Readings:
Sermon:
We have before us this morning the account of the transfiguration of Jesus.
We often look at this from the point of view of the three disciples, Peter, James and John and consider what effect it had on them as Jesus revealed His glory to them and as Moses and Elijah appeared before them I always ask “how did they know it was Moses and Elijah! “
But let us consider for a moment or two what effect this experience had on Jesus and why it was necessary for him.
Up until this moment he had been very, very busy, proclaiming that the kingdom of God was near at hand and healing all who were sick and delivering any who were possessed ; He was also doing many, many amazing miracles.
He was very popular; this was what the people wanted. They wanted to hear that God was near at hand and that he had not abandoned them. A message that we all need to hear continually.
As we know the people may have tried to proclaim Jesus as an earthly king…in spite of the fact that there was growing opposition from the religious leaders.
But Jesus knew that this was not part of God plan for the salvation of the world..
In the previous chapter some of the disciples had begun to acknowledge that Jesus was the Messiah and Jesus began to reveal to them that He was going to die for their sins and for the sins of the whole world. Of course this was unpalatable to them….they wanted the Glory days to last forever.
And then the transfiguration. Of course Jesus was always one with His Father but here he has a wonderful experience of being filled with with the glory that was His by right, the glory that he had enjoyed before he became restricted by his humanity. .
I think that Jesus needed this experience not because he was in any danger of failing but because it was His by right.
In Hebrews we read that Jesus….” For the joy that was set before Him endured the cross , despising it’s shame…..” this experience was somewhat of a marker for Jesus From this time onwards we see Him setting out determinedly for Jerusalem and the events that would take place there.
We all need mountain top experiences; times when we feel that we are in the very presence of heaven itself and where the law and the prophets and all of God’s word comes alive to us.
After all Jesus shared this experience with his three trusted disciples. They too needed to see Gods glory to carry them through the difficult times ahead.
Peter later declares in his letter that they were. “ eyewitnesses’ of God’s glory . They heard Gods voice telling them to listen to Jesus.
In the church we are ordered and disciplined in our worship and rightly so. We know what we believe we know our doctrine and we try to be what God wants us to be, but I can’t help feeling that God himself want us to enjoy a deeper experience of himself; a greater sense of His glory. A sense that we are “eyewitnesses “ of our Saviour Jesus and His glory.
Then we too will be carried through the dark and difficult times, sometimes in our personal lives, sometimes in our church life and even in our national life.