Matthew 17:1-8
“Only Jesus”
March 6, 2011 - Transfiguration Sunday

         There is a legal action against you and an attorney tells you that your only recourse is to pay a large settlement. Your elbow is in constant pain and your doctor examines it then informs you that the only treatment is an expensive and painful surgery with a lengthy recovery. You are shopping for a new car and the salesperson at first dealer you visit shows you just the vehicle you had in mind but quotes a price you definitely don’t want to pay. “You won’t find a better deal than this,” she says.

         In every case, and many more, what’s your reaction? Find a second (or third, or fourth, or more) opinion. We live in a time when it is extremely difficult to believe that there is not “more than one way to skin a cat,” as the saying goes, more than one way to get what we desire or to solve our problems. If one offering or solution is unsatisfactory, then we go find some other option. That’s the spirit with which our age also approaches its spiritual questions.

         When Peter, James and John went up the mountain with Jesus on the day we are celebrating this morning, they suddenly found themselves in the presence not just of the Master they had been following but of two great figures out of their own spiritual history.

         The traditional location of the mountain on which they stood is Mt. Tabor. It rises about 2,000 feet above the Jezreel Valley. Here in Oregon, that’s not much of a mountain, as we had to keep telling our daughter’s boyfriend when he visited in December. He could only see the coast range and the Coburg hills through the fog and rain. We kept saying, “Those are only ‘hills,’ you can’t see the real mountains.” Israel also has higher peaks. So another candidate for the Mount of Transfiguration is Mt. Hermon, which soars to an impressive 9,000 feet and is regularly snow covered.

         Verse 2 tells us that the aspect of Jesus was transfigured in an awesome way, with Jesus’ face shining like the sun and His clothes as white as the light. Even Gandalf, the “White Rider” in The Lord of the Rings, never gleamed as bright.

         On whichever high mountain it was, the disciples saw the shining face of Jesus and then Moses and Elijah. They recalled the Old Testament text we read this morning about the glory of God shining on the mountain where Moses met the Lord and received the Ten Commandments. They also remembered Exodus 34 about Moses’ own face shining after he talked with God. They remembered how Elijah was carried up to a heaven in a whirlwind surrounded by blazing glory that his disciple Elisha saw as a flaming chariot.

         So despite the shine on Jesus’ face, Peter equated those two ancient heroes of Jewish faith with his Master. If they were on Mt. Hermon, standing ankle deep in snow, shelter made sense. Make Moses, Elijah, and Jesus each a tent or tabernacle, then sit down out of the wind and cold and learn from each of those great men.

         Peter’s plan got frustrated. We’re often told that the problem was a kind of metaphor for spiritual life. You can’t stay on the mountaintop. Those wonderful moments of spiritual excitement and joy are not something you can expect to sustain. Normal Christian experience includes long stretches on the plain and even in the valley. Peter wanted to prolong the spiritual high in a way that just doesn’t fit with real life.

         That spiritual metaphor has some truth in it, but I wonder if the real problem with Peter’s plan was actually in the fact that it was a kind of pluralist vision. We’ve got three great prophets here, three incredible spiritual guides. Why not hang onto and listen to them all? Why not even compare their opinions, listen to them debate each other, learn from the give and take of the ideas of three wise men rather than just one? That’s the kind of educational experience they already knew among the ordinary rabbis and teachers. Why not sit on the mountain at the feet of the three best?

         God’s answer to Peter’s plan appears in a cloud that envelops them as they hear God’s voice speaking to them. That voice makes no mention of Moses or Elijah, but repeats exactly what they had heard at Jesus’ baptism. God singles out Jesus alone saying, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” Then the heavenly voice adds, “Listen to him.” No mention of Moses or Elijah, no endorsement of them as spiritual guides, no encouragement to hear their words, but only “Listen to him.”

         That singling out of Jesus is reinforced in how the rest of it goes. The voice of God frightens the three disciples into falling to the ground and hiding their faces. It’s Jesus who comes and touches them and says, “Get up. Don’t be afraid.” Then we read in verse 8, “When they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus.”

