God is Near (A Transfiguration Sermon), Elliott May, March 2nd, 2025

The Transfiguration

Luke 9:28-36 [37-43a]

March 2nd, 2025

As we think about the story of the Transfiguration, there is another great and ancient text from which we can learn much about this subject. I’m referring of course to Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, published in 1998. In this book, the first one in the series, Harry and his friends are beginning their experience in magical education. One of their classes is called Transfiguration. The teacher, professor McGonagall, tells the new students “transfiguration is some of the most difficult and dangerous magic they will learn.” As the story unfolds, the students, who came in very excited, figure out quickly that transfiguration is mysterious and very very difficult. They don’t control it, they can’t summon it through their own power. So try as they might, they have to look to their teacher to observe transfiguration in action.

It’s a silly example of course, but there’s some resonance with our gospel reading for today actually. Today we have a really grand and powerful event, bookended by regular, everyday life with its trials and frustrations. Jesus takes three of his disciples up the mountain to pray for a while, and the disciples get sleepy, which seems to happen a lot in the gospels, and then Jesus ends up having this mysterious experience. A cloud descends, and the disciples watch as Jesus transforms and two figures appear alongside him, which Peter realizes are versions of Moses and Elijah, two of the most important figures of the Hebrew Bible.

The way this scene sets up, it feels like it’s building to the climactic ending of the gospel story. So far in the book of Luke, if you were reading straight through, you’d have seen Jesus’s birth foretold, the shepherds and angels keeping watch as Jesus is born in the manger, and then Jesus growing up and beginning his ministry. And after all that, we get this scene, which is an echo back to the Exodus story we heard earlier from the Old Testament, of Moses on the mountain and his face shining because he has been in God’s presence. Here is Jesus, shining with divine glory on the mountaintop, standing alongside two of the greatest prophets of the Hebrew tradition. We’re meant to understand that Jesus is the next in that line of great prophets and leaders of God’s people. Jesus has been appointed by God to follow in their wake and continue their holy work. Jesus will be a prophet to the people, as a sort of new Moses. Moses led the Israelites out of bondage and into the promised land. Jesus too will lead the people out of a deeper bondage and into new life. Moses had to veil his face in the presence of God, but in Jesus, God’s glory is fully unveiled.

This is one of only two moments in this gospel that God speaks directly, that we hear the divine Voice. Maybe you remember the other time- when Jesus is baptized, God speaks from the heavens and says ‘this is my son, the beloved, with whom I am well pleased.’ This time, God says something similar, but it's directed to the disciples, “this is my Son, my chosen, listen to him.’

So, it feels like the climax of the movie, so to speak. But the thing is, it’s not the end. Not even close, actually. There are 24 chapters of Luke, today’s passage is in chapter 9. Jesus is still in the first half of his story. Much of his ministry, his confrontation with the leaders of the empire, his suffering, death, and resurrection, they’re all still yet to come.

So why is the Transfiguration taking place at this point in Jesus’ life and ministry? What purpose does it serve in the larger story?

I think the answer lies with Peter’s reaction during the Transfiguration. I really empathize with Peter here. He’s witnessing this display of divine power, he’s seeing these heroes of the faith, Moses and Elijah, and he just immediately starts babbling, offering to build homes for Jesus and the two prophets. The text literally says, ‘he doesn’t know what he’s saying.’ To me, it reads like a guy who has fallen into the spiritual deep end and is trying to keep his head above water. He’s trying to make sense of what is going on.

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That seems to be how life goes for the disciples of Jesus- they are often witnesses to these incredible experiences of God’s power, but these experiences take place right alongside a whole lot of confusion. This becomes clear in the last part of the reading, because after this moment of glory and transformation, Jesus heads back down the mountain and is immediately besieged by crowds and requests for healing, with lots of complaints about his disciples who don’t measure up. In other words- after this big spiritual high, Jesus and the disciples fall right back in the struggles of daily life. Jesus has been transfigured, but it's not the end of the story. He must still confront the might of the empire, he must still suffer and die at the hands of Rome.

For the disciples who had been with him, life with Jesus is a roller coaster of awe, and fear, and confusion. This theme continues throughout the whole gospel- the disciples usually don’t understand what Jesus is up to. They sometimes disappoint people who assume the disciples have all the power that Jesus does. They tend to complain, or ask Jesus for special treatment. I take great comfort in this. These are Jesus’s handpicked followers, and more often than not, they’re just trying to keep up with him, just trying to figure out what's going on.

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Here's what this has to do with us. Right now, the world feels scary, and confusing, and frustrating. It is sometimes completely overwhelming; half the time, I barely know where to look or what to focus on. Like the disciples, I am regularly confronted with my own failures. I feel as though I can’t be as good of a Christian as I want to be, as good of a Christian as God calls me to be. I can’t fix everything that I want to fix, or accomplish everything that I want to accomplish. I don’t always know what’s best. I am reminded, over and over again, that I am not Jesus. If I am like anyone in the story, I am like one of those bumbling disciples, half asleep when the Transfiguration comes.

But that’s the gift we receive from this text. It shows us that the disciples are not the center of the story. They are witnesses to the power of God in Christ. The transfiguration is this moment of incredible light and clarity, but it comes in the rhythm of ordinary life, as the disciples try to stay awake long enough to say their prayers. And after this dramatic spiritual experience, they don't get to stay on the mountaintop and linger in some state of quiet bliss- they head back down the mountain and into the everyday challenges of their life and ministry.

That’s what makes this passage so important. If you hear anything from me today please hear this- in the Bible, when people are tired, or distracted, or half asleep, or are at the end of their rope, that God tends to shows up. We could list a dozen examples from the Bible. Moses at the burning bush, the disciples on the road to Emmaus, Paul on the road to Damascus. These are all people minding their own business and occupied with their own plans when they get interrupted by God. In other words- we often meet God when we’re least expecting it, in the places that we least expect it, in the people that we had least expected.

There are just two more things to say, I think. Here’s the first. Finding our place in the story, as witnesses to God’s action, frees us from needing to be Jesus. We are not able to summon the power to conduct Transfiguration; only God can do that. We are the disciples, and our work is to journey with Christ in the path that he sets us. This journey begins in prayer. Prayer is where we learn, again and again, that all things come from God and return to God.

Here’s the second thing to say, and I’ll end with this. If you are feeling tired, or distracted, or spiritually asleep, or at the end of your rope- then chances are that God is actually very near to you. Even if you can’t discern it right now, scripture tells us that these are situations in which God tends to show up. That is meant as both a comfort and an invitation. It means that when we feel tired or distracted, the most important thing we can do is to look for God.

Look for God, listen for God, in prayer, in the face of your neighbor, and here at Christ’s Table. As we do these things, we are making room, bit by bit, for God to move in our hearts and in the world, to begin Transfiguration in us.

Amen.