Through this sermon series, looking at the
earthly life of Jesus, we’ve seen Jesus have a lot of ups and downs. He’s
had some very high highs and some very low lows. He’s had times when
everyone loved him and times when everyone was out to get him. And, of
course, he’s had everything in between.
So now, Jesus is about two and a half years into his
ministry. He’s not at the end yet, but as the saying goes, he can see it from
there. I mean, he knew it from the beginning. But it’s one thing to
know something’s coming when it’s still a long way off, and it’s another thing
to know that it’s coming up pretty soon, within a matter of months. Jesus
knows that betrayal and a very painful death are coming, and it’s not all that
far away.
It must have been on his mind.
We know that because, right before this, Jesus told the disciples about
it. In the section of the Bible right before this, we read, “From that
time on, Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem
and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests, and the
teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised
to life.”
Jesus was trying to get the disciples ready for what was
going to happen. But I wonder if maybe he was trying to get himself
ready, too. After all, this was a really hard thing Jesus was going to
do. Can you imagine knowing something like this was going to happen to
you, and not being able to tell anyone about it? That would be a terrible
burden to carry. It would make a hard thing even harder.
When we have something on our minds and in our hearts, when
we’re facing a hard thing, we all need someone to talk to. Even Jesus
needed someone to talk to. That’s why we emphasize the need for all of us
to be there for people who feel alone. Some things are just too heavy for
us to carry by ourselves. We need to have someone to help us carry the
load. And we need to help other people carry their loads.
That’s true even if there’s nothing we can do about the
situation. There was nothing the disciples could do about Jesus’
situation. Jesus did not expect them to do anything. In fact, he
did not want them to do anything. Jesus knew it had to be this way.
You may remember, when Jesus says this, Peter responds, “Never, Lord!
This shall never happen to you!” And Jesus turns on Peter and says,
“Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me.”
Jesus did not want the disciples to do anything. He
just wanted them to listen. He just needed someone to talk to, someone to
help him carry the load for a little while. We all need someone to talk
to, someone to help us carry the load for a little while. We need to look
around us, so we can see people who need our help, people who need help
carrying the load, and we need to be there for them.
And when we’re the ones who
need help carrying our loads, we need to open up and let people know that, so
they can help us. Jesus opened up to the disciples. We need to open
up to each other. Life is too hard for us to go through by ourselves.
Life was even too hard for Jesus to go through by himself. If life
was too hard for Jesus to go through by himself, you and I should not expect to
be able to go through life by ourselves, either.
Jesus opened up to the
disciples. And I’m sure they did their best to be there for him.
They did their best to understand. But of course they did not
understand. And probably, they could not understand. No matter how
hard they may have wanted to understand, they were limited by their perspective
as first century human beings. It’s like the other thing Jesus said to
Peter: “You do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human
concerns.”
That sounds like a criticism,
but at the same time, can you really blame Peter? Sure he had human
concerns in mind. He was human. Human concerns were going to be
what he had in mind.
For that matter, what concerns
do you and I have in mind? Human concerns, right? We wonder if
we’ll get enough rain. We wonder if we’ll have enough time to get done
all the things we want to get done. We wonder if our money will go far
enough. We wonder about our children, or our grandchildren. We
wonder what the world will be like when they grow up. We wonder about the
world now, for that matter. These and a hundred other concerns go through
our minds every day.
Human concerns. No matter
how hard we try to open ourselves up to God’s Holy Spirit, no matter how hard
we try to let the Lord lead us and guide us, we always seem to get dragged back
into these human concerns. It was like that for Peter, and it’s like that
for you and me.
So it’s six days later.
Jesus goes up on a high mountain. He takes Peter, James, and John
with him. And suddenly, Jesus changes. He is “transfigured”, as the
Bible says. “His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white
as the light. Just then, there appeared before them Moses and Elijah,
talking with Jesus.”
At this point, the story shifts
to tell us the disciples’ reaction. They’re stunned, as you and I
probably would be. They’re shocked, they’re startled, they’re surprised.
They’re also terrified. They fall face down to the ground until the
whole thing is over.
In a way, though, it’s kind of
disappointing that the story shifts to the disciples like that. I mean,
I’m not second-guessing the Bible. It tells us everything we need to
know. It’s just that it does not always tell us everything we’d like to
know. I’d love to know what Moses and Elijah were talking to Jesus about.
Wouldn’t you? We don’t know if the disciples could hear them or not.
They may have been too out of it to notice at this point.
But whatever it was, I would
sure think it had to help Jesus. Because Moses and Elijah would not have
had their minds filled with human concerns. Maybe they did while they
were on earth, but not any more. They came from heaven. They’d have
had in mind the concerns of God. That means that Moses and Elijah could
be there for Jesus in a way that the disciples could not, no matter how hard
they tried. Moses and Elijah could understand Jesus in a way that the
disciples could not, no matter how hard they tried.
Now, don’t misunderstand.
Moses and Elijah were still not like Jesus. There’s only one divine
Son of God. Jesus is part of the trinity. He’s God the Son.
Moses and Elijah, great as they were, are not part of the trinity.
They are not God. But still, as great prophets who were now in
heaven, they could see things from a perspective that Peter and the other
disciples could not see. They could understand things that Peter and the
other disciples could not understand. And that had to be a great help to
Jesus, to be able to talk to people who could better understand what was
happening and what he was going through.
And then, of course, we have
the voice of God saying, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well
pleased. Listen to him!” And again, the story shifts to the disciples’
reaction, but that had to be a pretty great thing for Jesus to hear, too.
Even if he believed it before, even if he was confident that he was doing
what God the Father wanted him to do, it still had to make Jesus feel better to
actually hear those words and know that Peter, James, and John had heard them,
too.
When Jesus was asked what the
greatest commandment was, he said that it was to love God. He could’ve
just stopped there. If he had, probably everyone would’ve agreed with
him. But Jesus did not stop there. He went on to say that there’s
another commandment that’s just as important. Just as important as loving
God is loving other people.
We all need someone. We
all need each other. We know that, and yet--so often we don’t see the
needs of others. We don’t mean to not see them. We just get focused
on what we’re doing. We get focused on our own stuff. We get so
focused that we can walk right past someone who’s hurting and needs us. I
know. I’ve done it many times.
We all need someone. We
all need each other. We know that, and yet--so often we’re afraid to
reach out to someone when we need them. We think we should be able to
handle it ourselves. We think it makes us look weak if we admit we
cannot. We think other people have their own problems. We think no
one probably cares anyway. I know. I’ve done that, too.
We all need someone. We
all need each other. Even Jesus needed someone. Jesus was there for
lots of people, but there were times when Jesus needed people to be there for
him, too. That’s how it is for us. We can be there for lots of
people, but there are times we need people to be there for us, too.
It’s best if we can really see
things from someone else’s perspective, and really understand. But even
if we cannot do that, we can still be there for someone. We can listen.
We can try to understand. And when we cannot understand, we can
still be there and show love. Jesus needed that. So do you.
And so do I.
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