing here is that all of the law, all of

what we would understand as like Israel's history to this point,

their relationship via the law toward God.

And all of the prophets, all of what they declared to be true

about Israel, about the about the world, about the nations

around Israel, about God, all of it is pointing us toward Jesus.

And so I like, I do think that it's, you know, could it have

been other people? Sure.

Like could Abraham have appeared and Enoch, who you referenced,

right. Or Elijah?

Yeah, maybe. But I think those two are very

specific because what what is being declared in this moment

and witnessed by Peter, James and John is all of their like,

as as Jewish men, like all of their history going, ohhh, this

is this is the fulfillment of that.

This is God declaring who Jesus is and pointing those present

toward all of their hopes and expectations for themselves, for

their people, for the world being fulfilled in Jesus.

And I started wondering, you know, yeah, why not someone like

Abraham, you know, I started wondering, why not a king, you

know, like that. So it's.

But I think you you've highlighted exactly, you know

exactly why it's it's the law and the prophets that Jesus has

come to fulfill the you know, what they what they set out to

do is the culmination is here. Yeah.

Yeah, just like to say one thing.

I think that this moment, it's somewhat unique in the New

Testament, like there are fewer, like when I think about the Old

Testament stories that I even just, like, immediately come to,

like Moses going up, maybe just because, like I did mention it

on Sunday, like Moses going up the mountain to get the 10

commandments. Yeah, asking, right, people

asking to see God's face, like the glory of God, you go.

I mean, Moses had a ton of them. The burning Bush's.

Yeah, right. Like these, these encounters

with God. So that one specifically where

Moses is told where he speaks with God and the burning Bush,

he's told to take off his sandals, like take off because

the ground he's standing on his holy.

So we get a lot of these moments throughout the Old Testament and

it's a fairly natural way of talking about human like God

meeting with human beings. You have the tent of the

presence through the wanderings in the wilderness.

Where was it was expected, like it was known God would show up

there. And then we get the New

Testament and so much of it is focused on Jesus and the work

that Jesus is doing incarnation. It's almost like the entire

story of Jesus, like those those years of his ministry that are

told in the gospels. All of them are that same level

of moment. And yet we still get this like

this one feels like a little heightened.

We kind of get used to like, oh, Jesus is walking around with

you, man, like God's physically present and it just becomes a

little bit like mundane. And then we have this moment.

We're like, Oh no, but really like the whole whole of the

whole of Jesus ministry is one of these moments where like

God's physically here, like in this miraculous and very

grounded way. But I think that this moment,

this mountain top experience is just like it really is just

trying to hammer that point home that this is gad come, doesn't

need a 10th of presence, doesn't need a temple, doesn't need a

burning Bush, doesn't need it like like God is here in this

person. And even though didn't need a

tent, they, they, they, they seemed to want the disciples

seemed to want tents Like it's, it's good that we're here.

Let's, let's set up some tents. Let's let's hang out here a

while, which, you know, kind of is a, is a natural segue into

one of the other thoughts that arose for me, which was some of

what you were talking about when it comes to limiting and

containing God and, and even even moments, You know, I think

it's like, it's natural for us and, and for me as as a, as a

human being, that when we're experiencing a good thing, like

this is a good, this is really amazing.

Like I, I'm here with, with my rabbi, who I've just recently

learned is like the Messiah. And I'm here now with these, you

know, these heroes of the faith that I grew up learning about.

Like this is this is pretty full on, you know, how can we, how

could we hang out here a while like that?

That feels very, very normal, right?

And yet it's obviously not what Jesus had intended for that

moment. And, and we can, you know, we

can look at the example of particularly Peter, as you, as

you pointed out, of our, of our tendency to, to cling to, to

cling to and limit and contain God.

And I'm thinking about that for our lives.

You know, I, I, I'm, I've been thinking on that a little bit.

Would love to get into that a bit.

And also as a church, how we do that as a church, as as churches

across the world really, you know, I think specifically for

us, but it's good for us to consider very specific

implications. But I don't know, like, I don't

know where you want to go with that.

But I'm, I'm just been thinking on that a little bit, yeah.

