Sunday Worship 15 March | The Vision on the Mountain

Matthew 16:24-17:8

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what they have done. “Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.” 

After six days Jesus took with him Peter, James and John the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light. Just then there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus.

Peter said to Jesus, “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.” While he was still speaking, a bright cloud covered them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!” When the disciples heard this, they fell facedown to the ground, terrified. But Jesus came and touched them. “Get up,” he said. “Don’t be afraid.” When they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus.

Originally, we were just going to hear the story of the transfiguration this morning, but as I read around the passage, I realised that taking a couple of steps back would provide some helpful context. And if we had taken a couple of steps even further back, we would have heard that these scenes follow on from the first time Jesus predicts his own death. The cross is firmly in view from this point in the gospel, and Jesus knows that he is heading down the mountain towards his death. The disciples know it too, even if they have tried to argue against it, and so they surely recognise that when Jesus says “take up your cross and follow me”, he is asking something quite serious of them. Something that will take all of their strength and their commitment, something that might lead to their own suffering and death, and indeed did for most of them. So why do they stay? Here I am reminded of Peter’s words in John’s gospel: “To who else would we go? You have the words of eternal life.” Following Jesus may mean death but it means a lot more life.

We are also called to take up our crosses. For us it is unlikely to lead to death, blessed as we are by the religious freedom so hard won by others before us, but it may mean making hard choices, letting attitudes or habits die so that we might truly live. Sadly, Jesus’ call to "take up your cross" has been misused and abused over the years, either said flippantly to speak of pretty minor inconveniences, or weaponised to justify oppression. Jesus suffered some of the worst violence that can be inflicted on a person but he did not endure it for its own sake, but because his radical way of love and inclusion was a threat to those in power, and a lifeline to those who were oppressed. And he did not simply submit to the cross, but instead he transformed it, turning it into a symbol of hope. The call to take up our crosses is still a call to challenge the powers of our own day and reframe their violence in order to bring life.

I am interested in Jesus’ declaration that he is going to come with angels and reward each person according to what they have done. Throughout the epistles we can see the early church wresting with the relationship between faith and works. James emphases the importance of works, without which he declares faith is dead. Paul on the other hand is determined that works will not do it, saying that it is by grace we are saved through faith. As is so often the case, I think the truth lies somewhere in the middle, and salvation comes as we work out our faith, following in the way of Christ. So why does Jesus say that he will reward each person according to what they have done? Well it’s worth remembering that Jesus says in John’s gospel that whoever believes in him will have eternal life, so it’s certainly not that he dismisses faith. I think audience is crucial, and as we have seen before, Matthew’s gospel appears to have been written with a primarily Jewish readership in mind. So perhaps the point is that eternal life is not granted only to those who are born to it, as many of those readers might have assumed, but to those live for it.

And so to the transfiguration, and like the good nonconformists we are, we are coming to it several weeks after Transfiguration Sunday. But why is Transfiguration Sunday even a thing? Why do some traditions within the church mark this event every year? It seems especially strange to me when we consider what isn’t marked every year. The Sermon on the Mount, for example, which we should probably hear at least once a month. The boring practical answer is that the transfiguration appears in each of the three synoptic gospels, on which the lectionary is based, so it comes up every year, whereas the Sermon on the Mount only appears in Matthew and so only comes up once every three years. But perhaps there is also something to be said for remembering this moment of Christ’s glory before the grit of Lent and Easter, so that we head into the wilderness and towards the cross with this image of the radiant Christ fresh in our minds, understanding as well as we can what divinity is entwined with Jesus’ humanity.

