Amen, and please be seated. If you have a Bible, let me invite you to turn with me to Matthew 17. Matthew chapter 17, this morning we come to what's often called the Mount of Transfiguration, that is, the Mount upon which the Lord Jesus was revealed in the glory of His deity. Let's then pay attention to the Lord Jesus and what the Father says about Him.
Let me invite you to give your attention to the reading of God's holy and inspired word, Matthew 17, verses one through eight. And after six days, Jesus took with Him Peter and James and John, his brother, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. And He was transfigured before them. And His face shone like the sun.
And His clothes became white as light. And behold, there appeared to them Moses and Elijah talking with him. And Peter said to Jesus, 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.
He was still speaking when behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them. And a voice from the cloud said, this is my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased. Listen to Him. When the disciples heard this, they fell on their faces and were terrified.
But 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, amen. So this is God's word, may He write it on our hearts.
Let's look at Him together in prayer. Our Father in heaven, we would see Jesus this day and know the Lord Jesus. So give us eyes to see. Give us ears to hear and give us hearts to believe in Jesus' name we ask it.
Amen. A few words of context and then the content of the transfiguration. Now when was this? After six days, verse one, it says, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, his brother, and he led them of a high mountain by themselves.
When, after six days, just after that is the events of chapter 16 at Caesarea Philippi in the far north, 25 miles or more north of the sea of Galilee. And in Jesus there in chapter 16 affirmed that he's the true Messiah, the son of the living God. There he told them I'm going to go to Jerusalem and suffer and be killed. And there he then said, but I will come again.
And I will come with my angels in the glory of my Father. All that and six days later, they go on to hike up the mountain. And what mountain? Where did this occur?
Well, it's called a high mountain here. Luke in Luke 9 calls it the mountain, but we never told his name. History has suggested Mount Chabor now to discard it as unlikely. It was south of Caesarea Philippi, and later they will go to Galilee and Capernaum.
But it's not on the way to those places. And it's not that big of a mountain. It's only like 1200 feet or 1,200 feet above sea level. By comparison, Mount Merrin, nearly 4,000 feet above sea level, is also in the direction in which they would eventually be traveling to Galilee.
But it had a military outpost on the top of it in its day. And it was an unlikely place for them to seek privacy and prayer. Others, and I favor it, it's appealing. Think Mount Herman for Caesarea Philippi sat at the south base of that mountain.
And it rises over 9,200 feet above sea level, more than 8,000 feet above the city at its base. So it's very high. It's close at hand. It has many peaks where they might have climbed.
But the Bible doesn't tell us it was that one either. The silence of all the accounts as to the locality surely teaches us the unimportant of knowing what mountain. Well, then why did you spend all that time, Ted? Well, perhaps because we could say this, the dangers of knowing would more than outweigh the advantages of knowing.
Because the natural curiosity of humans might impel them to hunt for the location. And the idolatrous hearts of fallen human beings might move them to idolize the location. Setting up shrines to God that God never commanded or building retreat centers for people, pitching the promise of proximity to these grand, historically spiritual forces and events, in any case, making an idol of the place overshadowing that the importance of the person transfigured. That's what we would do if we knew where it was.
If we needed another place, God would have told us, which brings us then to what he has told us about his son. And so in the passage, in verses two and following, let me invite you to consider first the transfiguration of Jesus in verse two, and then the appearance of Moses in Elijah in verse three, and then this cloud with the voice of the heavenly Father speaking from it in verses four and five, those three things. In verse the transfiguration of Jesus verse two, and he was transfigured before them. And his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light.
He was transfigured, that means he was transformed. He underwent a visible metamorphosis at Christmas. We sing veiled in flesh the Godhead, see hail the incarnate deity, right? Please, this man with mended dwell Jesus are Emmanuel.
We'll hear on the mountain, Emmanuel dwells with his people. I think this is still on perhaps. And here on the mountain, the inner person of his glorious divine being is manifested without the veil of his human body, at least as much of his glorious mortal man could bear to see. Notice in the middle of verse two, his face shone like the sun.
