I. What Was I Made For? 00:11
… that we would extend your grace, your goodness, everywhere we go. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.
So we’re at the end of a three-part series today exploring the question, “What was I made for?” And today, as promised, we have arrived at the Transfiguration. Over the past few weeks, we started with Psalm 1, “Blessed is the man,” blessed being more than happy, more than those things. And we brought in words like eudaemonia (gesundheit), and we brought in words like shalom. And we brought in these ideas of excellence and goodness, where all is made right. And that is the aim and the purpose of all of creation: that everything would arrive at this position of shalom, where all is good.
Maybe this week you happened to catch the news. I don’t really care what you saw in the news, but it didn’t look like everything was good, I promise. I don’t even know if anything happened this week, but I promise, if you watched the news, you did not see wholeness and goodness. Part of their job is to sow division, because division pays. And so if you think about these things that we’re encountering on a daily basis, it’s no wonder that there is a hunger in all of our hearts for that which is good, for the blessedness promised in Scripture.
And so we talked about how we do these things, and there were a few lessons that we learned. We’ve got to love the law of the Lord. That’s hard enough: you’ve got to actually want the things that God wants in your life. You’ve got to love your enemy. Let’s up the ante a little bit. Jane makes these graphics every week, the sermon takeaways, to give you a pointer, something that pulls you into the message. She asked me what it should be, and we were talking about it, and we came up with this: “Love your enemies. God does.” Simple. Easy. If God loves our enemies, why shouldn’t we? Because we’re called to be like him.
And so we do things like: we do good to the people who hate us. We turn the economy of the world, which is tit for tat, “If you hit me, I’ll hit you back,” into goodness. We do good to those who hate us, we bless those who curse us, and we pray for those who persecute us (Luke 6.27–28). And I was looking at my prayer list, and I was pretty disappointed. The people on my prayer list are the people who love me best, because of course. And so we’ve got to look for some people to pray for. Don’t tell everybody, “I’m going to pray for you.” That’s not the point. But the idea is, we’ve got to stretch ourselves, because there’s an invitation to love our enemies, to love those whom God loves, and to ask ourselves, “What does love demand of us today?” And that brings us to that famous Augustine quote which says, “Love, and do whatever else you want.” Sounds simple. Very hard to do.
So if we take all this together, and you’re thinking, “Okay, I’ve made my moral list of things that I must do in order to be who I am called to be,” and you stand up and you put it on your shoulders, and you have your good habits: “I will get there.”
II. I Was Made to Be Transfigured 03:31
No, not even a little bit. All of that only makes sense in light of what Jesus has done for us. It only makes sense when we look at Jesus. When it says, “Blessed is the man,” who is the man? Jesus, capital M. The human, the man, the one who went before us, who fulfilled all these things, who loved his enemies, who prayed for those who persecuted him, who sat on the cross as they murdered him: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do” (Luke 23.34). And so, when we come to the end of this series, it was always going to end with the revelation of who Jesus is, not who you can become. And the great thing is, when you realize who Jesus is, then you can become like him. Then you can answer the question, “What was I made for?”
And so when we get here, we’re going to jump into this, and my answer to the question of the whole series, if you just need one answer, is: I was made to be transfigured. I was made to be transfigured, transformed, re-created, made new. In fact, what a fitting tribute today, as we have our baptism today, when we invite somebody to enter into the transfiguration that makes them a son or a daughter of God. Adeline is going to be a part of that family, and it’s from glory to glory that she is going to change throughout her entire life, by the power of God. Praise the Lord.
III. The Appearance of His Face Was Altered 04:36
And so we’re going to talk about what the Transfiguration means, because if I’m called to do that, if that’s the answer to the deepest question about who I am meant to be, then I want to know what that means. And so we’re going to look at this story. We’re going to start in Luke, in verse 28. It begins our gospel story: “Now about eight days after these sayings.” If you’ve been paying attention the past couple of weeks, we’ve been hearing Jesus’ Sermon on the Plain, which is Luke’s version of the Sermon on the Mount, things like “Love your enemies.” After he said all these things:
28 Now about eight days after these sayings he took with him Peter and John and James and went up on the mountain to pray. 29 And as he was praying, the appearance of his face was altered, and his clothing became dazzling white. Luke 9.28–29
So what happens is not, as you might think, that Jesus goes up there and removes a mask, and all of a sudden Peter, James, and John go, “Oh, you were just in disguise the whole time.” No, what happens is their eyes are opened and they see who he really is. Jesus is never not the Son of God. Jesus is never not glorious to behold. Jesus has never not been those things. The Transfiguration is about revealing to us who he is.
