Christ came to proclaim, to call.  He came to assure whom he called.  We aren’t living for ourselves, anymore.  We’re living for Jesus: we live for him by seeing ourselves through his eyes—sinners, broken people, loved and redeemed.  We live for him by living with others the way he showed us—family, friends, neighbors, co-workers, strangers.  We serve.  Let us serve through our words, and not by deeds only, by deeds, and not by words only.

Peter and the eleven—this includes Judas, remember—have seen and heard many things, by this point.  They have done works of power in Jesus’ name.  They have seen five thousand fed with food enough for five.  In the hearing of the eleven, in Jesus’ hearing, Peter declares Jesus is the Messiah, Son of the Living God.  Jesus has told them, recently, that he will be arrested, beaten, mocked, condemned, and executed, and will rise again three days later.  None of his disciples can comprehend this; none of them want to.  Is it another parable?  Is it an allegory?  The disciples see no reason why the acts of power can’t continue: more blind ones given sight, more deaf ones given hearing, more lame ones enabled to walk in strength and joy, more detestable outcasts brought into the community of salvation, changed by the healing words of the Gospel.  These acts will continue, but not the way they imagined or wanted.

You and I know it won’t work out the way the disciples imagine, the way they want.  It’s not their story, though they are part of the story.  The story will work out according to the author’s purposes: God’s way prevails, though it is a challenge for the followers of Jesus—let alone those who do not follow—to understand how and why God’s way involves rejection, suffering, loss, and sorrow.  Beloved, it does, doesn’t it?  But that’s not the whole of the story.  It never has been.  The other part is grace, love, redemption, blessing, hope, and encouragement.

Peter, John, and James witness this encouragement there on the mountain.  They have no idea—in the moment—what is happening.  They are filled with awe and fear.  They feel overwhelmed.  Do you feel overwhelmed?  So much to be done, and so little getting done.  And then God says, maybe whispers, that “be still and know that I AM.”  That’s what He’s doing there, with Peter, John, and James, amid their plans, hopes, and dreams, and frustrations and worries.  Perhaps to remind them of their call in Christ.  And to encourage them, give them hope, remind them of grace, of the one by whom grace is offered, given to us.  To give them a glimpse of glory, which changes everything, stops them in their tracks, and leaves an inerasable vision with them, in them.

Jesus was praying, off by himself—keep that in mind when we reach Maundy Thursday, the garden, the arrest.  His face became different: it shone, bright, brilliant.  Scripture speaks of being before a face and of setting one’s face.  To be before the face of another is to be within that one’s field of attention, concern, and care.  Not forgotten, not ignored.  Remembered.  To set one’s face is a way of expressing unshakable determination.  Those disciples were there before the brilliant, shining face of Christ, in the light of his face.  They were within the light of his care, his concern, his love.  Maybe you grew up never doubting for a moment the caring, concerned love your parents had for you.  Maybe you grew up feeling unnoticed, unloved.  Sisters, brothers, on that mountain, Jesus is assuring those who will follow him in obedient faith that they, we, are in his light, we are before his face.  He sees you.  He sees you.

And with a resolve I daresay none of us could muster but by the grace of the Holy Spirit, Jesus shows us in that same light that he goes to Calvary for us.  He has set his glorious, divine face for the cross.  The cross is God’s care, concern, and love, for us.  Mystery of mysteries.  Holy.  Wonderful.  That is what they were talking about, there, Jesus, Moses, and Elijah.  How the apostles knew it was Moses and Elijah I don’t know, and Scripture does not say.  They just knew.  If we have our doubts about eternity, eternal life, consider that: there with Jesus were Moses and Elijah.

They are talking with him about the cross.  It may be that they were speaking of how amazed they were when they surveyed the wondrous cross: God’s appointed way to freedom, fulfillment of the Law, restoration of God’s people to God, the way of purification, the sign of the end of the ages.  Jesus had spoken to his apostles about all this, as they walked together along the way.  They didn’t grasp it.  Maybe they couldn’t, in this life.  Maybe they couldn’t, until they came to the cross, that dark day, that bloody day of grief, of atonement and salvation.  Then the waiting they didn’t know was waiting, until the third day, the mysterious, empty tomb, the air still fragrant with burial spices, the morning sunlight just starting to warm the cold stones, birds singing creation’s hallelujahs.

They talk of the cross.  We must come to the cross, too.  To avoid it, to talk our way around it, won’t do.  Of what shall we speak, if not the cross?  We cannot fully, truly speak of blessing, grace or glory, love or victory, apart from the cross.  The cross was not the vision or dream or hope of the followers.  Their dream was of victory here, now.  Their vision was of power, here, now.  Their hope was for success and prosperity here, now.  These were their hopes in Christ.  This is what they expected he would deliver to them, here, now.  That Easter afternoon, as the two followers walked along, they say to their new traveling companion, “we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel” (Lk 24:21).  Here.  Now.

The cross.  This is what Jesus talks about with Moses and Elijah in the presence, the hearing, of the apostles.  Peter blurts out gibberish, babble.  They weren’t really awake, they had been mostly asleep.  Yes, we have been.  “Woke” is the slang du jour for a right-thinker.  In a year or so, woke will be broke.  Scripture has been telling us all along, patiently, what wakefulness and watchfulness is.

In the middle of the follower’s excited jabber, a cloud covers them with its shadow, and they were afraid.  Instructed Jews, familiar with the holy writings, they made the right connection: the cloud of the presence was upon them.  At Sinai, God says to Moses, “I am going to come to you in a dense cloud, in order that the people may hear when I speak with you and so trust you ever after” (Ex 19:9).^[1]  Hear, and trust.  The psalms sing of being in the shadow of God’s wings: a place of safety, security—hope, encouragement, salvation.  Earlier in Luke’s account, when Mary asks how she, a virgin, will conceive, Gabriel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you” (Lk 1:35).  The only other time Luke uses this word overshadow is here, on that mountain, the Transfiguration, the cloud of the presence of the glory of the Lord.  The Holy Spirit, the power of the Most High.

A voice from the cloud: “listen to him.”  Listen.  Hear what he is saying.  A little too often, conversation can be listening to someone who hasn’t mastered the art of letting the other person talk.  That one standing there, listening and listening, can honestly say, “I don’t think you’ve heard a word I said”: he never had a chance to speak!  Before we take Jesus and run with him, let’s be sure that we are listening, let’s be sure that we have heard “be still and know that I am God.”

Here, we can.  Here, by the Holy Spirit, the power of the Most High, we can.  Here from this table is grace, love, redemption, blessing, hope, courage and encouragement—holy encouragement for us from God, from the cross.  Encouragement from God in this bread and in this juice, body and blood, by your faith by the Holy Spirit, the power of the Most High.  From here, peace with God.  I don’t hand you the bread or the cup; the elders do not hand you the bread or the cup: Christ offers this bread to you, this cup.  Bread and cup are the cloud for us.  Christ went about among people, seeing, hearing, touching, forgiving.  By our seeing, hearing, touching, receiving, in faith, by the Holy Spirit, we are assured of forgiveness, we are assured of God’s love, we are assured of life, we are assured that God’s purpose for us, by whatever bright, laborious way God has appointed for us, God’s purpose for us is joy and peace.

After those divine words spoken from that cloud on that mountain, silence, and Jesus, alone.  All becomes as it was, seemingly.  That same silence will come, beloved, on a Friday some weeks from today.  And in that silence, there, too, will be Jesus, alone, on that cross of which they spoke that day in glory.

Now to the One who by the power at work within us is able to do far more abundantly than all we can ask or imagine, to God be glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever.

                [1] See also Ex 24:15 and 34:5.