That is the radiance of the glory of God shown out from beneath his skin. It wasn't sunlight, it was like the sun in its blazing brilliance. Now if you're around here in Arkansas in April, and you may know this, a total eclipse of the sun, a solar eclipse will occur. Visible across most of Arkansas, a whole eclipse in certain places, hundreds of thousands of people are going to come to Arkansas to see it.
So the moon will pass directly in front of the sun, shielding its light from the earth. It's so powerful though, the sun is that if you watch that eclipse without the proper glasses, that is a thousand times more darker than regular sunglasses, you will go blind. Just a flash of that sun seen through a camera lens or binoculars without the proper eye protection can cause instant blindness. So great is its light.
And Jesus, it's a shown like the sun. Yeah, without of course damaging the eyes of his disciples who saw it. This shining was unlike the radiance of the face of Moses after he went up on the mountain and saw the glory of the Lord. Remember that?
His was a reflected glory. His was like the moon reflecting the glory of the sun, but the face of Jesus was like the sun itself shining out. Moses mirrored God's own glory. Jesus however, possessed the glory of God.
He's the radiance of the glory of God in the exact imprint of his nature. Notice also in verse two that his clothes become white as light. Possibly because not merely his face, but perhaps his whole body, though clothed, shown like the sun and the power that caused his clothing to become pure and white as light. You remember, once you remember your lessons on color, when you're seeing color, what you're seeing is the color of light that's actually bouncing off of the object back at you.
Black absorbs all the wavelengths of light and appears dark, making them all together, reflecting non, whereas white objects bounce all the colors of light off and appear white. So perhaps here, his clothing could not absorb the radiance of his glory and bounced as it were that light, reflecting it out. But in any case, what happens here is the outward display of the person of God in human flesh. And the apostles never forgot it.
Peter will write in second Peter, for we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord, Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For when he received honor and glory from God the Father and the voice was born to him by the majestic glory, this is my beloved son, with him I am well pleased. We ourselves says Peter heard this very voice born from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain. And the apostle John, he was there as well, explains it.
This event much more of course in John 1 when he says the word became flesh and dwelt among us and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only son from the Father, full of grace and truth. Now we might ask then, what was the purpose of this transfiguration? And we might note he was transfigured verse one beginning of verse one, before them it says. There's a special emphasis here on there, the disciples observation of it.
This was meant for their eyes. Well, what would it have done? Well, it would have reassured them. It would have reassured them before his coming arrest and torture and crucifixion and death that the one suffering was himself the God of glory.
And John Calvin reminds us that the transfiguration teaches us that Jesus death was voluntary. And that's important to recognize, because when you see Jesus on the road to Jerusalem to suffer and die, well, we might be tempted to think that Jesus was the victim of wicked leaders of Israel and Rome, and that he's simply fallen into the hands of people who have overpowered him. We might be tempted to think that something has gone wrong and there's an accident happening here. But when you see Jesus, the son transfigured, it becomes absolutely clear that nobody overpowered Jesus.
If he dies in Jerusalem, he dies because he chooses to die. When he lays down his life on the cross, he doesn't do it because he accidentally fell into the hands of men. He does it because he wanted to. As Jesus said in John 10, I lay down my life that I may take it up again.
No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I've received from my father. So Jesus is no victim.
Jesus willingly gave himself for us. This transfiguration also then means, well, it would have meant to assure them that whatever miseries would come to Jesus or eventually come to them as disciples of Jesus, whatever miseries they might experience, are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. It's a confirmation of his deity, a picture of the body of his glory in which he now reigns, which you will one day see. And so the transfiguration, that is a foretaste.
It's a foretaste of the glories of our own resurrection. When we will behold the glory of the Lord face-to-face as he promises, and as Jesus promises, we too will shine like the Son, and we will walk with him in white. And so then it is also helped to us to understand our present experience as believers. The transfiguration is a pattern for our understanding of what God is actually doing in us and with us even now as we are in Christ.
