Renewing Faith: From the Mountaintop to the Valley

Note: You can view this teaching on our YouTube Channel. The Transfiguration offered an abundance of fodder for Jesus’ disciples (then and now) to chew on. The experience was one of those thin place moments when the veil was lifted and all involved could see and experience the nearness of God. When people (including myself) have had thin place moments, they are left with a sense of awe and wonder that we cannot put into words. Peter’s suggestion is sort of a reactive, “I should say something” example of this very reality. Joining Jesus in the scene were two of the greatest characters from Israel’s past: Moses (leader of the Exodus and representative of the Law) and Elijah, considered the greatest Jewish prophet. These two lives were separated by hundreds of years, and many more hundreds of years passed before Jesus was born. The past and the present faded into one scene. The “more to come” is experienced, and the vision of being present at one time with those who precede us from earlier times is introduced to our imagination. More humbling. Jesus is there, of course, now representing the combination of the two – a teacher and a healing prophet – while God is heard saying, “This is my son.” This alone doesn’t mean that God worked or works exclusively through Jesus. Appreciate this statement as an incredibly powerful direct endorsement of Jesus. Such a powerful designation would be increasingly important as Jesus was entering a season that would take him through the valley of the shadow of death. The disciples would need to continually remind themselves of this scene as doubts crept in: apparent defeat in the world says much more about life here and now that it does about the hereafter. The scene ends with Jesus’s countenance filled with the glory of God – a final nod to his association with Moses. Soon after this incredible experience – for all of them, I am sure – Jesus got right back into teaching and healing.

This passage instructs me on three levels. First, it affirms what I already know to be true, that there is more to our lives than our flesh and blood – there is another dimension that is eternal, marked and inhabited by all that is God, which is identified as love. Love awaits us. Our last struggling breath here will give way to endless breathing of the source of life itself. Especially when we are facing struggles of many kinds, we need not lose hope, for the best is yet to come. Whatever meal may be set before us in life, a dessert fork is part of our place setting, signaling that something delicious is coming.

The second take away for me in this story is that hard parts of our journey do not indicate God’s absence but may be proof of God’s presence in our lives. The disciples were very aware that Jesus wasn’t like all the other self-proclaimed messiahs in their day. He wasn’t calling for a violent revolt, but rather a nonviolent, subversive approach to change. Especially when things got ugly in Jerusalem, there would be innumerable voices calling Jesus’ veracity into question. This scene and its implications would remain in the memory banks of the disciples: doing what God wants done in the world sometimes comes with sever pushback, which is itself sometimes a sign that we’re on the right track.

The third thing about this scene is that soon after this celestial experience, Jesus got right back to work. Right up until his last day on earth, Jesus was living his faith. The practice of the faith is what keeps faith alive and growing, culminating in a robust sense of partnership with God. Living out his faith also meant making the world a better place for those he touched. We are all on this ride together, and the Good News really lives up to its name. Faith was never meant to make us “so heavenly minded that we’re no earthly good.” Quite the contrary, we are called to liv out our faith, because faith taps into the source of life itself. As Paul so aptly put it to his beloved church (Phil. 1:21), “to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”

Questions to think about...

1. How has the thought of the afterlife affected your approach or response to life?

2. What do you make of the Transfiguration and what it means for life beyond flesh and blood? If you were a witness to it, what would your take-away be?

3. Knowing that this experience preceded Jesus’ final chapter of suffering and death, how does this shape your expectations of what faithful living and God’s blessing might be like? How does the reality of struggle change your outlook?

4. How do you mitigate from becoming “so heavenly minded that you’re no earthly good”?