“And some eight days after these sayings, it came about that he took along Peter and John and James, and went up to the mountain to pray. And while He was praying the appearance of His face became different, and His clothing became white and gleaming. And behold, two men were talking with Him; and they were Moses and Elijah, who, appearing in glory, were speaking of His departure which He was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.”
Rather than just jumping in and contemplating the events of this trip to the mountain with His disciples, we need to glance back along the trail and remember what has brought them to this point.
The Son of Man, in His humility, has faithfully walked the path laid out for Him from before the foundation of the world. He has taken to Himself the weakness of flesh, submitted Himself to the authority of earthly parents and increased, we’re told, ‘in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men’. (Lk 2:52)
At the appointed time He subjected Himself to baptism in the Jordan, identifying Himself with the nation and with those He came to seek and to save, and then entered upon His earthly ministry.
For over three years He has traveled the hills and dusty paths of Judea and Galilee and Samaria, touching lives, teaching His chosen twelve, spending much time in fervent prayer and always, always, doing the will of His Father.
“And He who sent Me is with Me; He has not left Me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to Him.” (John 8:29)
In silence He has borne the rejection of His own people. They have ridiculed and slandered Him, they have attempted time and again to trap Him either in His words or actions so they might find legal cause to kill Him. On one occasion they tried to throw Him over a cliff, and these were his neighbors while growing up!
But through it all He has never lost sight for a moment, of His mission and purpose. He has gone about the work the Father gave Him to do, patiently waiting with each step for the Father’s guidance and the Father’s timing, and His work has been performed perfectly according to the Father’s will.
Now His time is growing short, and He knows it. It is time to head for Jerusalem for the Passover; the final Passover He will celebrate with His friends; the Passover which will be fulfilled by His own suffering and death.
So He calls His three most attentive students up the mountain, where their final exams will begin.
WHY HE WENT
The first thing about this mountain climb I want you to take notice of, is why He went. He went there to pray.
It’s easy to miss that point, if we skim over verse 28 so we can get to the transfiguration of His appearance, and the visit by the Old Testament celebrities, and all the stuff that comes later.
He went there to pray.
Well, He could have prayed anywhere, right? So why go to the mountain?
There was nothing unusual about that. We’re told in several other places in the gospels that He went alone to a mountain to pray. In fact, here’s a bit of Bible trivia for you to remember; in Mark 6, Luke 6 and John 6, are where you’ll find accounts of Jesus going off by Himself to a mountain to pray.
I suppose it’s valid to assume He went there because it was the only way He could get away from the crowds and have alone time with His Father.
Besides, maybe He just liked the mountains. I know I do. I’m sure these were mini-retreats for this One who had no place to rest His head; who was determined to work while it was day for the night was coming when no man could work.
These were also times when He was praying over important events to come. One of those times was just before He was accosted by large throngs of people needing healing of various diseases and infirmities.
In Luke 6 we’re told He spent the entire night in prayer, then came down and called His disciples to Him and chose the twelve.
And here we see Him, about to set His face for Jerusalem, where He will be ‘rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised up on the third day’ (Lk 9:22), but before He sets one foot on the trail for that final journey, He goes to the mountain to pray.
What a valuable lesson for us all, believers in Christ. Why do we wait until we’re in the thick of our problems, or pressed with an important decision that needs to be made quickly, or laying on our sick bed, before we pray?
We already know life isn’t going to be easy. Even if right now everything seems right with your life; there are no enemies coming against you, your physical condition is good, the bills are caught up and finances are plush, you’re surrounded by happy loved-ones and all seems well in your life, it isn’t going to stay that way.
“…man is born for trouble as sparks fly upward”, lamented Job (5:7) and truer words were never spoken.
So why don’t we pray daily for wisdom and endurance and spiritual insight, for whatever we may face, good or bad?
The wise Christian will. It is the example set for him by His Master, and the wise Christian remembers the admonition to Consider Jesus, and it is his delight to do so and to follow.
THE COUNCIL MEETING
In my own research I have not yet found anyone giving a very insightful explanation for why Moses and Elijah were there. It is noted that Moses was the one through whom God gave the Law, and Elijah was the epitome of the prophetic line, so represented here with Jesus on the Mount, was the Law and the Prophets; what at that time comprised the revealed Word of God.
It says they were there to discuss with Him the ‘departure which He was about to accomplish at Jerusalem’.
