Signs of God's Glory: Jesus Is Transfigured

Rebecca Sheridan
Sunday, February 27, 2022
Luke 9:28-43a

    My good friend and I were driving back to our college campus on a road trip when she said, “We’ve known each other for a few years and I don’t think I’ve ever heard your testimony. What’s your testimony?”  This caught me a bit off guard.  My friend was and still is an evangelical Christian where I knew you were supposed to be able to share your “testimony” as the time when you accepted Christ as your personal Savior or the moment when you knew you were saved by Jesus.  I had heard powerful testimonies from my evangelical friends including this particular friend.  And while as Lutherans we don’t place such an emphasis on talking about these salvation experiences, on sharing our” testimonies,” I don’t discount them.  I know several Lutherans including my own husband who can share similar powerful “come to Jesus” moments in their lives.  
But in my friend’s car back in our college days, I felt pressure to have such a story.  Saying, “well, it all started when I was baptized at two months old,” or “when I was confirmed as a sophomore in high school,” was just not that exciting.  And what was that once-in-a-lifetime salvation moment for me?  I knew I was saved by Jesus; that I was a committed Christian and wanted to follow him my whole life, but WHEN did I decide to do that? I wasn’t sure.  How could I come up with a pretty cool story that would be worthy enough to share without lying?  Was it at church camp in middle school or on my first high school youth mission trip?  The truth is, if you were to describe my faith life in ice cream flavors, my walk with Christ is definitely vanilla.  My heart wasn’t strangely warmed like Wesley, I wasn’t almost struck by lightning like Luther, I was not blinded by the light of the truth of Christ like Paul; I have had no mountaintop experience like Peter, James, and John with Jesus when they see Christ’s full glory in our gospel for today.  But I have had powerful experiences of God in Christ at work in my life, throughout my whole life; and I continue to follow him, knowing I am saved, day by day, often in the very ordinary-ness of daily life.  And I continue to share these “testimonies” with you from week to week and in my relationships with friends and neighbors believing quite strongly that God uses ordinary “on the ground” times as well as those mountaintop scenes of glory to transform lives eternally.
    I have always found the story of Jesus’ transfiguration a strange one. Let’s just start with how weird and uncommon that word, “transfiguration” is.  You probably have not used the word since last February, last Transfiguration Sunday, if you said it out loud at all, right?!  But I never thought until last week, “Hey, what about the other nine disciples?  What were they doing while Peter, James, and John were enjoying this amazing, life-changing mountaintop experience with Jesus, Moses, and Elijah?  How did they feel about missing out?  What did they think when those three disciples tried to tell them about what they had seen and experienced on the mountain with Jesus?”  Did they feel jealous?  A little perplexed and guilty, like I did the time I couldn’t come up with a great testimony story to tell?  
The one thing we do know is that the other nine disciples continue to follow Jesus to Jerusalem to the cross and empty tomb with only second-hand knowledge of Jesus’ transfiguration.  The nine disciples who don’t go to the mountain, it strikes me, are a like a lot of us vanilla Christians, who may not have the same dazzling vision of Jesus talking with Moses and Elijah like some Christians are blessed to have, but who still see signs of God’s presence and glory around them down on the ground, walking around in everyday life, and who faithfully follow and trust in the Lord.  In fact, in our gospel for this morning the next day after Jesus, Peter, James, and John come down the mountain, they join the other disciples and a great crowd, watching as Jesus heals a boy with an unclean spirit.  “And all were astounded at the greatness of God,” Luke says.  Jesus astounds people with signs of his power and presence not just on the mountaintop with a few faithful disciples as his face shines with God’s glory, but also in ongoing healing he extends to those in need on the ground, in the cities and villages as they make their way to Jerusalem.  Jesus can astound and transform our lives in all kinds of different ways, not just on the mountaintop.
    A few weeks ago, I stopped into Barnes and Noble bookstore and saw in the front entryway a “spirituality” display that included books on astrology, meditation, healing crystals, Tarot cards and so on.  With a quick glance I noted there was really nothing “Christian” in this particular display.  Being a Christian is too vanilla, maybe, for popular spirituality today.  It was a good reminder, though, that people are still looking for God, if in the wrong places.  Author Karen M. Ward writes that the “greatest search of all time is the search for God.”  But she goes on to say that the heart of the gospel is to realize that God can’t be found.  Rather, God finds us in Jesus Christ. Maybe that is what gave those nine disciples peace as their friends traveled up the mountain with Jesus – that Jesus would come back, and find them right where they were on the ground. No need for mountaintop excursions – and indeed, the faith to hear and believe without witnessing it themselves is a trusting, powerful faith.  And all of the disciples, Peter, James, and John included, trusted that they would continue to witness the power and glory of God working through Jesus, just as they had seen it in his healing, teaching and miracles before this mountaintop event.
    We have been recounting signs of God’s glory for nine weeks now.  In Jesus’ birth at Bethlehem, in his baptism in the Jordan River, in his turning water into wine abundant, in his preaching in the synagogue in his hometown from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah, in his calling of the first disciples, in his sermon that includes blessings and woes and encouragement to love our enemies as well as our friends, we have seen over and over again how God finds us and reveals his love and mercy to all kinds of people in Jesus Christ – in whatever way God can.  In baptism, in Holy Communion, in the hospital or hospice room, on a mountain hike and in the valley of the shadow of death, God still finds us in Jesus Christ and reveals his glory.  The season of Epiphany is really all about remembering that God’s presence is everywhere, and God pursues us with a loving persistence to find us in whatever way possible.  For some of us, that’s a powerful once-in-a-lifetime testimony moment. For others of us, it’s quieter, subtler ways that we notice God’s nudging.
    The story of our walk with Christ may seem insignificant when we compare it to the transfiguration moment the three disciples experience on the mountaintop.  But that doesn’t mean we don’t all have at least one story, a testimony, to share about the power of Christ’s presence at work in our lives.  In just a few days, we’ll move from telling and retelling stories of God’s glory to focusing on transformation.  Witnessing Christ’s glory often leads to transformation – positive life change.  Our story could be THE story someone else is waiting to hear; a way that God finds us as we sit longing and waiting for a word from God, for the Word made flesh to come down from the mountain and meet us, right where we are.  Amen.