It’s not like when he was on the road and the girl came and said, “Can you heal my daughter? She’s possessed.” And he said, “No, you’re not a Jew.” And she gave this great, faithful answer, and he said, “Okay, I will do that. I’m moved with compassion for you” (Matt 15.22–28). And it’s like, “That’s Jesus in disguise.” No, that’s not how it is. Everything that he did, washing his disciples’ feet, being crucified on the cross, that was all the glorious Jesus that we see transfigured on the mount. It’s about the veil between our eyes and his. He’s not wearing a disguise as he walks around loving people day to day, but we are so blinded that it took a moment of great revelation in the Transfiguration for us to see his glory revealed.
Now let me say it this way. There is an idea that as Jesus became incarnate, he emptied himself of his godlike qualities. And so the theologian in me is forced to say, yes, absolutely, as he became man, it wasn’t like he was walking around glowing and everybody else was blind. I’m not saying that. What I’m getting at, the spiritual reality, is that Jesus was always glorious and beautiful and shining, even if in his physical reality he looked like us.
The great thing about that is that every one of us can be like Jesus. All of you have the Spirit in you, and it can show forth in you, and you can walk around glorious and beautiful as you love people. In fact, if you pay attention, you can even see people shining with the radiance of God as they love one another. Maybe it’s the nurse caring for the paraplegic man, making sure he doesn’t get bedsores and turning him over, even in the difficulty of that job. Or maybe it’s your waiter who took an extra second to make sure that your dish was prepared well as she served you, or he served you. Everyone can serve and love the way Jesus loves. And part of the Transfiguration message is not that Jesus is revealed as God, but that we are called upwards towards that ideal, that picture of who Jesus is.
IV. Moses and Elijah Spoke of His Departure 07:59
Let’s keep reading here. So he is transfigured, and they get the revelation: “Oh my goodness, look, it’s the glory of God in flesh.” They see Jesus for who he is in that moment. And then in verse 30 it says:
30 And behold, two men were talking with him, Moses and Elijah, 31 who appeared in glory and spoke of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. Luke 9.30–31
The language here is kind of funny, because our New King James Version says “his decease.” He’s about to be deceased. He’s about to die, is the point. His departure means his brutal crucifixion and torturous death, and Moses and Elijah are there talking to him about it.
The picture here, of course, is that Moses and Elijah represent the Law and the Prophets. And so the whole thrust of God’s revelation for thousands of years in the Old Testament is leading to the brutal death of his Son on a cross. Moses and Elijah are not surprised. They’re with him in that. It’s us who need to be transformed so we can see, “Oh yes, it did have to be the crucifixion. That was God’s plan.”
And so they’re speaking of his departure. And it reminds me of when Paul writes that we are so blessed, because we got to see the fulfillment of that which was promised. Think of Abraham. Think of Isaac, Jacob. Think of Joseph. I mean, what an amazing individual Joseph was. And yet we are more blessed than they, because we get to see the fulfillment of Christ, his death, his resurrection. That’s what Paul says. We get to live in the kingdom that Christ came to bring. We get to live in the fulfillment of the promise.
And so, in this moment of transfigured glory, instead of us seeing, “Oh great, Moses and Elijah are here so that they can scheme to replace the world government with a true government of Israel that will conquer the world, and everybody will obey,” everything we might have thought God was going to do (“He’s going to take over, and he’s going to make everything right by military and political force”), no. They plotted his betrayal and his death. They talked about God’s beautiful plan to replace the kingdom of this world with the kingdom of our God, which came through self-sacrificial love, which came through a power that was self-limiting, a power made perfect in Jesus’ weakness on the cross.
