This week in a Bible study, a group of us were looking at
the story of the Transfiguration in Matthew 17:1-9. The question was asked,
“Who was this vision for? For Jesus? For the disciples? For everybody?”
Let's look at all three.
For Jesus
Speaking for myself, sometimes I need a new mountaintop
experience to reassure and re-center me in my particular assignment in life.
This can happen for two reasons—I can get off the track and be following some
rabbit trail, or I can get discouraged. I don’t know that Jesus followed rabbit
trails, but he was near Caesarea Philippi, 120 miles north of Jerusalem.
I’d say that’s a good 4-5 days’ walk. And there had been a lot of recent controversy
over who Jesus really was. Is it unrealistic to think he could have been
disheartened? We do know certainly that he sometimes needed encouragement. Most
notably, if the angel hadn’t come to him in Gethsemane (not that long after
this event) he might have died right there in the garden. If he was tempted as
we are, he has to have faced continual temptation to doubt his own call and his
own path. Was he really the Messiah? And I've always wondered how much time might have passed between verses 6 and 7. What did Moses and Elijah say to Jesus?
What, then, would he get from this experience of being
“overshadowed by the Most High,” being able to visit with some of his friends
from heaven, and hearing the words repeated, “This is my beloved Son. I am
delighted with him”? Can you imagine for yourself?
For the disciples
(Or at least three of them.) I’ve always been fascinated by
the fact that they were told not to share this experience until “after the Son
of Man has risen from the dead.” How hard would it be to keep that
experience to yourself?
What was going on with these men? Were they, too, caught up
in the controversy over who Jesus really was? In the previous chapter we have
the famous declaration of Peter, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living
God.” But if they still had any doubts, this would certainly dispel them. If
they were still thinking he was just a good teacher or a good man, this
transfiguration knocked that theory on its head.
What might they have gotten from this? Can you imagine
for yourself?
For everybody, which is to say, for you, and me
The Son died, rose again, they shared the story, someone wrote
it down, and here we are. It’s for us, too.
I find it valuable to imagine my way through this story from
both points of view. Not as the Son of God, don’t misunderstand!
But as the child of God, which I am, which you are, who can get a little or a
lot sideways (since I do give into temptations sometimes), and needs to be
reminded, reassured, re-called to my path. “You—yes, you—are My
beloved child,” God says. “I am pleased with you!”
Then, as a disciple. As one of those bewildered ones who is
trying hard to believe and internalize that this is, indeed, the Messiah, the
Christ, the Anointed One. This isn’t another Plato or Confucius or Siddhartha
Gautama. This is the Son of the Living God.
LISTEN TO HIM!!
Please! You’ll be glad you did.