The Message, March 2, 2025: "To the Mountaintop!" Luke 9:28-36
Author: Rev. Scott W. Cousineau
March 04, 2025
“To the Mountaintop!”
A Message by Rev. Scott W. Cousineau
Exodus 34:29-35; Luke 9:28-36
We have all been there, right? We
are just hanging out with Jesus and a few of our friends. Jesus is teaching and
healing … performing the occasional act of power. Then he says, “Hey, I am
going up the mountain to pray. Who is with me?” You figure, ‘Why not. I have
nothing else going on today.’ You head up the mountain and while Jesus is
praying and you get a little dozey. But then you look over and see that Moses
and Elijah are over there talking to Jesus. No big deal. Happens all the time.
Then the cloud descends, and you hear the Voice of God. It is so commonplace
that you do not even tell anyone about it because they have heard it before.
“Another day with Jesus on the mountaintop? Good for you.”
Obviously, I am being facetious.
Actually … facetious does not adequately describe what I just did. What
happened on that mountaintop is beyond ordinary, beyond commonplace. It was
beyond EXTRAORDINARY!! It was AWESOME!! WONDER-FILLED!!! AMAZING!!!
I do not know if there are any words
in the human language that can capture the essence of what happened in our
Gospel passage this morning, or the passage from Exodus for that matter. Even
the authors of Bible commentaries and scholarly journal articles had to say,
“We really do not know what happened.”
Fred Craddock, who is a giant in New
Testament theology even said, ‘Do not try to describe it, because we trivialize
it when we do. Just allow yourselves to spend time with the awesome and the
extraordinary.’
Thank you, Fred. That made my sermon
writing so much easier. You just sit there and dwell in the awesomeness for the
next five or six minutes. I will be over there if you need me for anything.
Okay … I am back! What did you
reflect upon? What jumped out at you? What part of the story spoke to you?
At our Bible Study on Thursday
evening, we discussed the passage. We spent time talking about the fact that
the disciples did not tell anyone about what had happened on the mountaintop
that day. It was curious to be sure. But I think that we have all had
experiences in our lives when we needed to process what had just happened. We may
even ask ourselves, “Did that really just happen?!?”
We talked about the role that the
presence of Moses and Elijah played in the miraculous event. Moses, the Great
Law-Giver, and Elijah, the greatest of prophets, tied the past with the present
and the future. They displayed the long arc of God’s vision for the world. As
we reflect back upon the episode of Jesus teaching in the synagogue in
Nazareth, and Jesus’ proclamation that “scripture had been fulfilled in their
hearing,” we see the added significance of Jesus standing and talking with the “Law
and the Prophets” on that mountaintop.
The Voice of God spoke as God did
with Moses on Mount Sinai. The Voice of God spoke as God did when Jesus emerged
from the waters of baptism, “You are my Son, the Beloved. In you I am well
pleased.” The Voice of God changed the audience on the mountaintop. This time
the Voice of God spoke to the disciples and said, “This is my Son, the Chosen
One. Listen to Him! Hear him!”
We talked about all of those
elements of the story. But, as I reflected upon this beyond amazing event, I
kept coming back to verse thirty-two: “Now Peter and his companions were
weighed down with sleep, but as they awoke they saw his glory and the two men
who stood with him.” Or as some translations phrase it: “When they were
fully awake they saw His glory.”
‘When they were fully awake’ is the
line that has stuck with me this week. This is the ‘so what?’ verse for us to
consider.
What does it mean for us to be fully
awake in the Presence of God? What does it mean to be fully awake in the
Presence of Jesus?
What does it mean for us to witness
the glory of God? The glory of Jesus Christ?
Let us consider what happened with
Jesus and the disciples according to Luke’s Gospel record just prior to this
mountaintop experience. Here is a quick summary of Chapter Nine:
Jesus
gave the disciples power and authority over demons and to cure diseases and he
sent them out.
When they returned, Jesus asked them
to report upon how it had gone.
Then the throng of people followed
them to the remote location where they had gone. Jesus healed a number of
people and then told the disciples to feed the five thousand plus people with a
few loaves of bread and a couple of fish.
Following that miraculous event,
Jesus asked the disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” and then the follow
up question, “But who do YOU say that I am?”
And finally, after Peter declared
that Jesus was “The Christ,” Jesus told the disciples about the cost of
discipleship. “Anyone who desires to follow me, let them deny themselves and
take up their cross and follow me.”
As our passage began this morning,
that was Luke was referring to when he said, “About eight days after saying
these things.” Those are the ‘these things.’
So, I return to the questions: What
does it mean to be fully awake?
Are there times when our eyes have
been shut? Are there times when our minds or our hearts have been shut? Or
asleep?
Have those moments of “sleep” been
an honest or innocent mistake … when we just were not paying attention? There
are lots of things that clutter our minds, that demand our attention, that
distract our hearts. It could very well be that we have missed God’s glory, or
Jesus’ glory simply because we were not paying attention, because we were not
looking for them.
But it may also be the case that we
have been intentionally “asleep.” It may be the case that we have intentionally
closed our eyes, our hearts, our minds. We pretend to be asleep when God calls
or when Jesus reaches out to us. We carefully sneak a peek, “Is he gone yet?”
It could be that we pretend to be
asleep because we possess a prejudice, or a bias, with regard to a particular
topic. We may already have our minds made up, and not even Jesus can convince
us otherwise … especially if we do not actively listen to what he is saying.
Or it could be our love of comfort
and ease that is the reason that we are “asleep.” We may believe that seeing
God, hearing Jesus Christ, and following them is just too much work. It is too
difficult.
When we are fully awake, when we
open our eyes, hearts and minds to see God’s glory, to experience the glory of
Jesus Christ, we have to accept the reality that our lives will be different.
When we are fully awake, the transfiguration is of us.
Yes, it may mean that there will be
times when our lives will be more difficult, or painful.
Yes, when we are transfigured it may
mean that there will be times of anguish and sorrow. Our hearts will be filled
with sadness for those who suffer and struggle.
Yes, there will be times of
righteous anger as we experience rage over those who do not receive justice,
those who are not cared for, those who have their rights and their dignity
stripped away from them.
When we are fully awake, there will
be times of need when we realize that there is something that we have been
missing, something that we may have been longing for without ever realizing
what that ‘something’ was. And finally recognizing that the something is God.
The something is Jesus Christ.
And when we are fully awake, there
will be love. Seeing God’s glory, seeing Jesus Christ in all of his glory means
that we will gain a whole new understanding of what it means to love and to be
loved.
The Voice of God spoke to Peter,
James and John. “This is my Son, the Beloved, the Chosen One. Listen to Him!”
The glory of Jesus Christ transforms
us … transfigures us. The Voice of God speaks to us as well. God says, “Wake
up. Open your eyes. Open your hearts. Be open and you will be transformed.
Listen to Him … my child, my beloved. Listen.”
Amen.
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