Before we jump into the scripture before us today, I need to have a teaching moment about the Bible as a whole. The big numbers that we see, denoting chapters, and the smaller numbers, denoting verses, were not originally in scripture. Why is that important? Because original readers and hearers would receive things differently than what we do here in 2023. When we put in those numbers, which are wonderful in helping us break up and reference scripture, we also cut apart some pieces of scripture that flowed together more naturally, thus changing their meaning a bit.
Case in point - the scripture before us today, which we would describe as being from chapter 16 and 17 of the Gospel of Matthew, but really comes alive for us in a new way, when we read them as a continuous narrative.
With that in mind, let us dive into the Gospel.
Not too far ahead of Jesus’s powerful words about what it means to be his follower (which we would call his disciple), Peter had a moment of proclamation. When the disciples were asked who Jesus was, Peter blurts out a prophetic utterance, “you are the Messiah!” And now after that hinge moment, Jesus seems to be saying - yes, and…
Yes, I am the Messiah, and you are my followers.
Yes, I am the Great I Am, and I am about to transition from being your teacher to your Savior.
Yes, I am the Son of God, and that does not mean that what lies ahead in the Passion is going to be easy.
Here Jesus is confirming the power of what Peter had said, but following up with an invitation. Yes, I am the Messiah - and what does that mean to you? How are you going to follow me? And are you sticking around when things aren’t as easy as you thought that they would be.
When Jesus is speaking to the disciples about picking up their crosses and following him - we need to remember that the cross was not seen as a sign of honor. It was a death sentence and a criminals death at that. Jesus knew that this was how he would die, but his disciples did not - so they must have been wondering what Jesus meant with this call to pick up their cross and follow him.
But then again, do we not still wonder that today as well?
I cannot tell you, friends, how many times I have heard people who love Jesus tell me that their lives should be easier. They had been tricked into thinking that a life of faith is a life of ease - and that is simply not what I see in the scriptures.
I think that Jesus’s first disciples knew that life would not be easy. They had already been chased out of towns, been spoken ill of by the religious leaders and had left their families and jobs. But even so, they did not fully understand the cost that Jesus was talking about - the cost of their lives.
Even when we do not think that our lives should be easier because of our walk with Christ, do we really think that it is going to cost us our lives? Our preferences? Our hopes and dreams? Or are we not willing to pick up our cross and following Jesus as well?
Jesus is inviting his disciples, and us, to shift from being hearers alone to do-ers of the word. In these brief words, he asks us to consider what self-denial actually means.
All too often we throw the phrase “self-denial” at other people - people we want to change. Or people we want to accept where they find themselves in life. That is not what Jesus is talking about. Jesus’s self-denial is not imposed upon other people. It is a choice that we freely make as those who bear his name. It’s the action that accompanies that choice to proclaim that the Gospel is worth more than anything we could hold dear, and thus we are prepared to make sacrifices for the words and message of Jesus.
Noticeably absent from this statement about the high cost of discipleship is the actual disciples reactions. We aren’t told what they said or did. Instead, we sit in the silence of six days. Six days where I believe they kept pondering Jesus’s words over and over again asking themselves, can I really do this? Can I really give over all that I think highly of and value in my life for this ministry?
Six days when they understood, at some level, that these words and teachings were going to cost their teacher his life - and where would that leave them?
Six days of being under a heavy burden.
But at the end of those six days, Jesus took a smaller group of his disciples with him to a high mountain, and there they experienced the confirmation of what Peter had proclaimed. The confirmation of what had started this entire journey - that Jesus was the Messiah. For they saw him transformed in light and being in conversation with the prophets of old.
And they don’t get it.
For Peter tries to make plans to worship and stay-put - understandably. This is profound. This is life-changing. And so much better then what they had left on the other side of the mountain, thinking about what it would mean to pick up their cross and follow Jesus.
But as Peter is making these grand plans to stay - a voice from heaven interrupts him and says to listen to Jesus. For Jesus is the beloved of God. The loved son of God. The one with whom God is well-pleased.
In many ways the transfiguration is hard to capture in words. It’s difficult to figure out what it has for us here and now today. But when we hold these scriptures together, as they were first intended, what new light is shed upon them?
First, the call to follow Christ asks us to set aside some of the thought patterns that we cling to the most. Those that tell us to be independent, self-made, and self-reliant and replace that with the call to self-denial. And doing that is not something that we can regulate to certain places and times in our lives. Because when we claim that we are not our own, but Christ’s - that’s a total proclamation. But this path that asks much of us, this road that looks to the world like it leads to death of self, actually leads to life and life abundant.
Second, mountaintops are good. The disciples certainly needed this mountaintop to help break them of the heaviness they were carrying from the six days prior. Mountaintops can be places of perspective, wonder, and possibility. But we are not meant to stay there. In other words, we all need mountaintop experiences, but those are meant to sustain us while we going about the work down off the peak, and yes, sometimes even in the valley. While it would be easier to stay there, that is not where the work of the faith is carried out.
Three, we need to listen to Christ. Sometimes we can get so caught up in our own heads and hearts, that we fail to really be attentive to Christ. We think we know the way and we are going to go that direction - full speed ahead. We all need to have our hearts re-attunded to the voice of Christ that calls us to attend to sacred moments, set aside our fear, get up and pick up our cross anew.
Friends, this passage, in its wholeness, reminds us what it truly means that Christ is the Messiah - it power and in call. And then it asks of us - what do we do with it? How do we allow Jesus to transform us in the mountain and in the valley? How do we follow Christ to the lofty places and the places that hurt? And maybe, it asks us the most difficult question of all - is there any part of our life where we are not following Christ with our all?
Let us pray….
Amen.
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