A Glimpse of His Glory

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Now, most of the time when you go to a wedding and the bride comes and walks in, you probably do what almost everyone does and turn and look at the bride, right? I mean, usually the preacher will even say something along those lines, turn and look at the bride. I usually find myself, whether I’m officiating a wedding or just attending a wedding, I find myself looking at the groom because I like to see his reaction. And it’s, well, in my experience, it’s always been a happy reaction. I’m sure there are exceptions, but in my experience, it’s always been a happy reaction. And I remember my own, my own wedding to Charla.

I remember when I looked and saw her for the first time at our wedding, I thought, wow, she’s actually going through with it. at our wedding, I left the stage and went and got her. And people asked later on, why did y’all do it that way? I said, I got tired of waiting. But it wasn’t that we planned it that way, because in so many of Jesus’ parables, he talks about the groom coming to get the bride, and we wanted to weave biblical themes throughout the entire ceremony. And so I went and got her to walk her down the aisle, and I went and opened that side door to the auditorium, and I did think, wow.

I had never seen her up to that time look so beautiful, and it wasn’t that she didn’t look beautiful before, but there was something different, and it wasn’t the dress, it wasn’t the hair, it wasn’t the makeup, it was the look on her face, and I thought, she is about to be my wife. She is crazy enough to go through with this, and she is about to be my wife, and it’s like she just looked different, looked like I’d never seen her before. And I think probably a lot of men experience that, of seeing their about to be wife in a different light. There’s just something different about the way she looks at that wedding ceremony.

And it is a pale comparison even at that, but it gives us some glimpse into what the disciples experienced on the Mount of Transfiguration when they saw Jesus, the word the Bible uses is transfigured right in front of them, that they saw Jesus in a completely different light than they had ever seen him before. That’s what we’re going to look at this morning in Luke chapter 9. If you’re new with us, we are working our way piece by piece through the book of Luke, and we’ve arrived at Luke chapter 9, this Mount of Transfiguration experience. If you’d go and then turn there with me this morning. We’ll be in Luke chapter 9 starting in verse 28.

And once you find it, if you’ll stand with me as we read together from God’s Word, if you can’t find it or don’t have your Bible with you, that’s all right. It’ll be on the screen so that you can follow along. But let’s look together at what Luke says about this experience that some of the disciples had with Jesus. Starting in verse 28, it says, some eight days after these sayings, He took Peter and John and James and went up on the mountain to pray. And while he was praying, the appearance of his face became different, and his clothing became white and gleaming.

And behold, two men were talking with him, and they were Moses and Elijah, who appearing in glory were speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. Now Peter and his companions had been overcome with sleep. The Greek says they were heavy, they were burdened with sleep. But when they were fully awake, they saw his glory and the two men standing with him. And as these were leaving him, Peter said to Jesus, Master, it is good for us to be here. Let us make three tabernacles, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah, not realizing what he was saying.

While he was saying this, a cloud formed and began to overshadow them, and they were afraid as they entered the cloud. Then a voice came out of the cloud saying, this is my son, my chosen one, listen to him. And when the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone, and they kept silent and reported to no one in those days any of the things which they had seen. And you may be seated. This is one of those stories that I just didn’t think about much for many years, even reading the Bible, studying the Bible, even preaching the Bible, I just didn’t think about this story very much. And if you ever wonder why do we preach through books of the Bible, that’s not the only way I preach.

Sometimes we will do a series on topics, but why do I spend so much time preaching through a book? It’s because until I started doing that, I was missing things, not just stories that didn’t necessarily appeal to me on first glance, but also just connections that you build as you go through week after week. The only time I’ve ever preached on the transfiguration was before this is when we did our study of the book of Mark a few years ago. I’m not sure I’ve heard any sermons on the transfiguration just in my years of sitting in church. But once you start to dig into this story, I thought, what does this even mean? Jesus looked different. Big whoop.