This is what the Transfiguration reveals about God. In the moment when God pulls back and reveals his power and his glory and his might, even in that moment he is the God who humbly walks to the cross. Why? So that you can become a son and a daughter of God. You have to remember, all of this is because, if God did it by the way of the kingdom of this world, if God did it by political force, he doesn’t accomplish his goal, which is to replace our idea of power, our idea of accomplishment, with his, which is the self-sacrificial love that takes up its cross and lays down its life, even for its enemies. The kingdom of this world teaches you that your job is to annihilate the enemy, to destroy them. The kingdom of our God says, “Die for your enemy.” It’s pretty radical, and I hope you’re hearing that as we talk about this.
V. God Is Jesus 11:26
In fact, there was a great talk that my uncle Ken, Father Kenneth Tanner, gave at our convocation last year, where he taught on this idea that the Transfiguration is amazing because it reveals that Jesus is God. But one step further: it also reveals that God is Jesus. And I think we lose that sometimes. I think we lose this idea, because when we see Jesus, humbly, in his incarnate flesh, washing the feet of his disciples, and he says, “I came as one who served” (Luke 22.27), we think that he did that for thirty years, and then he went up to heaven, and now he is a powerful ruler like we imagine, and he dictates, and people follow his commands, and he is above us all, and he will come again and he will smite the evildoer. It’s like, no. He will come again the way he came the first time: humbly, to rescue us, to reunite us with him. That’s who he is. He is one who serves, today.
What do you think it means when it says that in him we live and move and have our being (Acts 17.28)? He is holding together the universe, pouring out his self-sacrificial love and service. The same God who washes his disciples’ feet holds the universe together in humble service. He’s not a different God now. It’s not like he had to do the humble thing so that then he could become the proud ruler who strutted around: “Did you see what I did? You guys should worship me.” It’s like, no, no, no, no. He’s still, to this day…
In fact, we have this great story that my grandfather tells of a vision he had of Jesus. Jesus was in the basement of this cathedral, and he saw him, and Jesus was on his knees in the dirt, praying for humanity, saying, “I gave them free will, and all that I do is pray that they would turn it over to me, that they might become like me.” That’s the point of it all. It’s not to rule and reign by dictate. It’s not so that he could trick the devil into giving him back the keys of Hades. It’s not like he was playing this game and now he’s going to walk around being a different person. No. God is Jesus.
We often approach God as this dictator, this dictatorial father figure who’s probably mad at us, because you all know you. “He’s probably mad at me. I’m not good enough for him.” And yet, no. The revelation of God in Jesus shows us he’s here to love the least, the lost, the lonely. In fact, where did he say you could find him today? In the prisoner, in the hungry, in the person who needs a drink of water, the needy (Matt 25.35–36). All of this is in the story of the Transfiguration, played out throughout his whole life. We find out that what God is, is a God who does everything for love of you.
In fact, a great picture of this is given to us in that classic of modern theology, Bruce Almighty, with Jim Carrey and Morgan Freeman. Please do not learn about God from this movie as an overall thing. But it can reveal something true, because at the end of the movie, when Bruce Almighty has messed up everything, he comes, and what is God doing? He’s just a janitor, mopping the floor, serving the universe. That’s a great picture of who God is. In fact, it might be more real in some ways than the picture you have in your head. I really don’t think that he’s Morgan Freeman with a mop. You get it. But the idea that God is the one who’s just simply, humbly serving, not bothered by the chaos, but calmly putting things in order for us, righting the wrongs that we commit, bringing all to his glory and our good: that’s God revealed in Jesus.
So when you think about all this, and you ask the question, “What were we made for?”, we’re meant to be like him. We’re meant to be among you as one who serves. In fact, what did he tell his disciples? “You don’t lead the way the Gentiles lead, lording it over one another, but you lead through service” (Luke 22.25–26). It’s pretty humbling.
