January 17
Matthew 17: Stop! Listen!
Genesis 18; Matthew 17; Nehemiah 7; Acts 17
There is something about Jesus, about his power and glory, that when we see him more as he is . . . well, it rattles us. He has come close . . . and he’s still the King of glory, who comes from outside our system. There is something about his glory that dislodges us, and when that happens we reset to our default settings.
Such is the response of Peter in this moment we called the “Transfiguration.” Jesus takes the “three” - Peter, James and John - up to a high mountain, where he is “transfigured” - robed in glorious light. They are not seeing an artificial, temporary Jesus, but more the real Jesus - still in a body, yet glorified. More than this, somehow Jesus is able for a few moments to commune with Moses and Elijah, and somehow Peter knows it’s them.
The real world is breaking in, and it rattles Peter. It’s a fearful thing. So he resets to default settings and begins running around making “shelters” for the three of them. After all, hospitality was a core value of his culture; it was a grievous sin to not show hospitality. Yet in doing this activity, Peter unwittingly distracts himself from the meaning of what’s happening right before his eyes.
The meaning is clear: the presence of Moses, the author of the Old Testament law, and Elijah, representing the prophets, demonstrates that all the Old Testament and first covenant anticipated and pointed to Jesus. They find their fulfillment and transformation into their purest form in _him_.
But Peter can’t grasp this, running around doing what occurs to him, operating by his own reactive intuition. So it is no wonder what God says next:
…a voice from the cloud said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.” (5)
Just like Martha before him, what Peter needed most was to sit down at the feet of Jesus and simply listen. Instead of operating by his own intuition about reality, he needed Jesus to teach him what reality truly is.
How Then Shall We Live?
Today we wake up and doomscroll, taking all the bad things in the world presented on our screens at face value. And so we despair and run ourselves ragged in anxious, reactive activity. Or when faced with a new challenge - a bad diagnosis, a wayward child - we become rattled and default to whatever our intuition demands. But it is especially in these times - and always - that we must sit at the foot of Jesus and allow him to tell us what reality truly is. Without accounting for God, we live like atheistic hamsters on wheels. But with Him, we can take heart, knowing he has overcome the world.