Now, I would never say that because it’s the Bible. It’s in there for a reason. But I’d rather go on to the resurrection story. But this story is so connected to so many things in Scripture that it’s kind of like when you fly. How many of you have ever flown out of Lawton from the Lawton Airport? Okay. Where’d you go straight from there? Dallas. Can you go anyplace else? Not unless you’ve got your own plane. And I do not. I watched a documentary on megachurch pastors. I do not have my own plane. I flew American Airlines or whatever their cheap brand, American Eagle, I guess, to Dallas. You can’t go anywhere from Lawton but Dallas, but when you go to Dallas, Dallas is connected to everywhere.

This story is like the Dallas Fort Worth of biblical texts. It connects to the Old Testament. It connects to Exodus. It connects to the prophets. It connects to 1 and 2 Peter. We won’t even cover this morning all the ways that it connects. But it tells us a story of who Jesus is. And that’s where I want us to begin this morning. The transfiguration was a turning point for all those who witnessed it. For these three men who had the privilege of being there with Jesus that night, this event that seems so mysterious to us was a turning point for them understanding of who Jesus is.

And there are multiple points to this morning’s message, but point one probably is where we’ll camp out most of the time, just because in order to understand the other points, we need to understand this one, and what exactly happened on that mount of transfiguration? What exactly happened? So they’re there, and they’re praying, and true to form, Jesus is praying, and the disciples are sleeping. Jesus, a few times that are recorded in the Gospels, took this group of disciples especially with him away from the others, and he went off to pray to renew his strength. Even though he’s God in human flesh, he’s in human flesh.

And so he would get weary, and he would go and he would pray to commune with the Father and renew his strength. And they’re out there on this mountain, presumably in the middle of the night, the other disciples, James, John, Peter, they are exhausted, and they’ve fallen asleep. And somewhere in the midst of this, they wake up because of what’s going on, and they see that Jesus’ appearance is completely different. Now, Matthew and Mark say that he was transformed, and they use a word that we get metamorphosis from. Luke doesn’t use this word.

He kind of understates it, I think, because he was writing to Gentiles, and the Gentiles would use that same word to describe things that happened with their pagan gods, and I think Luke didn’t want to confuse people. So, Luke kind of downplays it and just says he looked different. But the point is still there. His appearance was completely changed. For the other two, they say it was a radical transformation. He says Jesus’ face changed. Matthew tells us that it became bright like the sun. They all give a slightly different explanation of what happened. Not that they differed at all, but Matthew comments that his face was bright like the sun.

Luke just says it was bright, but Matthew says it was like the sun. Even his clothes became different. Luke tells us that, but Mark tells us it’s whiter than any launderer on earth could ever make them. I tried to bleach some things this weekend, and I was very disappointed. My wife buys the good bleach that I won’t spend the money on, so I used the good bleach, and I thought it would make things radiant white, but there are some things even bleach can’t get out of stuff, which is really disappointing because I just, you know, if I was trying not to bleach something, the bleach would make it white.

But he says these clothes that Jesus was wearing were brighter and more radiant than any launderer on earth could ever make them. There’s a change in his appearance in verse 29. What they saw was not the Jesus that they were used to. And so already when they wake up and see that just in his appearance, he looks completely different. They know something unusual is happening here. They look up and verse 30 tells us that they see him meeting with two men. He’s meeting with Moses and Elijah. And I know the question has arisen before. How did they know it was Moses and Elijah? If God wanted us to know how they knew, he would have told us. I want to know, but it’s not something we need to know.

I don’t know if they were wearing name tags. Hello, my name is Moses. I don’t know if maybe the disciples overheard them talking and understood from the context who they were. I don’t know if maybe they asked Jesus a little later on, who are these guys? Maybe they interrupted. Sometimes the disciples act like kids. It’s not out of the realm of possibility to think that they interrupted Jesus and these other two men. Hey, Lord, who are you talking to? But somehow or another, they knew that he was talking to Moses and Elijah. which is incredible in and of itself. We just kind of gloss over that. At the transfiguration, he talked to Moses and he talked to Elijah.

