“They Saw No One But Jesus Only”
Text: Matt. 17:1-9
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Have you ever watched a movie or a TV show after you’ve read the book, but you’re watching it with someone who hasn’t? You already know the major movements of the plot, you’re more familiar with the characters than the other person, so there’s not much that can surprise you (unless the screenwriter or directors goes wildly off script from the source material). You have an idea of what’s happening and why, where it’s all going, so you understand it with more ease than the person who’s experiencing it for the first time.
Think of the Transfiguration in this way. The disciples who were on the mountain with Jesus—Peter, James, and John—were the ones who were watching everything for the first time, but having trouble following the plot. They hadn’t gotten to the end of the story yet, so there were some false guesses they were making about what was going on, Peter especially. But they would come to learn that once they knew how it ended, they could understand what the Transfiguration meant.
For instance, Peter made the mistake of trying to put Jesus on the same level as Moses and Elijah. Notice the offer he makes: “Lord, it is good that we are here. If you wish, I will make three tents here, one for you, and one for Moses and one for Elijah.” Not one tent for you. Not even a bigger, grander tent for you. One for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah. On the one hand, this is a great compliment from Peter, because Moses and Elijah were two of the most important figures from Israel’s history. They led God’s people, they served in faithfulness, they both experienced things that other mortals are not given to experience—Moses beheld the face of God as the Almighty spoke to him face-to-face as a man speaks to his friend. Elijah never tasted death, but was taken up in the whirlwind, leaving this world of sorrow for the bliss of heaven without having to die first. To be counted in such company would be an honor.
Except for Jesus. He is not another prophet. He is not even the greatest prophet. He is not to be held on the same level as any mortal, or any thing in the world at all. God the Father has to set the record straight: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” And we who know the story, who have read the Book, know this. And yet we still make the same error as Peter, don’t we?
For how often do we want to build three tents? One for Jesus, and one for our works, and one for our earthly treasures. Or one for Jesus and one for our status and one for our intelligence. Or one for Jesus and one for our family and one for our money. There’s something in us that’s afraid that just Jesus won’t be enough. We need to hedge our bets, or have some sort back up insurance, an ace in the hole, just in case we need something besides Jesus. We fear losing something else as much as we fear losing Jesus. We love other things as much as we love Jesus, perhaps sometimes even more. We trust other things to help us out of our troubles as much—or sometimes more—than we trust Jesus.
And sometimes it’s a painful lesson for us to learn that those other things can’t persuade God to love us more, or to give us more. As we go through life, those other tents get knocked around and blown down, stripped away and tattered to shreds. The money gets spent, people leave or fail or die, our status gets dull and tarnished, our works continually come up short. Our fear gets the better of us and we don’t understand what’s going on, why these things are happening to us. God thunders down from the heavens that all those other things we were trying to hold up aren’t going to cut it. They won’t be able to help us, not in the way we really need to be helped. We tremble—and rightfully so—just as Peter, James, and John did.
But then, we read, Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Rise, and have no fear.” And when they lifted up their eyes, they saw no one but Jesus only. Jesus is God’s final word. He’s not just another Moses, another Lawgiver. He’s not another Elijah, another prophet in a long line of prophets and miracle workers. Moses and Elijah have vanished. The disciples saw no one but Jesus only. Granted, He’s not in the glory that He was displaying moments before, with His face shining like the sun and His clothes white as light. But that’s not what they needed. They didn’t need the visible, unsheathed glory of God. They needed Jesus, in human flesh, there with them to fulfill all that Moses had commanded, all that Elijah foretold in word and deed. They don’t need anything but Jesus alone. And this Jesus will walk down the mountain with them, on His way to Jerusalem, to the cross, where His disciples—where we—will need Him the most, dying in our place for all our sins and misplaced trust and worship and worry; and then rising again.
It’s that rising again that’s going to be the hinge that helps Jesus’ disciples, and us, make sense of the Transfiguration. For what did Jesus tell them as they were coming down the mountain? “Tell no one the vision, until the Son of Man is raised from the dead.” There it is—the spoiler that gives away the whole plot. It’s the resurrection of Jesus that’s going to be the key to understanding all of it—the Old Testament, the Law and Prophets, the Father sending the Son, the hidden glory of Jesus under His human nature, the cross, all of it.
That’s important, because we won’t always see the glory. In fact, I think we’ll see it rarely, if ever, the way it was shown at the Transfiguration. Instead, we’ll carry our own crosses. We’ll wonder what God is doing. We’ll wonder what we’re doing on this pilgrimage through life. We’ll feel as foolish as Peter must have felt after his suggestion about the tents. We won’t be able to see it all for what it is. But that’s fine, because that’s not what God has told you to do. He did not say, “This is my beloved Son, look at Him,” or “This is my beloved Son, perfectly understand the mysteries of Him,” or even, “Feel the right way toward Him.” No, He says, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I well pleased; listen to Him.” We listen for Jesus to tell us what He’s doing. We listen for the revealing of what God is up to in the midst of our shortsightedness or sin-blindness or misleading feelings that come with crosses and trials. We listen to God the Son.
And what is the very first thing Jesus says to them after the Father has told them to listen? Jesus says, “Rise, and have no fear.” Rise. That’s the word not only for standing up, but also for rising from the dead. Jesus tells His disciples to rise, to be resurrected. And He does the same for you. He touches you—He touches you bodily with His own body and blood in His Holy Supper. He touches you with water and Word in Baptism and says, “You are my beloved son, my beloved daughter, with whom I am well pleased.” He touches you with His Absolution spoken over you to forgive you—and He tells you, “Rise. Be raised from the death of your sins, from the death you fear. Rise from the fears that drag you down into the grave of despair. And then, at the end, rise to live forever in the new heavens and new earth.” It’s only through this—through resurrection, Jesus’ resurrection and the resurrection of the body and life of the world to come—that we can understand Transfiguration, Jesus’ walk through this world, and our own journey through creation.
Today we follow Jesus down the mountain, toward Jerusalem, toward ashes that will remind us of death, toward the cross that will have the dead body of our God hanging from it. But it all makes sense when we hold Easter in our minds, when we hold the promise of resurrection. And so throughout this Lenten season during our midweek services we’ll hear about the many resurrections in Scripture. We’ll hear that we’re dust on Ash Wednesday, so that we know to wait for Jesus to raise us again. We’ll make the journey because we know how it ends. The glory we glimpse today at the Transfiguration will blaze forth again when the Son of Man is raised from the dead. And when it’s all accomplished, when it is finished, we will see no one but Jesus only. We will have Jesus alone, and that will always be enough. In the name of Jesus, the eternal Son of God. Amen.