That sounds a little simplistic at first, doesn’t it? Considering what we now know of the events that took place once He arrived in Jerusalem, it seems a gross understatement to say, ‘the departure which He was about to accomplish’. Like He’s embarking on a cruise.
But I’m thankful for the wording because of what it tells me. It assures me that it was His plan, not Pilate’s, not Herod’s, not Caiaphas’, but His. And it wasn’t to be a defeat, it was a departure. He would finish the work His Father gave Him to do, and when every word was fulfilled, He would declare in triumph, “It is finished!”, and He would bow His head and deliberately die. “Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit”.
It was something He was going to accomplish. They would bind His hands, they would strip and beat Him, they would spit on Him and pull out His beard and beat Him on the head with reeds. They would insult Him with a series of mock trials, breaking every one of their own precious laws in the process. They would punch Him and mock Him, and press a crown of thorns down on His head, they would scourge Him until His bones could be seen, and make him drag a heavy cross through the streets of Jerusalem and at Golgatha’s crest they would crucify Him.
But from God’s perspective and therefore the perspective of His glorified ones, it was something He was going to accomplish.
Someone might read the account of His passion in each gospel, and maybe some books written about it that describe the suffering and the misery and the injustice of it all and ask, “Why? Why didn’t someone stop it? Why wasn’t there just one person there to say ‘STOP! Enough! This is wrong!?”
But they couldn’t have stopped it if they had wanted to. In the Divine Counsel before the foundation of the world that day was established, and no force in the heavens or on earth or under the earth could have interfered. It was His to accomplish, and He always does the Father’s will.
So why were Moses and Elijah there? To give Him encouragement? To thank Him in advance?
Forgive me if this seems like a stretch to you, I’m speculating a little. But just before someone goes through a time of severe trial; maybe a major medical procedure, or a soldier going off to war, even a condemned man going off to prison or worse, doesn’t it cheer his heart to have his friends close?
I do not mean every acquaintance and associate in that person’s life, but the bosom friends. The ones who don’t have to say much, because they know one another so well that only their presence is needed, to give strength and courage and comfort for the difficult days ahead.
Is it a stretch to think that one of the ways the Father was demonstrating His approval of the Son, was to send two of His dearest friends to talk with Him just before He sets His face like flint for Jerusalem and Calvary?
They certainly weren’t there to give Him advice, or to fill Him in on what was coming next. They weren’t holding pamphlets and saying “We have a message for you from God”.
Remember, He was fully God, and He was fully Man. He had no sin, and He would perfectly fulfill the work He was appointed to. But He was as able to experience pain and suffering as you or I, and He already knew, I believe, all the things He was going to have to endure. After all, hadn’t he inspired the Psalmist to spell it out graphically a thousand years previously?
“I am poured out like water and all my bones are out of joint; My heart is like wax; it is melted within me. My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue cleaves to my jaws; And Thou dost lay me in the dust of death. For dogs have surrounded me; a band of evildoers has encompassed me; they pierced my hands and my feet. I can count all my bones. They look, they stare at me; they divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots.” Psalm 22:14-18
Now folks, I’ve been in the heart of danger. I’ve been tested many times, and I can tell you with confidence, not boasting, but confidence based on experience, that I am no coward. But this would scare me half to death. To have this detailed knowledge of what I was headed for, and then to deliberately strike out on the road, determined to get there and have these things take place? This was a MAN!
But just maybe, because He loved His Son so much, just maybe the Father sent Moses and Elijah with a personal message from the Throne, saying all of Heaven was watching, and all of Heaven was concerned.
HIS GLORY SHONE FORTH
“…while He was praying, the appearance of His face became different.” Matthew and Mark use the word from which we get ’metamorphosis’. Luke does not. But the message is clear; for this moment on the mountain, the Glory of the Son of God that is His own from eternity to eternity, shone forth unveiled, and the three who had only recently declared Him to be the Christ of God (while in Caesarea Philippi) now saw the rest of the picture.
The wording suggests, not just a glow coming from Jesus, but that His entire appearance changed, transformed, and His radiance was such that even His clothing glistened. The ‘form of God’, which had been veiled through incarnation, was permitted for this little while to shine forth in a way that could only be described by John in terms of fulness of grace and truth.
When Moses came down from the presence of the Lord, his face shone with the reflection of the glory of God. He wore a veil over his face, so the children of Israel would not see it fading away.
But in the case of Jesus, His was not a reflection, but glory shining out from Him that no flesh could conceal, and which would not fade away, for it was His own radiance, that cannot be suppressed or diminished.