Moses had been dead for 1,400 years by this time. And Elijah had been dead for 800 or 900, if memory serves. I mean, these men were long gone. And they show up on the Mount of Transfiguration and they’re talking to Jesus. This is not something that happens every day. And so they’re having this conversation, and the question that arises for us is, why were those two guys there? First of all, why was anybody back from the dead talking to Jesus, or even their spirits just appearing there talking to Jesus? We don’t know what form exactly they were in. But why were these men talking to Jesus, and why was it these two men specifically?

And kind of the traditional understanding that people have had and that I’ve taught is they represent the Old Testament scriptures. And this would be fitting symbolism because Jesus talked about how he’s the fulfillment of everything that the Old Testament tells us. He’s the fulfillment of the law. He’s the fulfillment of the message of the prophets. And you’d be hard-pressed to find anybody who represented those things better than Moses and Elijah did. Moses is the one that God used in order to give the law to his people, and Elijah was one of the most famous of the prophets. He’s the one that everybody expected to come back.

And so if you want a visual representation of the fact that the Scriptures testify to Jesus, here you’ve got Moses and Elijah. They’re talking to Jesus. And I think that’s true. I think there’s something to be said for that. But studying this passage again and just that nagging question, why these two guys? I mean, it’s recorded in three of the Gospels that those two men were there. Why is it so important? Why was it those two men? And why is it so important that it was those two men? And so I did some digging. And what did earlier generations of believers understand about this passage?

And I came across a man named Cyril of Jerusalem, one of the church fathers, who wrote about 200 years after this, if memory serves. And he pointed out the fact in his writing on this passage that these two men showed up as two witnesses. Deuteronomy 17 and 19, I believe, talk about how in order to prove something happened under Old Testament law, you had to have two witnesses. They didn’t have DNA and forensic files, so you had to have two witnesses to verify that something happened. And so these men showed up. They would be two witnesses. And the reason why it’s important that it’s them is he points out these were two men who had met with God personally in the Old Testament.

And once I read that he pointed that out, I thought, man, why did I not see that before? These two men met with God personally. Doesn’t mean they saw God in all of his glory. As a matter of fact, in both circumstances, I believe, they were told if they saw God in the fullness of his glory, they would die. But there’s the instance with Moses when he’s atop Mount Horeb in Exodus chapter 33, where God puts him in the cleft of the rock and covers him with his hand, and he sees sort of God pass by. He catches a glimpse of God passing by after they’ve been talking. And then there’s a very similar situation with Elijah also at Mount Horeb in 1 Kings chapter 19.

The famous story where he looks for God in the earthquake. He looks for God in the whirlwind, and he hears God in the still small voice while he’s standing there in that cave. Both of these men had a personal experience meeting with God and speaking with God. And when you understand that, it becomes so much clearer why it’s these two men and why it needed to be these two men on the Mount of Transfiguration in order to make the point that God wanted to. These men were two witnesses who had met with God in the Old Testament, and they’re meeting with God again. They’re bearing witness that this is the same God they knew.

That Jesus didn’t just appear on the scene in Bethlehem some 30 years before this. This is somebody that they’ve met with before, somebody that they knew from experience. Why did Moses and Elijah appear? They’re bearing witness that Jesus Christ is God just as He claimed to be. And as they come, verse 31 tells us that they were discussing His departure. Appearing in glory, they were speaking of His departure, which He was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. They’re not talking about Him leaving Jerusalem in the sense that He finishes up and goes on back to Galilee. They’re talking about His death.

they’re discussing the death that he was about to die and Jesus death was not a surprise as we go through the gospels we see that it’s woven throughout there Jesus over and over and over is is leaving a trail of clues for his disciples about his purpose here on earth and that his purpose was to go to Jerusalem and be crucified for us and to rise again three days later. As a matter of fact, when they’re still not getting it, he goes beyond leaving these clues to out and out telling them, I’m going to go there and I’m going to be killed. He’s just done that in the previous passage. The Son of Man must go to Jerusalem. He must be rejected. He must be abused.

