From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he had to go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders, chief priests, and legal experts, and that he had to be killed and raised on the third day. 22 Then Peter took hold of Jesus and, scolding him, began to correct him: “God forbid, Lord! This won’t happen to you.” 23 But he turned to Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan. You are a stone that could make me stumble, for you are not thinking God’s thoughts but human thoughts.”
24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “All who want to come after me must say no to themselves, take up their cross, and follow me. 25 All who want to save their lives will lose them. But all who lose their lives because of me will find them. 26 Why would people gain the whole world but lose their lives? What will people give in exchange for their lives? 27 For the Human One is about to come with the majesty of his Father with his angels. And then he will repay each one for what that person has done. 28 I assure you that some standing here won’t die before they see the Human One coming in his kingdom.”
1 Six days later Jesus took Peter, James, and John his brother, and brought them to the top of a very high mountain. 2 He was transformed in front of them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as light.
3 Moses and Elijah appeared to them, talking with Jesus. 4 Peter reacted to all of this by saying to Jesus, “Lord, it’s good that we’re here. If you want, I’ll make three shrines: one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”
5 While he was still speaking, look, a bright cloud overshadowed them. A voice from the cloud said, “This is my Son whom I dearly love. I am very pleased with him. Listen to him!” 6 Hearing this, the disciples fell on their faces, filled with awe.
7 But Jesus came and touched them. “Get up,” he said. “Don’t be afraid.” 8 When they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus.
Transfiguration Sunday 2020
The descriptions of the six-day races of old were like something out of a wartime diary: racers crossing the finish line looking like ghosts and needing weeks to recuperate, some racers never fully recuperating, and such extreme loss of sleep that they become implacable.
Such was life for cyclists racing in what was, at the turn of the twentieth century, a relatively new phenomenon—the six-day race, in which they would compete to see who could complete the most laps around a stadium track in a six-day span from Monday to Saturday because, of course, Sunday would need to be set aside for the Christian sabbath.
In these six-day races, cyclists would push themselves to the brink of complete physical breakdown, all for a chance at the glory of winning an event in this emerging, but brutal, endurance sport of 24-hour racing. In these six days to glory, cyclists had the chance to create for themselves a victory of sheer will over physical exhaustion, and be transformed from mere mortal into a champion.
That is the rosiest possible take I can offer on such an inhuman spectacle, but it does offer a way into understanding what is likely to be a relatively familiar story in the Transfiguration of Jesus. For Jesus makes clear six days prior to the Transfiguration that following Him is something of an endurance contest—to endure taking up the cross and losing life, only to find life again in eternity.
The Sunday before Ash Wednesday and the start of the season of Lent is often set aside in the church calendar as Transfiguration Sunday, a day for pastors to preach on—surprise, surprise—the Transfiguration. There is a traditional belief that Pastor Josh cited in his weekly e-pistle to the congregation the Transfiguration occurred forty days before the Crucifixion, which would place the Transfiguration around this time. However, before the start of a church season in Lent that is meant to slowly transform us into believers prepared to welcome the Resurrection of the Lord on Easter Sunday. Oftentimes, the story of the Transfiguration is read by itself, but today, I think it is helpful to read the passage that immediately comes before it as well.
Right after his profession of faith in Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of the living God, Peter takes the rather, erm, presumptuous step to rebuke Jesus over Jesus predicting the Crucifixion and Resurrection. It’s a rather astonishing juxtaposition—right after you profess faith in the Son of God, you rebuke Him for foretelling this future. Peter may well be in denial and not want to believe this truth, and in this way he is tempted, much as Jesus was tempted by various futures presented to Him by Satan in the wilderness. Only this time, Peter succumbs to that temptation, leading Jesus to deliver the famous “Get behind me, Satan” rebuke. To fully follow Jesus, Peter must surrender this denial he is in, and take up the cross that is the truth of Jesus’s ultimate fate—and, for that matter, Peter’s as well. Without the Crucifixion, there can be no Resurrection, no ultimate demonstration of God’s forgiveness and desire for reconciliation, and without the Resurrection, we surely would have never heard of Jesus of Nazareth except perhaps in passing from an ancient source or two. What will it profit Peter, or any of us, for that matter, to go without that forgiveness?