The amazing thing is that they still didn’t seem to have caught on. Peter wanted to build temporary structures there in the wilderness for the three of them; Jesus, Moses and Elijah, as though they were on an equal plane with one another, and as though Moses and Elijah didn’t have a far better place to go home to anyway. And would a tent do for the Lord of the Tabernacle?
Later, as they passed through Samaria and the folks in a certain village rejected them, James and John wanted to call down fire to consume the whole village.
No, they still didn’t have a clue what Jesus was about.
But later they certainly understood, and this moment of glory on the mountain became full of significance and meaning.
In John 1:14 the apostle makes mention of it. “And we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth”.
Peter makes a more specific reference to it, and for any who would claim that the account of the transfiguration was just a vision or a dream, or some mystical experience they had while up there with Jesus, Peter makes it clear that this was an actual, historical event, and he offers it to his readers for the sake of encouragement to stay on track and not lose sight of the goal.
“For we did not follow cleverly devised tales when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty. For when He received honor and glory from God the Father, such an utterance as this was made to Him by the Majestic Glory, ‘This is My beloved Son with whom I am well-pleased’ - and we ourselves heard this utterance made from heaven when we were with Him on the holy mountain.” II Peter 1:16-18
So God honored and expressed His approval of Jesus in three different ways there on the mount. He sent Moses and Elijah, He allowed Christ’s glory to shine forth and reveal His divinity to His disciples, and He once more spoke from the cloud, proclaiming His pleasure with His Son
AND THEY APPEARED IN GLORY
The next thing I want you to note from this account today, is that Moses and Elijah appeared in glory.
A minute ago I made reference to the veil that Moses wore over his face, so the people would not see it fading. That information is revealed to us by the Holy Spirit through Paul, in II Corinthians 3, and I’d like to read that passage to you now before we go on.
“Having therefore such a hope, we use great boldness in our speech, and are not as Moses, who used to put a veil over his face that the sons of Israel might not look intently at the end of what was fading away. But their minds were hardened; for until this very day at the reading of the old covenant the same veil remains unlifted because it is removed in Christ. But to this day whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their heart; but whenever a man turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.”
If Peter and John and James got nothing else out of this experience, they should have gotten this; it should have been a matter of great encouragement for them, and it should be for us also.
In this account is proof that what God has promised us in the future really is waiting there for us. Moses and Elijah appeared in glory. This time, they weren’t reflecting the radiance that was coming from Christ; they ‘appeared in glory’.
Is God the God of the dead? No, but of the living! He IS the God of Abraham, and Isaac and Jacob! The God of David and Samuel! The God of Paul and Barnabas and John Chrystostom and Martin Luther and John Bunyon and all the saints and martyrs of the ages, who now enjoy the fulfillment of His promise and wait for us to join them there. He is the God of the living, and His saints will appear in glory!
BACK ON THE ROAD
The last thing I want to point out today is that they came down from the mountain. The heavenly visitors disappeared, the cloud was lifted, Jesus’ appearance turned back to what it had been.
This should be another source of encouragement for us who believe. There may be times when we sense this glory; what we refer to often as ‘mountain top experiences’. But when the glory is gone and we have to go about the drudgery of our everyday life, Jesus is still there with us, as He was with them.
When Jesus and His disciples came down from the mountain, they set out on the road to glory. He would reach His goal first, but although they didn’t realize it at the time, it was the beginning of that same road for them.
There was glory at the end. On the way there was work to do; there would be suffering and sacrificing, there would be wonders and miracles, there would be times of agonizing defeat and times of great victory. But in the end they all joined Him in His holy mountain, glorified and full of rejoicing.
That is what awaits every son and daughter in the family of God, believer, and it’s this thought I want to leave you with today. As we continue this short series we’ll see Jesus and His disciples on the road to Jerusalem. We’ll witness the wisdom of our Lord as He throws out warnings and challenges to those who would claim to be His followers, but He never slows His pace. He has set His face for Jerusalem and there will be no stopping or turning from the path.
We travel that same road now, if we belong to Him. From the day you first believed, you have been on the road to glory. It’s the one He trod before you, and the one He now leads you down.
The circumstances of your life are not random or accidental, believer. They are God-ordained, and they are designed to transform you into His image, ‘from glory to glory’ as Paul put it.
But the reality of it is that at the end of your road is your rightful place with all the saints, gathered before His Throne glorified, radiant with His likeness, there to enjoy Him and His glory, forever and ever.