While we’re asking questions, why does John not include the transfiguration in his gospel? Of the four gospel writers, he’s the only one who was there to see it, so why doesn’t he mention it. The most common scholarly opinion is that John was the last of the gospels to be written, so perhaps he didn’t want to repeat what had already been said. John’s gospel is markedly different to the other three in many respects, and assuming that he was filling in the gaps would explain many of those differences. Or perhaps this moment was just too personal. Jesus tells the disciples not to tell anyone what they have seen, as if this was a particular encouragement just for them, and while one of them must have told someone eventually or the story would never have made it into the gospels, perhaps John needed to hold it close, to keep this one experience just for him. We are called to share our faith, so we shouldn’t keep it all to ourselves, but there may be moments that are just for us and God, moments that we keep safe as precious gifts. I do wonder how John would have told the story, but I don’t begrudge him keeping it to himself.

Returning to the account we do have, I wonder if the transfiguration is a fulfilment of Jesus’ declaration that there are some who will not taste death before he comes in his kingdom. “After six days” is really specific, especially when most time jumps in the gospel are so vague. And six days isn’t a particularly significant time frame in scripture. There are six days of creation, and Moses spends six days in God’s presence before God gives him instructions for the tabernacle, and maybe there is some connection there, but there are other time periods that are more commonly used to denote something important. Perhaps it was just six days later, and Matthew records that simply because he wanted to make clear that there was a connection between Jesus’ words and this event. Perhaps this is Jesus in his glory and a foretaste of the kingdom.

Reading the transfiguration again this week reminded me that one of my favourite verses in the Bible comes in Mark’s account, where he says that "his clothes became dazzling white, whiter than anyone in the world could bleach them”. I translated this verse when I was studying Biblical Greek, and I just found it so endearing. It is thought that Mark wrote his gospel based on the testimony of Peter, and I can almost hear Peter trying to explain to him just how bright Jesus’ clothes were. “No, you’re not getting it, Mark. They weren’t just white, they were impossibly white. Imagine what your best robe looks like after your mum has just washed it, and it was even brighter than that.” There’s no grand spiritual or theological point here, I just wanted to share something that has long made me smile.

So Jesus goes up a mountain with three of his disciples, and he shines like the sun, and he talks with Moses and Elijah. The appearance of these particular figures is not random. Together they represent the Law and the Prophets, and so they point to Jesus as a fulfilment of both. They were also associated with challenging rulers and divine encounters on mountains, so they emphasise the challenge Jesus presents to the rulers of his day, and they underscore that this itself is a divine encounter. And the return of Elijah was thought to precede the coming of the Messiah, so here is another indication that Jesus is the one the people have been waiting for.

With all of that going on, you’d have though Moses and Elijah turning up would have been enough to impress upon the disciples the significance of Jesus, so why does he dazzle? There is occasionally something of the showman about Jesus, but perhaps there is a rather more pedestrian answer. Frederick Buechner wrote this of the transfiguration: “Even with us something like that happens once in a while. The face of a man walking with his child in the park, of a woman baking bread, of sometimes even the unlikeliest person listening to a concert, say, or standing barefoot in the sand watching the waves roll in, or just having a beer at a Saturday baseball game in July. Every once and so often, something so touching, so incandescent, so alive transfigures the human face that it's almost beyond bearing.” Perhaps this is simply the moment in which Jesus is most fully alive, most truly himself. Perhaps this is a demonstration of what can happen for each of us, as we become fully alive and most truly ourselves.

The disciples offer to build shelters so that they can all stay on the mountain in this moment of transcendence, away from all thought of crosses and death, but that cannot happen. Jesus has told them what is coming, and there is no avoiding it. The disciples are learning what we too must learn, that if we want to go up the mountain with Jesus, we also have to be willing to go down the mountain with Jesus. We cannot stay in the high places, as much as we might want to, because there is life to be lived and work to be done down below.

And so God interrupts Peter’s plans, as God so often does, with the words: “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased”. You might recognise this from Jesus’ baptism, as they are the very same words. It is not clear if the crowds hear the voice on that occasion, but here the disciples definitely do, as there is a message directly for them: “Listen to him!” What then is it that they are to listen to? Jesus tells them: “Get up. Do not be afraid”. And then he leads them down the mountain. All of that dazzling brightness lead us to this. God says listen, and Jesus says “walk with me, it’s gonna be okay”.