(Luke 9:28-36)

Jesus has spent the last three years in Galilee.  He is a successful small town preacher.  Crowds flock to hear him speak, he is able to perform miracles and he gathers round himself a loyal group of disciples.  Now he turns towards Jerusalem.  He is moving away from the suburbs towards the city centre, the seat of power for both the Romans and the Jews.  Peter has tried to persuade him against this course of action.  It is not surprising that Jesus wants to think about the derision he has taken.  Here we find him a week later.  He has taken Peter, James and John with him and he has tone up into the mountains to pray.

Any time we make a difficult decision we are always going to end up feeling better or worse than we did before.  Jesus hits the jackpot – not only does he end up feeling reassured that he is doing the right thing but Moses and Elijah appear alongside him and God speaks from heaven to tell him so.

The disciples almost miss what is going on.  First of all they were very tired and almost slept through what was going on.  Secondly, when they did wake up, they did not know what to do.

Peter’s idea of building three shelters (one each for Moses, Elijah and Jesus) is practical but useless.  He seems to be hoping that they will stay in one place and he has shut his mind to the wider context – no sooner have they turned towards Jerusalem (the place where Jesus has told them he will face his death) than they are hearing a voice from heaven saying ‘this is my son’.

The truth that can be seen through this passage is that the moment Jesus gets a glimpse of the future, he is immediately made aware of his past – the heritage of who he is, the thousands of years of Israel’s history that has led up to that moment in time.  In the Bible, the New Testament lies hidden in the Old and the Old Testament is made plain in the New.

As it was with Jesus, so also it is with us.  Any time that we look towards our own future our past will immediately come into focus.  In order to serve the community of today, theology must be rooted in the community of yesterday.  Parents draw on the example of their own parents, children draw on the example of how they are treated by others.  Mistakes we make become a part of who we are.  There is no space for us to say “When I do that, that and that, then things will be different”.  They wont insofar as we take ourselves with us wherever we may go.

The second truth that can be seen through this passage is that Jesus’ past gives way to his future.  The transfiguration is significant because of what will happen next and not because of what had happened before.  Jesus and the prophets are pointing towards Jesus’ death and resurrection in Jerusalem.

As with Jesus, so it is with us – our hope as Christians is on the basis that Jesus will come again at the second coming – not just that he has been already at the crucifixion.  The church can be as bad as anyone at basing its decision-making on what has happened in the past.  The central message quickly becomes entirely focussed on what God has done in the past and diverted from what he might do in the future.  It is an instinct for us to base our decision-making on what we know, can see, feel and touch.  However if this becomes the basis on which you make all of your decisions then you lose the ability to be amazed.

You don’t come to church because you want everything set and ordered.  You come to church because you know that it will not be.  Look what happened in the past.  Jesus came to earth – what does that say about what might happen in the future.  Believing in God has something of the surprise of a joke.  You think that you know what’s coming but at the last moment it takes you by surprise because it is something different from what you expected.

“Knock Knock
Who’s there
Boo
Boo who
Don’t cry – it is only a joke!