         “No one except Jesus.” Even the two great spiritual figures of history fade into the cloud as God endorses His beloved Son. Even the wisdom and revelation of the Scriptures that have come before, the Law as represented by Moses and the Prophets as represented by Elijah, are pushed into the background as they are urged to hear what Jesus has to say.

         As I suggested at the beginning, “No one except Jesus,” is a hard word for our present world to hear. Is there not a lot of other wisdom out there? Don’t several billion people live in a culture that looks back to Lao Tzu and Confucius? There’s another billion who live by the words of Mohammed. And probably at least as many who follow the four noble truths and eight-fold path offered by Buddha. More recently we might look to Gandhi or to the Dalai Lama who lives in our own time. Why limit ourselves? Why not listen to them all? Why not gather several opinions when it comes to what matters most?

         Many parts of the world, and perhaps many of our friends, think it somewhat arrogant in fact for Christians to narrow our focus as Peter, James and John were asked to do. Is it not arrogant and presumptuous for us to look around at all the diverse spiritual guides the world offers and say, “No one except Jesus?”

         The answer to that charge is that no, it’s not arrogant or presumptuous or narrow or stupid, to limit our choice of spiritual guides to Jesus, if in fact what we read here today really happened. If in the very presence of two other great spiritual guides, God Himself really did speak to narrow the field down to Jesus alone, then it’s not arrogant for you and I to limit ourselves to Jesus alone.

         In our epistle lesson from II Peter 1:6-21, the man who himself briefly proposed sitting down at the feet of three gurus on the mountaintop answers his own foolish proposal. “We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.” He goes on to tell how they heard God the Father honor and endorse Jesus with those words, “This is my Son whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” They heard the voice on the mountain themselves, he says in verse 18.

         It’s not foolish at all to narrow our choice of guides down to Jesus if what is said about and said by Jesus is true. If He is God’s Son, if He is God’s own choice for shining light into our dark world, then as Peter says, “you will do well to pay attention to it.”

         Sure, go ahead, check it out. Compare who Jesus is and what Jesus had to say with all those other possible lights and guides. Decide for yourself if it’s true or not. But in the end you and I can’t have it more than one way, anymore than Peter could. We can’t house two or three different spiritual guides at the peak moments of our lives without impossible confusion. If we believe in Jesus we can’t listen to all the others at the same time. Following Jesus means following “no one except Jesus.”

         On Thursday I found myself listening once again to a hi-tech guide. I was letting our GPS unit direct me as I left I-5 to follow country roads to Newberg, Oregon to attend a conference at George Fox University. There were lots of twists and turns, but basically I knew we were supposed to follow Highway 219 all the way there.

         At one point in the middle of some little country town the GPS clearly told me to turn right on 5^th Street. Yet 5^th Street was a tiny lane that curved off into a forest. And I could clearly see a Highway 219 marker straight ahead with no turn. At that point I had to decide if I would follow the highway sign or the GPS. I decided to believe the sign. If I was following 219, I couldn’t listen to this electronic voice, no matter how confident it sounded.

         That’s how it is when you and I decide to follow Jesus. If we believe He’s who He said He was, who the men and women who walked and talked with Him said He was, then we have to stay on His road even when we hear other voices telling us there are other ways to go. That’s not arrogance, that’s just wisdom.

         If you are unsure about following Jesus, then I do invite you to check it out. Join us for worship. Join us for our Sunday School class where we’re looking at the reasons for our faith. Watch and listen and decide for yourself. But once you begin to follow Jesus up the mountain, you will find as Peter found, that there’s no other road, no other guide, no one except Jesus. Once you take His path, once you start listening to His voice, the only way forward is to stick with Him.

         That’s why we are here today, to keep listening to Jesus, to help keep each other on His way, to join together and be nourished for the journey at His Table. As you and I come to eat and drink His body and blood, may we hear only His voice, trust only in His grace, hope only in His salvation, and see before us no one except Jesus.

         Amen.

Valley Covenant Church
Eugene/Springfield, Oregon
Copyright © 2011 by Stephen S. Bilynskyj