Why do I say that? Well, 2 Corinthians chapter 3, 18 says, and we all with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed. Same word, transfigured. Metamorphosis.
We are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. That is, as we behold Jesus in the Scriptures, as he's held out to us in the Gospel, as we see him as he truly is, gazing at the beauty of the Lord, we're being transformed. Paul says, not externally, not in the body of this flesh, but internally in the hidden person of the soul, we're being transformed after the image of Christ, after the likeness of Christ. It's happening, of course, slowly over time, from one degree of glory to another, but one day, one day, we shall behold him face to face, and we shall be made like him, for we shall see him as he is, says the Apostle John.
What an encouraging truth is the transfiguration of Jesus. Now let me invite you to consider the appearance of Moses and Elijah, verse three, and behold, there appeared to them Moses and Elijah talking with him. Now this too is extraordinary, behold says Matthew, look, see, Moses and Elijah are alive. You remember God himself had buried Moses, well in the valley of the land of Moab, though no man knows exactly where.
Elijah on the other hand was taken up in a whirlwind and chariots of fire, and never tasted death in this world, went right into heaven, so that you have here two men, one who is alive after death, the Moses, and one who is still alive, having never died, Elijah, as in fact it will be in the end, when Jesus returns in glory, and those who have fallen asleep, as the Bible puts it, those who have died in Christ will rise from their grace, and join with those who have never tasted death, but are alive in the generation in which Jesus returns and we together will rise to meet him in the air. Now why are Elijah here in Moses on the mountain with him? Well as commentators and pastors from the earliest of church history through the Protestant Reformation today have often noted, quite possibly because the two of them represent the whole of the Old Testament, sometimes called the law and the prophets, Moses representing the giving of the law of God, Elijah representative of the prophets of God. Through both men, you remember, God performed miracles of supernatural power, God gave them as well by his spirit, revelation of his will, God met and talked with each on a mountain top, and through both, God sustained the hope of his people.
He sustained the hope of his people, through the promises of the coming Messiah, which he prefigured in the law, in the sacrifices, in the temple by the priests, and that hope which he foretold throughout the prophets. And so you have them in their persons, they're coming together of the law and the prophets to converse with the Messiah himself, as if to say, everything is coming together in Jesus. Now that the hope of Israel has arrived, the time has come, the kingdom of God is at hand, the redemption of God's people is here. Notice also that Moses and Elijah are talking with Jesus.
Wouldn't you have liked to have been in on that conversation? Matthew doesn't actually tell us what they talked about. Luke does though, in Luke chapter nine, behold he says, two men were talking with him, Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory, and spoke of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. They spoke about the departure of Jesus, that uncommon word is the Greek word for Exodus.
They were talking about the Exodus of Jesus, he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. Now you will remember that Moses had led the people of Israel out of cruel bondage and slavery in Egypt. And into freedom, that was the exodus of the Old Testament and the people of God that he led in this world. But Jesus now comes as the new and better Moses to bring all of God's people out of bondage and slavery to sin and death and the domain of darkness.
And to accomplish on the cross our redemption that he might bring us into forgiveness and eternal and everlasting life and into the kingdom of God's own beloved son. And here they've come to discuss with Jesus, the work he had come to do, the work he was about to finish in Jerusalem. Perhaps they're talking about this with him to fortify the resolve of Jesus to finish the work. His resolve as a human who you remember will go to the Garden of Gethsemane trembling at the thought of bearing the wrath of God for the people of God upon the cross.
Perhaps they're here to fortify him for that work, knowing that the redemption even of Moses and Elijah ultimately depends upon as it does for everyone, Jesus paying the price of our redemption. And so we see the transfiguration of Jesus. We see the appearance of Moses and Elijah and then the cloud with the voice of the Father from it. Well, at first of course, verse four, as we've come to expect from him, we hear the voice of Peter.
