Year A
Matthew 17:1-9
The Very Rev. Denise Vaughn
Remember Jesus
Late in the first century, or perhaps early in the second, the church went through a time where there were things happening that threatened the church’s integrity and its future. The apostles, who had held the church together, had all died and the Bible, in the form in which we now have it, had not yet been put together. There were many false teachers who claimed to be true Christians who tried to lead other believers to follow them instead of Christ. And the return of Christ, that many had looked forward to, had not taken place as expected, so some were saying it would not occur at all. This attitude cast doubt on all the promises of God putting a great deal of stress upon the life of the church, and many were falling into confusion.
Around that time, an unknown church leader began to call the church back to the faith that was taught by Peter and Paul and the other apostles. He wrote a letter to the churches in the name of the apostle Peter to say to the churches the things he knew Peter would want them to hear. This was a perfectly accepted thing to do in those days and the book from which we read our epistle today, is the result. The writer of 2 Peter had some important things to say and some rather harsh things to say. The readers knew the truth they just needed to be reminded of it. So, he called them to remember Jesus.
He called them to remember that once, many years before there was a young teacher who was totally committed to the loving purpose of God for the world. He came healing the sick, feeding the hungry, and making other loving responses to human need. He came announcing a new possibility that God offers to the whole creation and he taught people how to live into that new possibility. He came calling others to join him in a life that is open to the saving work of God and committed to the loving purpose of God. When the powerful people of his day tried to stop his work, he chose to endure a horrible death on a cross, rather than abandon God’s loving work.
But God would not let it end that way. God raised Jesus up out of death and raised him to be with God and to share with God in everything that God does. And in spite of all the difficulties related to passing the memory down through the generations for over 2000 years, we share that same memory and belief today as all Christians do that the author of 2 Peter was reminding the people of his day. It is the belief that the great eternal God, who made the heavens and the earth, was purposefully doing something very important through the life of Jesus, something to help us know God, something to help us and all people to enter into the new eternal life that God opens to us.
Every generation needs to be reminded of God’s truth so that we may resist false teaching. The argument for the truth of Christian faith is the eyewitness testimony of the apostle’s, therefore the author of 2 Peter links one particular event in the life of Jesus that gives a basis for the Christian belief about him. It was an event that the disciple Peter had shared: the transfiguration. Jesus took Peter, James and John with him onto a high mountain to pray. While they were praying, the disciples saw Jesus change. His face and his garments were transfigured and they saw Moses and Elijah, two of the great leaders of God’s chosen people from the past, talking with Jesus. Then they heard the voice of God saying to them. “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased: listen to him!
If the disciples thought Jesus was just another teacher or just another revolutionary leader, like many others, this vision on the mountain changed everything. Through this Epiphany moment, they now knew that in Jesus, something new and different was happening and that God was working through him. God’s presence could not have been more obvious. Yet, for many through the generations and into today, God’s presence is anything but obvious. We ask; where is God in the brutality of war, in hurricanes or floods or in the everyday dreariness of life? Where is God in our personal grief and suffering?
With all the things that seem to deny God’s existence, or at least our ability to see God, we might wish we could have an experience like Peter, James and John had. If only God would appear to us in an unmistakable way, leaving no doubt that God was behind the experience. Yet, even the transfiguration itself didn’t heal Peter’s doubt. He later cowered in denial at Jesus’ arrest as though he had seen nothing. Matthew tells us that even some of the eleven disciples doubted when Jesus spoke to them after the resurrection. The viewing of the transfiguration for Peter, James and John did not solve all their problems or remove all their doubts. As we see some of these same doubts in the people during the time of 2 Peter’s writing and into today.
Things don’t always work out the way we expect them to. No one ever told us that if we believe the gospel and live Christian lives, everything will work out well for us. But sometimes we let ourselves believe that. In those times, when we have doubts and questions about our faith, we need to remember Jesus again. We need to remember how he sought out the people who were distressed and hurting and how he reached out to them in love. And we need to remember that it was God who was at work in the things that Jesus did and that God is still reaching out to those who are hurting today through Jesus and through us. The story of Jesus puts the truth about God before us.
We believe that it was God who chose to be made known in the man Jesus and we must build our faith on the evidence of God’s presence in him and in our lives. When we look back over our lives, we can see God’s grace and power shining in them and through the darkness of the world, even in those moments of doubt or confusion. We all have had those Epiphany or Transfiguration moments. I hope we will all pray that our church can become a kind of transfiguration. That in our worship, in our service to the world, in our care for one another, we can reveal God more clearly to a world that is searching for God. There are those who have given up hope of finding God, and those who think they have no need of God, and those who cannot see God thorough the pain and suffering, may we reveal God and remind others of the memory of Jesus and of his story.
To be honest, if you don’t really know the story, or if it has been a long time since you read it, Lent is a very good time to read it again. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John in the New Testament tell the story to help us remember that God was doing something special through Jesus and help us to know God. Remembering Jesus won’t take away all our problems but it will help us get everything into perspective so that we can discover what is true and important and good and what isn’t. It will help us get back in touch with God and experience God’s glory as we walk the road to the cross remembering Jesus during the weeks ahead.