He must be killed and he must rise the third day. He’s told them this with the intent that by the time they get there, it wouldn’t be a surprise when it happens.

and I asked the question on a Sunday night just a few weeks ago why do you think that after all the times he told them why do you think they were still so surprised when it happened that he was crucified and I forget who it was but somebody somebody in here I think it was one of the ladies pointed out that when you love somebody you just can’t believe that that’s really going to happen you’re kind of in a state of denial maybe believing what you want to believe oh yeah he’ll someday, maybe at the end of his reign, they were still, I think, believing that he was going to come into Jerusalem and be crowned king.

And maybe he’ll die a few years down the road, but they couldn’t believe that this trip they’re about to make to Jerusalem is where he’s going to be killed. And as they’re standing here having the discussion about his departure, verse 32 tells us that they saw his glory. They had been overcome with sleep, but when they were fully awake, they saw his glory and the two men standing with him. Have you ever been asleep and you wake up and you don’t quite know what’s going on? That’s me most mornings. What decade is it? Okay, they were asleep and it took them a minute to wake up and really fully appreciate what was going on, but once they did, they saw Jesus in all of his glory.

They saw a side of Jesus that they’d never seen before, that they’d maybe gotten a tiny glimpse of when they’d see him calm the storm, when they’d see him raise the dead, when they’d see him do something, but now they get to see the glory all over him. And they respond in worship. I’ve always been puzzled by this idea that Peter wants to build three tabernacles, or some translations say build three shelters, or three dwellings, or three tents. Why is he wanting to camp out on the mountain?

it’s because at this time of year they were about to celebrate the feast of tabernacles which was one of the old testament feasts but there was an understanding they had that they believed when the messiah came and set up his kingdom that they would build that they would put up their little temporary tabernacles around him and so when peter is offering to build three dwellings there on the mountain, it’s an acknowledgement that he’s recognizing Jesus as the Messiah. So we read that, and to our Western mind, it looks like, oh, he’s so silly. Why does he want to camp out there? Doesn’t he know Jesus has got an appointment? He’s convinced Jesus is the Messiah, and he’s well-intentioned.

He just doesn’t understand what being the Messiah means at that moment. And so they’re standing there. He’s wanting to build a tent or build tense, and verse 33 tells us, as they were leaving him, and it’s kind of like Peter starts saying silly things and the cool kids leave. Moses and Elijah are out of here. Jesus continues talking to the disciples, and it says, a cloud overshadows them. This is the same terminology when the Jews translated the Old Testament into Greek. for what they used at this time, because it was more common at that time to be able to speak Greek than Hebrew.

So in their Greek Old Testament called the Septuagint, when they translated Exodus chapter 40, it’s the same terminology used here as was used there in the story where Moses cannot enter into the tabernacle because a cloud of the glory of the Lord overshadows it. So this is not a cloud in the sense that we think, oh, storm rolls in. This is talking about of God coming and resting on the mountain the same way it did on the tabernacle in the Old Testament. When you begin to see the connections between this story and the Old Testament, the Father is putting on full display in every way possible just exactly who Jesus is for them to see and understand.

The glory of God comes down upon them and it says that they are afraid as they entered the cloud, as they should be, as any one of us would be. And then the Father’s voice was heard in verse 35, saying, this is my Son, my chosen one. Listen to Him. And we’ve heard these words before as we’ve studied through the book of Luke, Luke chapter 3, at His baptism. The Father affirms, this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. Hear Him.

and that’s where this story ends with them hearing the voice of the father and after the father spoke it says Jesus was found alone now this means this doesn’t mean this is not a contradiction with it saying the disciples were there the disciples then found Jesus alone meaning Moses and Elijah were gone the cloud has departed it’s just the four of them again and they go on and they are too scared in this moment to tell anybody what they’ve seen but they do tell people later. This was a turning point for them in their understanding of who Jesus is.