Yeah, so like I think there's a way of talking about Peter's

reaction. Like Peter's reaction is very,

This is why I love Peter. Like it is the human reaction.

Like it's so Peter gets beaten up on a lot, but mostly because

I go, oh, yes, I would react the same way, right.

You can very easily find yourself there.

And so I think like we're gonna see from here through to the end

of Chapter 9 really is, I think, I think Fred Craddock calls it

like snapshots of the not yet ready disciples or something.

So we really start to see like the disciples begin to struggle

and wrestle out what what this means for Jesus to be who he

says he is. This is his predicted his death

once he's going to predict his death again, like in for us what

will be a couple of weeks. But you know, before the end of

the chapter, I believe it's once more in.

Yeah, it's, it's once more in Chapter 9.

So, you know, I, I really do think that they're, they're

coming to terms with what it means for Jesus to be the

Messiah in a way that is not what they expected.

Yeah. So you know they are there.

I can picture the tension of being so right, being like we

were waiting for a Messiah for generations and he's here.

Like the Messiah is here. We were right, but we were so

wrong about what that would look like and what it meant for them,

what it meant for Jesus for it to be like the, the, this

beautiful tension. We're going to see this

beautiful tension between power and powerlessness, like pure,

that power of God who created the heavens and the earth and

powerlessness of one who dies on a cross.

And they're starting to wrestle this out because Jesus has said,

Hey, this is who I am. He's shown it over and over

again. Now he's declared, I've gotta

die. And so I can picture Peter

going, what if? What if you don't have to?

Yeah. Like, like, this is a pretty

good moment. Why can't we hold on to this?

Even if it means, like, even if you do have to die, let's stay

here as absolutely as long as possible.

And you're like, so I can see that.

Just the tension between what Peter wants and what God wants.

And feels like it's like directly, I know it's like it's

eight days after Jesus has talked about this.

So it kind of feels like this is fresh off the heels of, of, of

this massive revelation of who Jesus is.

Yeah. And, and, and their, their

declaration of who Jesus is. And, and now they're, they're

like, oh, well, that if there's a way to stop that, if we yeah,

yeah. Or delay or yeah, yeah.

So I think, I think Peter, I think on the one hand, Peter is

afraid of the future. So he's fearing what will be and

he's idolizing what was, you know, I think, you know, one of

the easiest to the point of your question, one of the easiest

ways that we fall into the same trap as a church.

And I'll just say this as the pastor of a church, right?

We can fear the future and what is unknown, and we can fear

following Jesus into what is unknown.

And like, even now I'm going like me and my girls love

watching Frozen and like the there's a song, like I know

that's exactly it. Then we can also idolize the

past. Yeah.

And I think we're particularly good at doing both of those

things as churches still. Yeah.

That when we think about. So one of the East simplest ways

I hear this is we shouldn't, we couldn't do that.

Why? Well, why be?

Well, because we tried that in 1875 and it didn't work.

And I remember I was there like that type of and like,

obviously, like nobody, you know, nobody still around from

1875, but. And I chose a date that was

before our church was actually planted.

I did that also did that on purpose.

But like, you know, we get into that mindset of yeah, either

either the past is this idol of perfection.

And like, I remember when the Sunday school had 150 kids and

like there weren't even 150 adults in the like, there were

like, like, but you get into that mindset of the past was all

things successful and it was easy.

And we are bursting at the seams and we had every sort of age

group filled and we're struggling now.

So you idolize what was like, we got to get back to that.

And So what we got to do those same things because, well, what

worked then should work, but it doesn't work that way.

What what gets you here is not gonna get you there.

And what got them anyway? So we we idolize what was either

by, you know, by saying that, yeah, we tried that once and it

failed, we should never try it again, or by just assuming this

like rose coloured glasses. The past was perfect and we

gotta get back to it. And I think we struggle with

fearing the future and what is unknown and the what ifs and the

what if we do something and everybody leaves?

Or what if this is the Sunday that nobody shows up?

Or what if they like, you know, so we, we live in this kind of

perpetual, um, limbo almost of, you know, we can't go back and

we're afraid to go forward. So I think that's what Peter

stuck in, in this moment. He's idolizing the past.

