Jesus Christ: Not Just Another Two-Faced Deity Transfiguration of the Lord March 6, 2011 Caldwell Memorial Presbyterian Church Rev. John M. Cleghorn Scripture: Psalm 23 Matthew 17:1-9 Part of the my daughter Sophie s fourth grade course of study this year is Greek mythology. As just one aspect of a culture that died about 2,000 years ago, Greek mythology continues to shape our modern culture in impressive ways. In everything from the names of the planets to the names of car manufacturers, Greek gods are still very much with us. Not everyone knows it but we start the year every year giving credence to a Greek god. The month of January is named after the Greek god Janus. Janus is the god of gates, doors, doorways, beginnings and endings. He was depicted as having two heads and two faces, one facing backward and the other forward. A good choice for a month when we all look back and ahead. Today in the Christian tradition is the day when we remember the Transfiguration of our Lord, Jesus Christ. Unlike Janus, Jesus was not two-faced. He was fully human and fully divine, but both of his natures coexisted in one body. Jesus could not face two directions at once. Whichever direction he faced was the direction he was going. Rarely, if ever, in all of the gospels, does Jesus seem confused about which way to turn and which way to go. Transfiguration Sunday draws our attention to the story we heard from the gospel of Matthew, a supernatural moment when Jesus face is transfigured in the presence of God. The Greek word used in the text means transformed. But the modern word for that, transfigure, can do double duty for those of us who are about to begin the season of Lent. Transfiguration Sunday reminds us that, after that mystical moment on the mountaintop, Jesus turned in one direction and never turned back. Luke s account of this same story says it well. Jesus set his face toward Jerusalem, where he would be tried, persecuted and put to death in the days to come. Friends, when we leave church today, it s unlikely that our faces will shine like the sun or our clothes will become dazzling white. But, with Ash Wednesday coming this week,
this text invites us to set our own face toward the cross of our Lord and commit again to preparing for Holy Week and for Easter through repentance and reflection. The story as Matthew tells it deserves some attention. In the preceding chapters, Jesus has been at the top of his game. He has been revealing himself as the son of God through parables that confound the scribes and Pharisees, sermons that inspire his followers, miracles that prove his power and healings that encourage the sick and the oppressed. The suspense builds and Jesus asks his disciples the question he knows is on their minds: Who do people say that I am? The disciples throw out a few guesses and then good old Peter, who for better or worse was always sure of himself, nails it. You are the Messiah, the son of the living God. Jesus confirms his identity and then swears the disciples to secrecy. In Matthew s account, Jesus then begins to tell how he will suffer, die and be resurrected. All of that brings us to the Transfiguration. It starts with Jesus, Peter, James and John climbing a mountain. As you know, we ve just wrapped up a series of sermons about the Ten Commandments from Mt. Sinai. That series included Jesus interpretation of the Decalogue on the Sermon on the Mount. (We ve been climbing a lot of mountains lately.) Do you make the connection? Do you see what kind of things God does on mountain tops? Kind of makes me want to say, God, please don t ask me to climb any mountains, at least any time soon. When they get to the top, Moses and Elijah appear. What are they doing there? Why those two? Did they wander over from a nearby cloud to see what they ruckus was all about? Or did God pluck them out of whatever they were doing for a reason? Moses is remembered for many things. But as the beautiful art on the cover of the bulletin indicates, he is most associated with yes, there they are again - the Ten Commandments. This is the Law, the Old Covenant, the terms of God s adoption of Israel and a framework for how God s people are to live. Then there is Elijah, not just any prophet but the prophet among prophets. Scripture says Elijah mysteriously appears more than being born. He fought for the Lord against other gods. He championed the downtrodden. He performed miracles and vanished into heaven aboard a blazing chariot.
