The Path of Suffering
Preacher: Tim Jenkins
Passage: Luke 9:28-36
The night was too bright when the disciples awoke.
You’ve seen the kind of night, when the moon is full and the night glows as though someone has turned on a giant night light, or the way that, when the landscape is covered in ice or snow, even the smallest amount of moonlight is reflected so brightly it illuminates the night.
But there was no snow on this lowly mountain, too humble for Luke to even name. This light was something else.
The disciples, Peter, James, and John, had been asked to accompany Jesus while he went to pray. This was not a new thing for Jesus, who had often gone away to pray during their time as his followers. Jesus’ strength often outstripped theirs, however, and they would find themselves drifting into sleep long before their teacher’s time was complete. Such as it was tonight.
“What is this light?” they wondered, and they picked themselves up to move closer and see.
What they found amazed them.Two men stood talking with Jesus, two men who glowed with a sort of glory of the divine. Not angels; two men. And as the disciples looked at those two men, they began to recognize them.
Now, how the disciples recognized these two men is unclear. There must have been something about the purity of their presence that betrayed exactly who they were to any who would have seen them.
For when these disciples looked upon these two men they saw Moses, the Moses, the embodiment of the Law, and Elijah, the Elijah, the embodiment of the prophets, each of them glowing, and they were standing and speaking with Jesus.
And yet, these two in all their glory were not the light.
The disciples’ minds worked to take it all in, to understand what it was they were seeing.
As Peter looked, he flashbacked to another prayer session, just a little over a week ago. “It was.. it was…,” Peter tried to remember, “in Caesarea Philippi, that’s right!” Jesus had been praying by himself, with Peter and some of the other disciples were nearby. Jesus had come over to Peter, and he remembered that Jesus had asked him “Who do the crowds say that I am?” Peter had shared with him the rumors he had heard as they went from town to town: that Jesus was actually John the Baptism reborn, or that Jesus was one of the prophets of old. Snapping back to the present, Peter mused: “If the crowds could see him now, with the prophet himself standing next to him, no one would think Jesus was Elijah anymore.”
Peter had spent a lot of time thinking about that day from a little over a week ago. Jesus hadn’t asked him just the one question. He had also asked Peter, “Who do you say that I am?” It took only a moment for Peter to answer.
“The Messiah of God,” he had answered him.
Peter had felt sure of it in his heart when he said those words, and saying them aloud had felt right and true, and having said them aloud he found himself ready to say them again, and again, and again to anyone that would listen.
But he had not said those words again. Not to any of the people or crowds they had met since then. And it wasn’t because he didn’t want to. It was because Jesus had told him not to.
Jesus had said more that day, not just to Peter, but to him and other disciples… and it was troubling. Jesus would have to suffer? He would be rejected by the elders, and the priests, and the scribes? He would be killed? How could that be? If Jesus truly was the Messiah, as Peter had known so strongly in his heart, how could that be?
He looked upon his master as he stood now on the top of this mountain. This man, the one who had found them fishing and called them to be his disciples, who had taught them about the kingdom of God, who had performed unbelievable miracles in their very presence time and time again, this man stood now flanked by Moses and Elijah, transformed into something glorious. His pure, Messianic self glowing bright white, his clothes bright white, lighting up the darkness around them. This man, Jesus, the Messiah, was the light of this darkness. Jesus was the light.
Peter thought again of Jesus’ troubling words. Rejected? Killed? No. Jesus, who stood now equal to Moses and Elijah, he, who transformed the night, he surely should not be rejected, made to suffer, to die. All who looked on this scene would know, would understand, would bow down in reverence to the one who deserved it, as surely as Moses and Elijah deserved it.
And then the words of their conversation, the one that was happening now between Moses, Elijah, and Jesus, those words began to penetrate his ears. They were talking about when Jesus left the mountain, when he went away from this place, and it sounded like the conversation was nearly complete.
No. No, it can’t be finished. People need to see this.
And so, Peter spoke. He said to Moses, and he said to Elijah, but especially he said to his master, Jesus, the Messiah, he said to them, “Let us stay here. Let us make tents, three of them, for each of you to live in. We will stay on the mountain, and this place will be holy, and people will come to know that the Lord has given us the Law, and spoken to us through the prophets, and now his Messiah dwells among us. This thing is good. Let us stay.”
But as he spoke, clouds began to roll in. The air grew moist, and the night grew dark around them. It was terrifying, this sudden, all encompassing mist, and it enveloped them all: the disciples, Jesus, Moses, Elijah, all of them.
And none could see the other as a voice came from the cloud. The voice seemed to penetrate their very being as it spoke, and they knew it was holy.
“This is my Son, my Chosen, listen to him!”
It was almost too much, but then the clouds began to leave. They swirled and thinned, and the world around them started returning to view. And when it was finally gone, there before them stood their teacher as they had known him these many months. Alone. A humble Nazarene.
When they left that place they did not speak of what had happened. For they did not yet understand. They didn’t understand that Moses and Elijah had come to comfort their Master as he chose again to continue on the path of suffering. They did not yet understand that Jesus was not the equal to Moses and Elijah, but stood above them, as the incarnation of God himself on earth. They did not yet understand that Jesus must go down the mountain, into the towns and villages, and on to Jerusalem, to be received as a king and then killed like a criminal. That Jesus’ passion, his suffering, his death, must come, so that through his resurrection all of humanity could be redeemed.
They did not yet understand. But they would. Those days were coming, because Jesus chose the path of suffering. He made that choice for them. He made that choice for us.
In 47 days, this church, like many others, will call a Friday “good” as we mark the death of Jesus Christ, but it is only “good” because we stand, as 2 Corinthians reminds us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord, knowing that Easter Sunday will reveal to us an empty tomb and a resurrected Christ. And on that day we will make “alleluia” our song.
So, dear friends, I encourage you, in 3 days, when Ash Wednesday and Lent calls us to repent and reflect, let us answer that call and prepare our hearts. Let us commit ourselves again to discipleship, with all of its costs, and holy lives worthy of Jesus Christ, the one who chooses the path of suffering for us.
Amen.