He's like, he's using the past to understand what's happening

in the present. And so in doing that, it misses

really some of the point of, of God confirming the way of the

cross for Jesus. So he's like, no, I understand

this. We get it.

Like we can just put it into this box back here and be good

with it. Yeah, and he's doing it because

he's afraid of what is to come, and he's afraid of what, you

know. He kind of knows, doesn't really

know. Jesus said he's gonna die.

Not like, you know, they, there's these moments right

where it says like he's, they still don't understand what's to

come, but eventually they, they do.

And yeah, and you know, after Jesus raised some debt, then

they understood. So like there's a lot of unknown

and uncertainty for the disciples in there, like

immediate future right now. So I think we do that as a

church. We, like I said, we idolize the

past. We fear the future.

I think as individuals we do it as well because we're also

afraid of what God might do. And I think that's like a

perpetual hustling that we have is just this tendency to, you

know, I might not like where I am, but at least I know, like,

what's this saying? Like better the devil you know.

Yeah, right. I don't know.

I think we kind of get stuck in that, like, uncomfortable.

I don't wanna be uncomfortable. If change makes me

uncomfortable, I'll choose to stay here.

Yeah. So we don't like the discomfort

that comes with change. We don't like the discomfort

with that comes with God doing something significant.

And so we we like to stay kind of exactly where we are.

Hmm, yeah. I mean, the the same can be true

of individuals as as is of the church as a whole.

We can long for days that were and kind of regret and bemoan

and miss and but I think probably more so as individuals,

we fear the the discomfort of God actually doing the thing

that we really long and need him to do.

Because like it means that there's gonna have to be, you

know, there is change and, and it's going to often going to be

hard change and uncomfortable change.

And all of those things will lead us to wanting to either,

you know, just put a little, put it, let's put that.

Let's just put it, put a dent on it.

Yeah, yeah, Let's just stay here now.

We're good, we're good. And I am also thinking about,

you know, like just real, you know, in real time here.

It's the first week of September 2025.

It's actually our churches 45th anniversary as a church.

And I'm and I'm thinking about that.

It's, you know, it's it's not 50, but it's, you know, it's a

milestone. It's and and I am aware.

And this is like a good for just us to Mull over as as a church.

I am aware that as a church kind of creeps toward sort of that

that 50. You know, churches early on in

their lifespan for the first number of decades often have

this very entrepreneurial spirit about them, this very sort of

even Apostolic spirit, right? And I think that's very true, of

course, right? Like like when you hear some of

the stories about what God has done over the years and God's

faithfulness through some pretty cool circumstances.

Like there are so many beautiful stories about what, what God has

done and, and, and things that have happened within this

community. But I'm also aware that when you

get to kind of 50 or older, like you can start to

institutionalized and it starts to become, you know, just same

old, same old. What, what you know, what can we

do that we know will work? And sometimes that leads to, you

know, the inevitable decline that we're seeing in lots of

churches around our, you know, around our denomination.

Not to talk about the elephant in the room, but yeah, I don't

know what what are your what are your thoughts on?

That no, I I love that. I think that if, yeah, if

there's one thing from the past for us as a church that I don't

want people to forget and abandon, it is that church

planting boldness that that is the reason for our existence.

Yeah. Like we exist.

We're sitting here in this building which like ironically,

comedically, I don't know, in God's humor, was the building

that we started in when we, like you and I, weren't here.

Not this, Not this we. Weren't even born.

Church we, right, 45 years ago, this church was planted and we

met in the gym in this building, which at that time was a school,

and then grew to a point where like, hey, we need a building

built a building on court right, which is why we're called court,

right. Presbyterian Church outgrew that

building and then bought this building, the original building.

Yeah. I go even just the boldness to

do like you wouldn't you wouldn't write that as a story

like as a plot line. You wouldn't plan that out.

And I go at every moment, man, there were these faithful

followers of Jesus who knew that we wanted felt called for there

to be like a gospel presence in this general area in in our

city. Which was at that point the

South end of. Guelph, the southmost.

End, which is no longer. Yeah, it has gone much further

South. Oh yeah.

And not in a bad way. Like I don't mean that in a bad

way sense of the term. I I just mean literally it is

gone further developed. Further.

So I just want to be very clear. I lived in the South End for

many years so. Wow.