VI. This Is My Son; Listen to Him 15:54
In verse 34… so I skipped a couple of verses. It says they were in a deep sleep. There’s a weird thing that has happened. I call it a trance. So they’re in this moment, and God comes, and they just don’t understand what’s going on. It’s not like they walk up the mountain and they’re just like, “Oh man,” and they fall asleep. No, it’s implying that God was doing something here, and they didn’t see what was going on. And all of a sudden they look up. What would you do if you saw the glorious Jesus, and then Moses and Elijah just standing there talking to him? Peter panics. He’s like, “Oh, let me make you three tents.” The word there is tabernacles: “Let’s worship you three. Let’s enshrine you three.” And in that moment God will have none of that. What does God do?
34 As he was saying these things, a cloud came and overshadowed them, and they were afraid as they entered the cloud. 35 And a voice came out of the cloud, saying, “This is my Son, my Chosen One; listen to him!” Luke 9.34–35
Basically, Moses and Elijah are great, but they only point to this one source of authority. Jesus is who we listen to. And in fact, there’s a whole lot that goes into this. In our Corinthians passage, Paul is pointing this out: what Jesus does is he takes the veil away, so we can actually see the Law and the Prophets for what they were meant to do, which is reveal Jesus. So from then on, when we read the Old Testament, all we do is look for Jesus revealed in the Law and the Prophets. As we study these stories, we see Jesus everywhere.
And in fact, the truth of the matter is, if you’re reading the Old Testament without Jesus, it’s just not enough. It’s how we started this whole conversation. I gave you all these things that we’ve got to do to be good, and it’s like, without Jesus you’re blind. You don’t get it. It’s only as Jesus reveals his plan, his goodness, that we are able to become sons and daughters of God, that we are able to enter into the fullness of the promise.
And so all of this stuff is happening in the Transfiguration, and Peter, James, and John… their minds are blown, because everyone who taught them before said, “Moses said do this,” “Elijah said do this.” But Jesus says, “I say do this,” and the whole world has changed. It’s all about him and what he says and does.
VII. From Glory to Glory 19:08
So when we ask the question, “What was I made for?”, it’s actually found in our passage today, in 2 Corinthians 3. Let’s jump to verse 18:
18 And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. 2 Cor 3.18
So if you’re sitting here thinking, “Okay, Jesse, I hear everything you’re saying, but do I believe you?” Paul believed that that was the point. Not me. I defer to Paul on this one. The point is, you are to be in the same image as Christ. Our Bishop Kessler, here today, used to always say, in every single message, “From glory to glory we are being changed,” because he understood this is what God is doing in us: making us like him. And it’s all glory to glory.
Every one of us can think back on the past, let’s say, five years and make a list of our worst possible days, and right next to it: from glory to glory, from glory to glory. I mean, look at his ugly worst day. Mel Gibson did us such a favor by portraying The Passion of the Christ so vividly, because it sticks in my mind. I can’t think of it as beautiful without the knowledge of the resurrection. From glory to glory.
VIII. The Weight of Glory 20:22
Okay, we’ll end this whole series with a quote from C.S. Lewis. Bear with me. He’s my favorite. Love this guy. And he knew what he was talking about, and he summarizes all of this well in a sermon he himself gave on the same topic. It’s so cool: eighty years ago he was giving a sermon about the same idea, because we’re always talking about how we can be like Jesus. And he says this at the end of his message:
“Meanwhile the cross comes before the crown and tomorrow is a Monday morning.”
Bummer.
“A cleft has opened in the pitiless walls of the world, and we are invited to follow our great Captain inside. The following Him is, of course, the essential point.”
If you got nothing else: it’s about following him.
“That being so, it may be asked what practical use there is in the speculations which I have been indulging. I can think of at least one such use. It may be possible for each to think too much of his own potential glory hereafter;”
Each of us can get obsessed with how we’re going to be so good. However:
“it is hardly possible for him to think too often or too deeply about that of his neighbour. The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbour’s glory should be laid daily on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken.”
So this whole time I’ve been asking the question, “What was I made for?” And I’m doing the switch here: let’s care about what you all, what we, are made for.
“It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses,”
Little… we’re called to be in his family, so we will be called after his name.
“to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations.”
And John says:
2 Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. 1 John 3.2
Amen.