Verse four, Peter said to Jesus, Lord, it's 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. Now what's this about? Well, true to form, Peter's babbling.
We know that in part, I'm not picking because Mark, the gospel writer over whose shoulder Peter was leaning into, whose ear Peter was speaking as Mark brought forth his gospel under Peter's own influence. Mark chapter nine verse six says, for he, Peter, did not know what to say, where they were terrified. I mean, he was profoundly afraid. It was an incredible supernatural event.
We understand that. And he didn't know what to say, who I suppose among us would have known the proper thing to say. Yet instead of saying nothing, Peter prattled on. Well, like we preacher sometimes do, when we don't know what to say, but think something ought to be said by catechism class can testify to that when I'm asked a question, I'll just battle until I find something to say.
Here's Peter, not withstanding his fear, liking seeing Moses and Elijah, certainly, enjoying, I think, and for being there, I mean, fearful of course, but says it's good that we are here. He makes a proposal with the good sense to address Jesus's Lord and say, if you wish, but here's his proposal, what is it? I will make three-tenths here. One for you, one for Moses, one for Elijah.
He wants to build a tent or a tabernacle, a shelter really. One for each, probably not intending it to be any kind of a permanent dwelling, but for a temporary shelter to get them out of the elements on the high mountain. And Peter here makes two more mistakes. Besides talking when he should have not, two more mistakes common to the fallen heart.
Mistakes were heir to you. First, he wants to grasp this mountaintop experience for a little bit longer. Luke 9, verse 33 actually says, as the men, that is Moses and Elijah, were parting from him. Peter said this to Jesus.
He sees them leaving and he wants them to stay. And he says, Lord, I'll make shelters for everybody. This is, I think, a common thing for us. That is, when we've had what we sometimes call our own mountaintop experience, though very unlike Peter's, to be sure.
When we've had some unusual spiritual thing happen to us, maybe a very specific manifestation of the grace of God to us in our life, or some deep blessing of communal love and fellowship. And we've tasted and drunk deep, and we want it to continue, or maybe some pointed word of comfort or hope from the scripture, perhaps some special joy associated with the early excitement of our Christian experiences, newborn babes in Christ. And we think to ourselves, how can I keep this going? How can I make this, let's call it that, a rich, deep, meaningful experience?
How can I make it continue? Yet our mountaintop experience is give way to earthly realities. We're not meant to experience heaven on earth. It's not God's will that every moment of a Christian's life be some spiritual mountaintop high.
Why? Well, I think that would perpetuate actually our immaturity, because we grow dependent on living not by faith, but by sight, not that is believing in the love of God, unless we could feel it coursing through our bones, or not believing in the providence of God, unless it was always some extraordinary providence, or not trusting the word of God, unless it came to us like a flashing, flaming neon billboard at every turn in our journey. No, God would have us know and believe and trust Him better than that. More maturely, not tossed by every wind and wave, not waiting on baited breath for the next extraordinary thing, but being sound in the faith transformed by the renewing of our minds in accordance with sound teaching, persuaded in the heart that Christ on the cross is sufficient for us and having open ears to His word, whether it leaps off the page and smacks us upside the head, or quietly reaffirms and reassures us of the truth of God.
Why would God do that? So that we don't begin to prefer our experience over Jesus Himself. And here's Peter trying to perpetuate his own experience by managing the situation for the Lord. Lord, let's have you all stick around a little longer.
This is really good. That's one error. The second error though, subtly but seriously, He denies the uniqueness of the Lord Jesus because Moses and Elijah and Jesus are not three of a kind to be sheltered side by side in three tents as if each is equal to the other and together they round out the important people in God's story. They're not equal.
Jesus is far greater. Moses and Elijah are but servants in the household of God. Jesus is the Son over the house, as the voice itself will say. Don't equate them, Peter.
Don't imagine Moses and Elijah are on equal footing with Jesus. And so says Bruner, Peter teaches us, quote, church leaders must be especially suspicious of their own ideas. You know, especially when confronted with mystery or especially in circumstances where we are fearful. There's a real temptation to speak when we ought to be silent or to do something.
