Meditations on Luke 9: Christ revealed in glory

As we come to the end of the season of Epiphany, it should be no surprise that the greatest manifestation of Christ would be celebrated with The Transfiguration. In Luke’s 9th chapter, we find one of the most peculiar events in all of Holy Scripture, and in the aftermath, we find the disciples appropriately perplexed.

Jesus takes just a few of His disciples with Him up the mountain, and while they are up there, Jesus is transformed into a vision of brilliance and glory. Together with Him are the greatest figures of the Old Testament, Moses and Elijah (the iconic Lawgiver and Prophet,) and they are discussing with Jesus the path that lay ahead in Jerusalem. In this moment of heaven touching earth, the Eternally Begotten Son of God, conferred with two men He had sent forth in generations long past, about what He was about to accomplish for the salvation of all mankind… including them. For everyone who was going to be saved, from Adam and Eve, to the last person born on earth, their hope of salvation from sin, death, and the devil, was about to make His path to Calvary.

Naturally, the disciples were dumbstruck. Peter, as perhaps the only one who could find the presence of mind to speak at all, thought it would be pious to build three shrines—one for each of them. However, God will not abide this kind of thinking, and immediately clouds from view Moses and Elijah, leaving only Jesus there with them—and the voice from the Father speaks down from heaven: “This is my Beloved Son: hear Him!”

It is tempting for we poor, sinful creatures, to desire a glimpse of heaven. We want to know what’s going on up there, and what God has in store for us. Unfortunately, as this text makes clear, like so many places in Scripture, when sinful people peer into the glories of heaven, we become blithering idiots and fall all over ourselves. We don’t know how to deal with such beauty, holiness and glory—not even the lesser glory of the occupants of heaven, let alone the God of all Creation. When we try to peek into heaven, the sight of God’s glory unhinges our sinful minds, and leaves us wondering what just happened… and often, we want to head off and do something stupid, like worship the angels or the saints, whom God has already made holy through His Son. When we see God’s glory, we are undone, because we are people of unclean lips, in a nation of unclean lips. We are not holy, and cannot abide the glory of God.

And this is why we are always pointed back to Jesus Christ, our Savior. He is indeed fully God, but He cloaks His glory and righteousness in our own human flesh. Jesus, true God and true Man, is revealed to us as the Beloved Son of the Father, full of grace and truth, who is Himself the Way, the Truth, and the Life. It is through Him that we gain access to that glorious heaven, and liberation from our sins which lead to death. It is Him we hear, as He shows us in His very Person, just how much God loves this world, and all of us in it. It is Jesus who takes the path to the Cross, so that He may die in our place, and give to all who will repent and believe, His own life to live forever—to glorify us, in His unapproachable glory. The eternal glory of the Lord God Almighty is brought low to us, that we may hear Him, believe, and live. Here, in our Lord Jesus Christ, is life everlasting. Amen.