After Peter has confessed Jesus as the Messiah, as they’ve spent some time just the week before talking about what that means, now they get a visual demonstration of Jesus as the Messiah. And Peter, once again, true to form, is all in, ready to build those tabernacles and declare Jesus the Messiah are right then and there. And the reason this was such a turning point is, for one, it was a preview of Jesus’s glory. Throughout most of his earthly ministry, even though we know looking back on it, that Jesus is not just like you and me. He came as God in human flesh to live among us and be like us, and the Scripture tells us there was nothing physically to distinguish him from other people.

It’s not like he was somebody that the world would have looked at and physically said, oh, he stands out. There was nothing that they would have seen that just to look at him would have suggested, oh, this man’s a king. And part of the reason for that is it would have short-circuited the plan that the Father put in place. The plan was not to sweep Jesus into power. The plan was to send Jesus to the cross.

And so He came to walk among us, to live among us, to be somebody who could teach and draw a following of people who would not just hear his words, but would listen to him and would obey him and would give their lives to him, but also somebody that the culture widely would reject so that he could and would go to the cross. But in this moment, they got to see something different. They got to see a glimpse of who we’ll see when Jesus comes again. They got to see that Jesus is not just there as a performer. He’s not just there working miracles for the crowd’s amusement and enjoyment. He’s not just there calming storms when they want it. He’s not just there feeding the crowds.

Now, He did all of those things, and obviously there’s nothing wrong with those things, and those things worked into His ministry. But it would get very easy to think that, oh, Jesus is just here to grant all of our wishes. He’s just a nice teacher who came to grant all of our wishes. He’s the Jesus of bumper stickers and T-shirts and wall art from Hobby Lobby. Nothing wrong with any of those things, but He’s so much more than that. He’s not a Jesus who decorates our lives. He is the Jesus who is the reason for our lives. He’s not a Jesus who just comes along and does what we wish. He is a Jesus who says, take up your cross daily and follow after me. He’s not just a teacher.

He is a teacher, but he’s not just a teacher. He is the King of kings and Lord of lords, and they got to see that. And it changed their lives. This transfiguration was also a confirmation of Jesus’ identity. he had been telling them who he was not just in John where even the skeptics say oh yeah that John John says that Jesus was God John was written later and they say oh Matthew Mark and Luke they were written earlier and they don’t say these things about Jesus no even in Matthew Mark and Luke it’s clear that Jesus claimed to be God and it’s clear that the people who wrote it believe that Jesus was God. Well, here, to everyone who got to see it, it was confirmation.

The Father said, this is my Son. The glory of the Lord that descended on the tabernacle in the Old Testament descended on Jesus. Why? Because He’s the tabernacle. I’m not saying He’s a tent. He’s a physical building. I’m saying the tabernacle was the representation of God among His people in the Old Testament. And Jesus is literally God among His people in the New Testament. And so the glory of the Lord came and landed on them with Jesus just the way it did in the tabernacle in the Old Testament. You’ve got the people who met with God. I can’t really say face-to-face because if they’d seen God face-to-face, they would have died.

But the people who met God as personally as anybody could have in the Old Testament now stand face-to-face with Jesus on this mountain. and confirm that he is exactly who he claimed to be. These three men walked away more convinced than they ever had been of who they were following. The transfiguration was a fulfillment of Jesus’ promise. In the text we looked at last week, in verse 27, there’s that statement Jesus makes as he’s explaining the cost of following him. He says, but I say to you truthfully, there are some of those standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God.