When we ought to just stand there and watch and wait for the Lord to do something. Says Bruner, Peter's feverish building project is arrested by the voices simpler program of listening. Church leadership is tempted to think the main service it performs for Christ is to be very busy for him. But the church's main service of Christ then and now is to give opportunities for him to be listened to.
It is meaningless activity and empty busyness that receive a certain rebuke in the voices. Listen, so Peter, babbling away in fear and God does what? He interrupts him. That's the language of verse five.
He was still speaking when behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them. It's almost a contradiction, of course, to speak of a bright cloud and the language points to something beyond nature. You remember, of course, the pillar of fire by night and the pillar of cloud by day that led Israel in the wilderness and the thick cloud that settled on Mount Sinai for six days before God called to Moses from within it. And the cloud, of course, which covered the tabernacle with the glory of the Lord filled it.
And don't forget that ascension of Jesus. When he was not lost out of sight to them in the blue sky, but while he was yet visible to them, a cloud received him out of their sight. It's the familiar symbol in scripture of the divine presence, long absent from the temple in that day, but now appearing on the mountain. And a voice speaks from that cloud and says, what?
This is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased. Listen to him. The voice says, Jesus, he's mine. He's my son.
He's the son of my love. Moses and Elijah are my servants and I love them. I mean, I adopt them as my children, but Jesus is my unique eternal son. And Jesus says with him, I'm well pleased.
He's the one whom I sold the lights. And so I would just say to all of us, if God is so then pleased with his own son, shouldn't we? Likewise, be pleased with him too? Well, how would your delight in the son manifest?
Well, the Father tells you, this is my son, my beloved, listen to him. God's voice bids us here Christ's voice. So then we might say with Samuel, let our heart say, speak, Lord, for your servants is listening. So the law and the prophets point you to Jesus, God the Father commands you to listen to Jesus.
Why this word from the Father about Jesus? Well, to confirm the faith of disciples in Jesus, to tell them to go on trusting in Jesus certainly, but also think how it would have strengthened Jesus in his humanity as he goes to the cross. You may remember that a nearly identical word strengthened Jesus in his humanity as he went into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil on the front end of ministry, at his baptism, at the beginning of public ministry, a voice from heaven said, this is my beloved son, with him I am well pleased. And as at the beginning of ministry facing temptation, now at the end of ministry facing Jerusalem and crucifixion, there is the Father says, no lack of pleasure in me for you.
Surely that would have strengthened Jesus. And so of course then, because of the Father's delight in him, we must have some explanation to account for the cry of abandonment upon the cross where Jesus is my God my God, why have you abandoned me? Why that cry? What explains it?
It's because he's there for sinners. He's in the place of sinners. He's receiving the displeasure of the Father that we justly deserve, that we might receive the gift of the pleasure of the Father, which Jesus justly deserves. Which then explains to us the actions and words of Jesus in verse seven, verse six, when the disciples heard this, they fell on their faces and were terrified.
They're in the cloud of the presence of the glory of God and the voice of God terrifies them, rightly so. What fallen human being could stand boldly in themselves in that way? They followed their faces, terrified. But what does Jesus do?
Well, it says he came to them and he touched them. He put his hands on them and he said to them, first words, to listen to that the Father said, listen when he says it, rise and fear not. One day we will all see the visible glory of the deity when we meet our Creator face to face. In that day, beginning even now, no one need be terrified before God who shelters themselves in Jesus, the beloved, the well-pleasing Son.
Put your trust in him, let's pray. Father, bless you. Thank you. You're a good, holy, and just, merciful, and gracious, generous Father who spared not his own Son, that we might be spared Jesus.
We praise you. You loved us and gave yourself for us. You are glory incarnate. We would worship you and bow and confess that Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
We do so now in your name we pray, amen. Amen, let's stand together and sing.