I just like the the right way to honor the past, I think is by

maintaining the same spirit. Yeah, that that those people had

and some still have. Like that's the beauty of like

45 years is some of the original people who planted this church

are still around to tell those stories.

And so I do think that that's the way we honor it, not by

saying, let's you know, we've got a carbon copy everything

that they did, but by saying, like here were people who were

bold because they believed that the gospel needed to reach this

neck of the woods, like our area of the city.

And so we're going to hold on to that same mentality and be bold

and take risks because the gospel still needs to reach this

part of the city. And that's like that's the

spirit that that I think our church was launched with.

And that's the spirit that's going to keep it moving in the

right direction. So it's not about less about

systems or about programs or about how do we do the things

that we were doing. It's no how do we pray and trust

and listen and lean into where God is calling us to go and be

and do That's we got to hold on. To and to take take holy risks

yeah, like, and I and I don't like that's why out of the the

qualifier of holy risks because I think that you can take stupid

risks, but but that when we are like, you know, just like God,

it seems like God is leading us toward this.

And we're going to take a leap of faith.

And maybe this is a little crazy, but we're going to do it,

you know, and, and, and I think, you know, I think there are some

things that have been happening and will be happening in the not

too distant sure that are like, yeah, this is a leap of faith,

you know, like God is God is calling us to something and it's

not always going to be comfortable.

It's going to be challenging, right?

And and so I'm excited about it, but I'm also someone who tends

to love change. Like an early adopter.

Sometimes OK yeah yeah like when it come when it comes to like

starting something yeah starting something new yeah, I I love to

be a part of that, you know, but I recognize and this is like the

the, you know, the tension of of pastoral ministry is that we we

got to help people on the train, right.

We gotta we gotta help the Peters of the world who are

like, no, let's build a tent and stay where we are.

Let's be comfortable, right, to to help people like Peter that

are, that are in our midst, who are, you know, just as important

to the life of our church. How do we how we help them along

the way? Like we're all on the train

together. Some of us are maybe on the

front end, like looking out the window ready to go.

Several others of us are maybe at the back being like, I don't

want to, I don't know. Where we're going, but the

trains leaving the station, Yeah, I think that's the point,

right? And like, I had a mentor friend

of my who who died. Like that's the line he would

use. Like, hey, we would love to have

you on the train, but the train is leaving the station.

And I think that's like, that's the this moment for Peter here

is it's a moment of recognizing, OK, God's got this plan.

And I can't see all of it. And I certainly can't tell you

exactly where it ends, but it's this moment of all right, God's

the one who's who's driving this thing.

And you know, I guess we're along for the ride.

Like that is kind of this moment for him where he's, he's

wrestling out that tension of wanting to wanting to have a

plan and know it, to understand it fully, and also wanting to

trust God and God's plan and figure it out.

So I think the the main, one of the main things too that they

all have to wrestle with is the fact that like so Jesus has

declared that he's, you know, that that he's the Son of man,

which is like so messianic language.

He has declared that he needs to die and that he will be raised

again, like redemption, resurrections, not like that

wasn't a common thing, common language.

So certainly really new, but they, the disciples don't know

the entirety of it at this point.

Yeah. And so I think they're wrestling

out what you and I, what all of us still continue to wrestle

out, which is, you know, we we see only the pieces that God

unfolds before us to see, like we see what God allows us to

see. And he's writing this big

picture for us. Even just think of our church,

he's writing this big picture for us and we get to see the

pieces that he's unlike revealing to us.

Hmm. It's our job to pray and like I

would like to pray and fast and place ourselves together in in a

position where we can, as he reveals it, we like where we can

see it, where we're ready to grab ahold of it and go and

move. Take the next.

Step and yeah, do the thing, but it's only the next step and we

might not know the 3rd to next step, right?

We might know one, but that's the constant challenge for the

disciples is like they're called to take the next step without

knowing 10 steps down the line, and we're called to take the

next step without knowing 10 steps down the line.

We see what God allows us to see.

It's our job to position ourselves to be ready to receive

it. Trust that it is God's calling

and leading and then go and do it.