Okay, but what does all of that have to do with the Transfiguration that follows? This is Transfiguration Sunday after all, not Get-Behind-Me-Satan Sunday (that comes later, at the sweets table during coffee hour). Let’s start with this: the six days that pass between the two narratives.
While the Gospels are not unanimous that six days pass—Mark concurs with Matthew’s six-day timeline, but Luke says eight days elapse—the six-day timeframe should evoke in us a recollection of the six (metaphorical) days of creation. Out of nothing but speech, God fashioned light and dark, sea and sky, land and all that lives on it, including us, and then saw that it was good.
It feels appropriate, then, that out of nothing but God’s own creative power, this transformation of Jesus, and apparitions of Moses and Elijah, should also appear. God is not like a chef or a carpenter who needs food or wood with which to create, God needs only God in order to create.
We, on the other hand, need tools and materials in order to create. Peter offers to create three dwellings, one each for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah, but Peter would not be able to simply speak those dwellings into existence. He would have had to build them through the sacrificial gift of his hard work and labor.
Such is life when it comes to transforming ourselves. Much as we may want transformation to come in an instant, or at least in a short montage set to The Eye of the Tiger, transformation of ourselves takes time, effort, and, yes, sometimes pain. It can be one cross we bear, one of many in our walks of faith.
That is why those six days leading up to the Transfiguration matter. What Christ can do instantaneously, we are given six days to catch up to—days that Peter needs, even after his profession of faith, to come to grips with picking up his own cross. And even then, Peter, James, and John are overcome with fear when the voice of God begins speaking out. But just as God needed six days to build creation, we are given six days to arrive at transformation.
While those six days may have been literal in Matthew’s Gospel, for our purposes they are clearly metaphorical. The church is still transforming, always transforming, hopefully into something better, more loving, and more just—because siblings, know that we have not always been that. The Good News, though, is that we still can be, both individually and collectively.
Over the next six days, Lent will begin. All of us will be
called towards personal transformation through self-sacrifice, through the giving
up and taking up of habits and things. We will be called to walk along Jesus in
the wilderness, on the road to Jerusalem, and, eventually, to Emmaus upon the
discovery of the empty tomb.
For transfiguration is very much a part of the Gospels’ future, even as it is also part of this particular passage’s present.
How will transformation be a part of your future? How will it be a part of your next six days? How can you dedicate these next six days to further transformation of yourself to God’s glory? And then, what can you do to continue the transformation of the church to God’s glory?
Because church, there is so much that remains for us to ever
come close to glory. We still shun when we should welcome, cast out when we
should affirm, and give voice to our worst instincts rather than our better
angels. We hear Satan's voice in our ears, tempting us to do wrong by one another instead of right by one another, and we do not always do as Christ does; we do not always say, "Get behind me, Satan!"
For this, God as revealed through Jesus Christ calls us to repentance. And repentance is that first step towards transformation. In the context of the story of the Transfiguration, it is that first step towards becoming Christ-like.
What it means to be Christ-like is also illustrated in the panorama of the Transfiguration. Love God, and love your neighbor. On these two commandments, Jesus says later in Matthew’s Gospel, hangs the entirety of the Law and the Prophets. And alongside Jesus at the Transfiguration, we see Moses and Elijah as the embodiments of the Law and the Prophets. But Jesus does not replace them, He engages them.
May we, too, take our next six days to do as God would do—to create, to create ourselves anew by, as Christ does, engaging with the Law, the Prophets, the Gospels, the Word of God that has offered salvation to my ancestors and that offers salvation to me and you as well.
It is still there, tantalizingly and enticingly within your reach—like, lets say, the finish line of a long, grueling cycling race that has demanded absolutely everything from your body and soul.
Your next six days to glory begin now. Do with them what God would have you do.
May it be so. Amen.
Rev. Eric Atcheson, D.Min.
Vancouver, Washington
February 23, 2020