The Path to Glory: Luke 9:28-45 - Transfiguration Sunday

Have you ever had a dream you didn’t want to wake up from?

Peter, James, and John were halfway between waking and sleeping as Jesus prayed on a mountaintop. Surely, the disciples were exhausted from the journey, and perhaps even a little bored. But they awakened to the sight of Jesus shining with divine glory. Moses and Elijah appear and begin talking with Jesus.

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To the three disciples, this probably felt like a dream, maybe the best dream ever. Could this be the dawning of the new messianic age?

Peter quickly offers to build three booths for Jesus and the two men who stood with him. While he was saying this, a mighty voice spoke from the clouds: “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!”

25_1_Yungas _145 by Ralf Frenken on flickr. CC BY-SA 2.0

Moses and Elijah immediately disappear, and Jesus returns to his normal appearance. And it’s all over. They go down the mountain, and life carries on as before.

What a letdown, that it all ended so quickly. To make matters worse, when they return to the world below, they will witness the most horrific manifestation of evil that they’d ever seen.

A young boy is seized by an evil spirit. He shrikes, convulses, and foams at the mouth. Seeing this child suffering was like seeing into hell.

The boy’s father asked the disciples to cast out the unclean spirit. Jesus had given them power to do just that, and they’d done it many times before. But this time was different. This time, they were face-to-face with evil, the likes of which they had never seen. And they faltered.

Bear in mind, this will not be last time. Their biggest failure will happen the night Jesus is arrested. Instead of sticking by him, which they promised they would do, they all desert him.

It’s hard to imagine how this could happen. They had been with Jesus, around the clock, for almost three years. They saw his miracles. They even performed miracles. But they also witnessed unimaginable human suffering: people living in extreme poverty, people suffering horrible diseases, this child possessed by demonic powers. And they also saw how evil human beings can be.

When Peter suggested building three dwelling places on the mountaintop, it was because they wanted to believe that the time had come for all the suffering and evil to end. he and his fellow disciples were exhausted—physically, mentally, and even spiritually. They were ready for their work to be done, and for God’s Kingdom to come.

And are we any different? With all the chaos, change, and evil in the world, wouldn’t it be great if Jesus returned today?

It always makes me sad when someone says how badly they feel for the children because they must live in a world like this. Since Jesus warned us that his will be preceded by cataclysmic events, it’s only natural to be afraid.

Yet there only one way to go in this age of fear, and that is forward, with Jesus. Jesus’s way is the way of the cross, which means that there will be pain, there will be dangers, there will be trials and tribulations, the likes of which the flesh is useless to face. On the way of the cross, Jesus will convict you of sin and call you to repentance. On the way of the cross, you will die to your old self, again and again.

But the way of the cross is the way of hope, because the things that frighten you, intimidate and break you are the things Jesus will use to heal and transform you. You will see his glory, not in the absence of pain, but in the midst of pain. Not in the absence of evil, but in the presence of evil. Not in the absence of temptation, but the deliverance from temptation.

It’s no accident that the more you see God’s glory, the more you will face the kinds of things that will make you question everything you’ve ever believed. No wonder then, because they way of the cross is never the path of least resistance. It’s not a path that leads you to comfort, security, control, riches, success, or the approval of others. The way of the cross separates you from all these things, because Christ cannot be glorified in anything that is not rooted in him.

Along the way, you will fall, you will fail, you will sin, and this is why it is so important to listen to Jesus. His Word is the way. Without his Word, there is no way.

And for as much as I desire for Jesus to return today, the fact that he does not shows that his saving work isn’t finished. He isn’t finished with you yet, he isn’t finished with our church yet, and he isn’t finished in our world yet. The more we wait, the more we struggle, the more leave ourselves behind, the greater the glory we will witness.

So, on this transfiguration Sunday, hear the voice of Jesus calling you down from the mountaintops of our alleluias, to meet him in the depths of your brokenness. For Christ is calling you to die to sin, to die to self, to die this world, so that he may be glorified in the new creation you are about to become.

Listen to the one who dies and rises again for you. Trust the promise of resurrection.