Why these two? What is God s point to the disciples, who are the intended audience of the great event. Together, Moses and Elijah represent the sum of God s guidance of God s people, up until Jesus, who now becomes God s clearest self-communication. Now, Peter, good old Peter, has a brainstorm. Why not build shelters for Jesus, Moses and Elijah so they and the disciples could hang out for a while. That s an understandable reaction, I suppose, when one finds oneself in that kind of company. But Peter did not know God s purpose. And he surely did not know that Jesus was about to turn his face to Jerusalem. Hanging out on a mountaintop was the last thing Jesus intended to do. Earthly structures and shrines were not part of Jesus agenda, then, or ever, for that matter. So, what are we to make of all of this? In a very real sense, this is a story about claiming. God claims Jesus, with the words: This is my Son, the Beloved, with him I am well pleased; listen to him! Jesus also does some claiming. He claims his identity as the Messiah, but a Messiah who is a suffering servant. At the time of the Transfiguration, Jesus days of preaching, telling parables, performing miracles, healing the sick and speaking for the voiceless are coming to a close. There is one thing left to do. So he turns his face to Jerusalem and they come down the mountain. This story also asks us to make a claim about the one we worship. One of the emphases throughout the gospel of Matthew is the writer s assertion that Jesus is the divine son of God. As I said a moment ago, the preface to the story of the Transfiguration is Jesus asking the disciples who they think he is, which prompts Peter s declaration that Jesus is the Messiah, which pleases Christ greatly. In its own dramatic way, then, the story of the Transfiguration calls the same question on us. Who do we say Jesus was and is? What do we really think when we read Jesus stories about supernatural events like the transfiguration? All those miraculous healings? The saving from the dead? Even the relatively small things like turning water into wine? Do we, perhaps deep in our subconscious, say that these are really the revisionist history of those who wrote the
gospels? They were, after all, part of a movement that needed more than just a prophet and a preacher as their inspiration. They needed a God, after all. So on this Transfiguration Sunday, we ask ourselves anew that question that must lie at the foundation of our faith: Was Jesus fully human and fully divine? Was Jesus the Son of God? Or was he just a gifted story teller? A stirring preacher? A charismatic leader? The real prophet among prophets? If that is all, then we ought not to go through the motions, brothers and sisters. This coming Wednesday is just another Wednesday, the coming 40 days just a good time to watch college basketball, or keep up with baseball s spring training or do the spring cleaning. If Jesus was just a prophet or just a preacher or just a charismatic leader, then he is long dead and gone. He won t give a damn about whether we spend the season of Lent reconciling our lives to the God who came into the world only to be rejected, killed and raised. Because, after all, those things never happened, certainly not the resurrection. And, heck, without the resurrection, what do we have? Certainly not a faith that can inspire and transform lives for all of time. So, friends, when you look into the face of Christ, what do you see? An historical figure? A deity, made flesh? Maybe neither by itself? Maybe both? Yes. That s the answer. Yes, Jesus was a man, whose last name is that of the divine, Christ. Unlike the Greek god Janus, who could conveniently look in one of two directions, or, when it suited, in both directions at once, the story of the Transfiguration tells us that Jesus the Christ looked one way and one way only, toward the cross. When he came down from the mountain with James, John and Peter, his face no longer shone like the sun, his robes no longer glistened. He declined the chance to stay there in the loving glow of God. He told his disciples to keep the whole thing a secret in their hearts until he had been raised from the dead. And, he set his face toward Jerusalem, Between here and there, he knew he would walk through the valley of the shadow of death, but he feared no evil, he knew that God was with him.
Jesus the Christ, fully human and fully divine, was anything but a two-faced myth. He experienced the highest highs on mountaintops but also the lowest lows in the valley of the shadow. And he summons us to walk with him for every footstep of the journey, beginning Wednesday. I close with the words of a hymn for this, Transfiguration Sunday 1 : Swiftly pass the clouds of glory, heaven s voice, the dazzling light; Moses and Elijah vanish; Christ alone commands the height! Peter, James and John fall silent, Turning from the summit s rise Downward toward the shadowed valley, Where their Lord has fixed his eyes. Glimpsed and gone the revelation, They shall gain and keep its truth, Not by building on the mountain, Any shrine or sacred booth, But by following the Savior, Through the valley to the cross And by testing faith s resilience Through betrayal, pain and loss. Lord, transfigure our perception, With the purest light that shines, And recast our life s intentions, To the shape of Your designs, Till we seek no other glory Than what lies past Calvary s hill And our living and our dying And our rising by Your will. Amen and Amen. 1 Swiftly Pass the Clouds of Glory PH 73, Thomas H. Troeger, 1985