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"Six Days Later": a Reflection on Exodus 24:12-18, Psalm 2, 2 Peter 1:16-21, and Matthew 17:1-9
The transfiguration tells us who we are and to whom we belong. It calls us to enter the deep realities and relationships of the people with whom we worship, live, and serve. Our identity is completed with the bookends of baptism and resurrection.
Michael Horton, Professor of Systematic Theology at Westminster Theological Seminary, San Diego, relates the following personal story:
Anxiously anticipating the quite premature delivery of our triplets, I will never forget the moment that the doctor looked at me and announced, “They’re all alive!” It was not a foregone conclusion (at least for one of them) and until that report, my wife and I were in suspense. All of the wishful thinking—even from certified medical professionals—could not alleviate that suspense, turning possibility into actuality. I could believe all I wanted in a successful delivery, but I had no promise to rely on, either from God or the doctors, and the intensity of my believing it had nothing to do with the state of affairs. My confidence developed entirely on the words that the doctor uttered. Similarly, the gospel is news because it reports a completed event. Faith does not make something true, but embraces the truth.[1]
Life in your identity in Christ, knowing that your life in Jesus is sealed with baptism and resurrection, demonstrates that you’ve embraced the truth. You’ve rejected the notion that faith makes something true.
Exodus 24:12-18, Psalm 2, 2 Peter 1:16-21, and Matthew 17:1-29 set forth the fact that obedience is not to a set of laws, rules, or policies, but to God, based on a shared experience of God’s providential nurture and care for God’s people. Moses and his centrality in the Sinai tradition demonstrates an act of contemplation, awe, silence, and respect for God.
Exodus 24:12-18 announces that Moses and his centrality in the Sinai tradition demonstrates an act of contemplation, awe, silence, and respect for God by Moses. This act of contemplation, awe, silence, and respect for God is to be alive in the lives of the people of God. Exodus 24:12, 18 reads, “The Lord said to Moses, ‘Come up to me on the mountain, and wait there; and I will give you the tablets of stone with the law and the commandment, which I have written for their instruction’...Moses entered the cloud and went up on the mountain. Moses was on the mountain for forty days and forty nights.” This act of contemplation, awe, silence, and respect for God is an act of faith embracing the truth of who God is and God’s character.
Psalm 2 continues the theme that Moses and his centrality in the Sinai tradition demonstrates an act of contemplation, awe, silence, and respect for God. The Psalmist writes in Psalm 2:1-2, 10-11,
Why do the nations conspire, and the people plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord...Now therefore, O kings be wise; be warned O rulers of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, with trembling kiss his feet, or he will be angry, and you will perish in the way; for his wrath is quickly kindled. Happy are all who take refuge in him.
Scholars believe that this Psalm was written in the tenth century before the common error. The king in this Psalm is the ascension of the Israelite king, as the Lord’s designated king, to be the Lord of all. All nations and people are urged to obey God by accepting the authority of this new king. The act of contemplation, awe, silence, and respect for God, encouraged in the reading from Exodus, must be engaged to honor the focus of this Psalm. Engagement in contemplation, awe, silence, and respect for God is an act of faith embracing the truth of God and God’s character.
2 Peter 1:16-21 further declares the theme that Moses and his centrality in the Sinai tradition demonstrates an act of contemplation, awe, silence, and respect for God. 2 Peter 1:16-18 reads,
For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we had been eyewitnesses of his majesty. For he received honor and glory from God the Father when that voice was conveyed to him by the Majestic Glory, saying, “This is my Son, my Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” We ourselves heard this voice come from heaven, while we were with him on the holy mountain.
Peter’s memory of the transfiguration, like our memory of God’s activity in our lives, informs living one’s identity in Christ. The act of contemplation, awe, silence, and respect for God, encouraged in the reading from Exodus, must be engaged to honor the focus of 2 Peter 1:16-21. Jesus is God’s Son, God’s Beloved, with whom God is well pleased. Jesus heard these words from God at his baptism and at the transfiguration, “This is my Son, my Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”Engagement in contemplation, awe, silence, and respect for God is an act of faith embracing the truth of God and God’s character.
In Matthew 17:1-29, we are exposed to the capstone of the theme that Moses and his centrality in the Sani tradition demonstrates an act of contemplation, awe, silence, and respect for God. This is most important in living one’s identity in Christ. Who Peter, James, and John see is not Jesus becoming something else, but a pulling away of the veil of humanity. They see the divinity of Jesus. Peter, James, and John see God.
At the transfiguration, Peter suggests the building of three dwellings: one for Jesus, one for Moses, and one for Elijah. Peter remembers the Tent of Meeting. The Tent of Meeting was where Moses met with God and represented direct communication with God. Peter wanted a place to meet with God and have direct communication. Peter had forgotten what Jesus told him six days before the transfiguration. Jesus had spoken of his eventual death and resurrection as well as true followers of him picking up their cross and following him. Matthew 17:1-3 reads, “Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah talking with him.” The act of contemplation, awe, silence, and respect for God, encouraged in the reading from Exodus, must be engaged to honor the focus of Matthew 17:1-9. Engagement in contemplation, awe, silence, and respect for God is an act of faith embracing the truth of God and God’s character.[2]
The transfiguration gives you confidence that whatever happens in your life, God is present. And that matters. God does what God has promised. Timothy Keller writes,
Most religious systems teach an afterlife, but ordinarily it is conditioned on your living a morally good and religiously observant life. Christianity, …on the contrary, offers salvation as a gift. It does not belong to the good people but to the people who will admit that they are not good enough and that they need a savior. And so Christians do not approach death uncertain whether they will be found worthy of eternal life. They believe in Jesus, who alone has a record worthy of eternal life, and they are secure in him.[3]
The glory of God inhabits everyday life, stealing in, interrupting, and startling you. The Table demonstrates that reality. Others can see God’s glory in you, recognize God’s love at work, and see Jesus.
The Christian life is a matter of choosing that you need a Savior, responding to God’s compelling love, and believing that you are chosen. Live your identity in Christ. Know that your life in Jesus is sealed with baptism and resurrection. You’ve embraced the truth and rejected the notion that faith makes something true. Your record is not worthy of salvation. Nor is mine. But Jesus who alone has a record worthy of eternal life is reaching out to you, right now. Receive this gift of grace! Amen.
[1]Michael Horton, The Gospel-Driven Life: Being Good News People in a Bad News World (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books, 2009), 123-124.
[2]In the six paragraphs above of textual analysis, I have benefited from the thinking of Gary W. Charles, Carolyn Browning Helsel, Gail Ramshaw, Michael Lodahl, Tommy Givens, and Christine Chakoian in Connections, Year A, Volume 1 (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2019), 304-306, 306-307, 308-310, 311-313, 313-314, 315-317 and 317-319.
[3]Timothy Keller, Making Sense of God (New York, New York: Viking, 2016), 174-175.
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