 | |||
| The Transfiguration |
Jesus climbs to
the mountaintop for one reason—to pray.
And out of his prayer, all kinds of things begin to happen. First, Jesus himself is changed in
appearance. He looks like he is in all
his glory. Next, two old friends of his
Father stop by to visit—Moses, the savior of his people, and Elijah, the first
and greatest prophet, who spent a lifetime speaking truth to power and paid for
it. The three start talking about what
Jesus is in for in Jerusalem—the ultimate in truth telling and the ultimate in
saving people, but not without a struggle.
I forgot to
mention that Jesus had taken with him to the mountaintop three of his
followers, Peter, John and James. Not
surprising that I forgot to mention them, because when they got to the top,
they fell fast asleep and slept through all the big doings. When they finally woke up, they woke up
stupid. Luke, the gospel writer, tells us
that their spokesperson, Peter, had no idea what he was talking about when he
opened his mouth at the sight of what was happening. And when all three came down the mountain,
they clammed up. And we can almost hear
Luke saying, Thank God, because they wouldn’t
know what they were talking about. And
that’s even after they had heard the voice of God introducing them to his Son
and telling them to listen to him.
For all its
detail, there seems to be one important fact missing from the gospel
story. Although everything seems to
happen because Jesus is praying, Luke never tells us what Jesus says in his
prayer. Maybe for good reason, because
if I were to guess what Jesus said while praying, I would guess nothing. Jesus just listened.
The listener—that’s
who Jesus is. Like Moses, he saves his
people because he listens to them and hears their suffering. Like Elijah, he listens through all the noise
to hear the voice of truth. And like the
Son he is, he listens to the Father’s word and obeys. In fact, Jesus listens with such passion that
he becomes the people he saves; he becomes the truth he speaks, and he becomes
the Word of God.
All this
listening took sacrifice, but the same listening would bring glory—the glory of
resurrection to eternal life. Because
what better definition of eternal life than listening to God forever!
No wonder, then,
that the voice of God commands all of us to listen to his Chosen Son—to be like
Him who came to be like us and listen with a passion that through every sacrifice
we might come to the glory of eternal life.
And listen to God forever!
No comments:
Post a Comment