Not like human hair and make a committee and try to decide

like, is this God or not? Like we got to be ready to to do

the thing, but that's it. We don't need to know like 3

days after Jesus's death, he's going to rise again.

Like the disciples are going to wrestle all of that out, and

then it's going to happen, and then they will look back and

they'll tell it as good news. Yeah, but they've got to be

ready. We need to wrestle it out and we

need to position ourselves to be ready as well.

Yeah, I, I think it's in Psalm 119.

This is that kind of the famous line, you know, thy word is a

lamp unto my feet. And, and like a number of years

ago, I really thought about like that image that's there is that

it's, you know, they didn't have flashlights back in back in

those days. But the difference between a

lamp and a flashlight, right? You know, if you have like a, a

really bright, you know, one of those like, you know, like

police officer flashlights, they can see like hundreds of

hundreds of meters away, right? Versus a lamp, which in the dark

of night allows you to see maybe a step or two ahead of you so

that you're not going to like step on something or fall into a

pit or whatever. Right.

And, and I've often thought about our walk in that same way

of, of like God shows us just enough to take the next couple

steps. And the, the, the rest of it

future facing is, is faith. And it's.

Yeah. Yeah, it's a great analogy.

And also, just like I think good to say, hard to live out.

Hard to live out. Yes.

Yeah, Yeah. Any other thoughts on this

passage? Anything you didn't get to say

on Sunday that you want to say no?

Probably a lot we're going to pick up.

So just to say like the transfiguration passage ends in

36 verse 36 and then in 37 is like immediately the next day

when they came down from the mountain.

So I think the, the one thing that I would say in preparation

for that is we all know that mountaintop experiences do end,

hmm. And in many ways, like need to

end and we need to come back down the mountain and, um, we

need to, you know, call it re enter real life or whatever

language you would use to describe that moment.

And I think the beauty of this mountaintop experience, Jesus is

mountain top experience is that it's I quoted Fred Craddock when

when I was talking about this is it's not this beautiful,

picturesque, calm, peaceful, sit by the quiet lake like, you

know, happy, whatever moment it, it is filled with conversation

about the most real life thing you could imagine, right.

And that's Jesus death like the realest, rawest, most painful

piece about life. That's the mountaintop

experience. And I think what the what Luke

wants us to see. I think what God is doing in

this moment is like this is the this is, this is, this is Jesus

descending the mountain. This is God descending the

mountain. To lift humanity up, right.

So like, we, we talk about not some people, not we, we don't, I

don't talk about this, but you know, some people talk about

religion as this like ascent up a mountain.

And I think the weakest argument or the weakest, like example is

like, well, every different religion is just a different

side going up the same mountain. And I go like, why does

Christianity still in my mind? Like why is it still such a

powerful example of a religion that is so different from any

other? And I can't remember.

This is not like I I was not the person to come up with this.

I've heard other people say it, and it's because for once,

religion isn't about humanity ascending a mountain in an

attempts to find God. It's about God descending the

mountain to lift humanity up. Yeah.

And like this is that moment and Christianity where like Jesus

goes up the mountain, God's presence is there and they

discuss his death and then he descends to do it, like to

actually accomplish what he set out to accomplish, to die, to be

raised to new life and to lift humanity up out of the mess,

like out of sin and to redeem and to restore.

So it's no longer like think about like Peter, James and

John. I'm like these dudes last human

beings to ascend a mountain to meet with God.

Like from here on out, it's like it's all about God descending

the mountain and being with humanity.

And so that's what we're going next week is like the descent

and what that means and what immediately starts to happen.

But I just think it's such a hopeful image of, you know,

Christianity is just absolutely not the ascent of mind, ascent

of intellect, ascent of effort or will.

It is God's intentional dissent. I love.

That and Like this captures that beautifully.

That's so good. Well, that sounds like a really

good place to to close out. I agree.

So we are back kind of it's now the fall season, we're back in

the swing of things. And so we're excited to continue

on in Luke and we will do that September moving forward.

If you have any questions, if you something comes to mind from

today or from Sunday, you can send it to

[email protected]. And we usually check that before

you record just to make sure that if if someone has sent

something that we can do our best to include it in our in our

discussion. But other than that, we hope you

have a fantastic week and we'll see you next time.