And then about a week later, about a week later, three of those men get to see Jesus on that mountain and get to see a glimpse of what it’s going to look like the king at his coming. They got to see the kingdom of God. up close. They got to see Jesus for who he really is. See, Jesus always keeps his promises. And then this transfiguration, all of this is important for us to know because it’s confirmation of who Jesus is, although I think most of you sitting out here in this room are probably not in doubt about who Jesus claimed to be. That’s why you’re here.

But just in case you are in doubt, these are the eyewitnesses saying, we saw these things and we became convinced that this man we were following was exactly who he claimed to be before and after. For our purposes, the transfiguration was a call to believe Jesus. There is one command in this passage. When we look at the Bible text and we say, what am I supposed to do with this? It’s great to learn what things mean, but we also want to take something away that we can apply and use. We look for the commands in order to do that. There’s one command in this passage. And it’s found at the end of verse 35. When the Father says, this is my Son, my chosen one, listen to Him.

And He’s not telling them just to hear His words. He’s telling them to listen and obey. That’s implied in that word listen. Not just hear it, but hear it and do something about it. That was the call to these three men who heard, who saw everything that they saw, and they wrote it down so that we would know, and so we would be convinced that this is God’s Son, listen to Him. That we’re called to listen and take to heart what He says about Himself. That we’re called to listen and obey the things that He tells us to do.

And that’s why Peter writes about this in 2 Peter chapter 1, which is one of those passages that can be confusing in and of itself until you realize how it connects to this story. He says, for when he received honor and glory from God the Father, such an utterance as this was made to him by the majestic glory, this is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased. And we ourselves heard this utterance made from heaven when we were with him on the holy mountain. So we have the prophetic word made more sure, to which you do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star arises in your hearts.

Peter there is writing to early believers and saying there are reasons why we should believe Jesus and obey Him. And he says, in the context of that passage, he says, we know because we saw with our own eyes and we heard with our own ears who Jesus is. We saw the glory. We heard the voice of the Father. And so we were convinced to believe and we were convinced to follow him. But in that broader passage, Peter is making the point that even that experience was not as sure as the word of prophecy.

He says, if you weren’t there on that mountain to see who Jesus was, you weren’t there to hear the voice of the Father and you want to know who Jesus is, he says, you look at the more sure word of prophecy. You look at everything the Old Testament says about who the Messiah would be. You look at everything the Old Testament says about what he would do. You look at everything the Old Testament says about what our response should be to him. And you’ll see that that’s fulfilled in Jesus Christ. He says that even our experience pales in comparison to what the sure word of God tells us.

And we have the two-part benefit of this story being recorded for us in the word of God so that it becomes part of our understanding. But Peter’s point in retelling that story, Luke’s point, Matthew’s point, Mark’s point in recounting that story is that this story calls us to believe Jesus and act accordingly. For us as believers, it’s a reminder that He’s not just a decoration of our lives. He’s not just an aspect of our lives. He is our King. He’s shown glimpses of it before, and we’ll see it fully revealed that is coming. but He is our King and we’re supposed to act like it. We’re supposed to listen to Him.

And if you’re not already a believer, if you’re not already somebody who’s trusted Christ as your Savior, it’s a call to hear what He says about Himself and respond in faith, to believe Him and to act on it. When He said He was coming to die, to die for us and to rise again so that we could be forgiven, God’s word tells us to believe that, to listen to that. And for you this morning, it is as simple as recognizing that we’ve all sinned against a holy God. That’s why Jesus had to come. And Jesus took responsibility for my sin and for yours when he was nailed to that cross and he shed his blood and he died.

And then three days later, he rose from the dead to prove it after telling us that’s what he was going to do. And he offers us forgiveness if we’ll simply put our faith in him. If we will believe that he and his sacrifice are the only answer to our sin problem, that we can’t be good enough to earn it or deserve it, we can’t get to the Father on our own, we have to come through him. If you’ll believe that and you’ll ask for that forgiveness, he will forgive you, he will cleanse you, he will change you, and he will give you new life with the Father.

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