Luke 9:28-36

About eight days after these words, Jesus took Peter and John and James and went up into a mountain to pray. While he was praying the appearance of his face became different and his clothing became white as the lightning's flash. And--look you--two men were talking with him, who were Moses and Elijah. They appeared in glory, and they talked about the departure which he was going to accomplish in Jerusalem. Peter and his friends were heavy with sleep. When they were fully awake they saw his glory, and the two men standing with him. And when they were going to leave him, Peter said, "Master, it is good for us to be here. So let us make three booths, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah, for he did not know what he was saying. As he was saying this a cloud came and overshadowed them and they feared as they entered into the cloud. A voice came from the cloud saying, "This is my beloved Son, my chosen one! Hear him!" And when the voice had passed, Jesus was found alone. They kept silent in those days and did not tell anyone anything about what they had seen.

Here we have another of the great hinges in Jesus' life upon earth. We must remember that he was just about to set out to Jerusalem and to the cross. We have already looked at one great moment when he asked his disciples who they believed him to be, in order that he might discover if anyone had realized who he was. But there was one thing Jesus would never do--he would never take any step without the approval of God. In this scene that is what we see him seeking and receiving.

What happened on the Mount of Transfiguration we can never know, but we do know that something tremendous did happen. Jesus had gone there to seek the approval of God for the decisive step he was about to take. There Moses and Elijah appeared to him. Moses was the great law-giver of the people of Israel; Elijah was the greatest of the prophets. It was as if the princes of Israel's life and thought and religion told Jesus to go on.

Jesus could set out to Jerusalem now, certain that at least one little group of men knew who he was, certain that what he was doing was the consummation of all the life and thought and work of his nation, and certain that God approved of the step that he was taking.

There is a vivid sentence here. It says of the three apostles, "When they were fully awake they saw his glory."

(i) In life we miss so much because our minds are asleep. There are certain things which are liable to keep our minds asleep.

(a) There is prejudice. We may be so set in our ideas that our minds are shut. A new idea knocks at the door but we are like sleepers who will not awake.

(b) There is mental lethargy. There are so many who refuse the strenuous struggle of thought. "The unexamined life, said Plato, "is the life not worth living. "How many of us have really thought things out and thought them through? It was said of someone that he had skirted the howling deserts of infidelity and a wiser man said that he would have been better to have fought his way through them. Sometimes we are so lethargic that we will not even face our questions and our doubts.

(c) There is the love of ease. There is a kind of defence mechanism in us that makes us automatically shut the door against any disturbing thought.

A man can drug himself mentally until his mind is sound asleep.

(ii) But life is full of things designed to waken us.

(a) There is sorrow. Once Elgar said of a young singer, who was technically perfect, but quite without feeling and expression, "She will be great when something breaks her heart." Often sorrow can rudely awaken a man, but in that moment, through the tears, he will see the glory.

(b) There is love. Somewhere Browning tells of two people who fell in love. She looked at him; he looked at her--"and suddenly life awoke." Real love is an awakening to horizons we never dreamed were there.

(c) There is the sense of need. For long enough a man may live the routine of life half asleep; then all of a sudden there comes some completely insoluble problem, some quite unanswerable question, some overmastering temptation, some summons to an effort which he feels is beyond his strength. In that day there is nothing left to do but to "cry, clinging heaven by the hems." And that sense of need awakens him to God.

We would do well to pray, "Lord, keep me always awake to you."

COMING DOWN FROM THE MOUNT (Luke 9:37-45)