Chosen

Jesus took Peter, John, and James and went up the mountain to pray. While he was praying his face changed in appearance and his clothing became dazzling white. And behold, two men were conversing with him, Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory and spoke of his exodus that he was going to accomplish in Jerusalem. Peter and his companions had been overcome by sleep, but becoming fully awake, they saw his glory and the two men standing with him. As they were about to part from him, Peter said to Jesus, “Master, it is good that we are here; let us make three tents, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” But he did not know what he was saying. While he was still speaking, a cloud came and cast a shadow over them, and they became frightened when they entered the cloud. Then from the cloud came a voice that said, “This is my chosen Son; listen to him.” After the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. They fell silent and did not at that time tell anyone what they had seen. (Luke 9. 28-36)

As part of our Lenten journey through these forty days, the biblical account of the transfiguration of Jesus is provided to us each year on this Second Sunday of Lent as told to us respectively by Matthew, Mark, and Luke. It is safe to assume, then, that the liturgists who selected the readings for the liturgical year felt that the story offered a significant lesson for our Lenten experience. 

They would be right. However, to understand fully the implications of the story, we may want to back up a bit as well as look ahead a bit because what precedes the transfiguration and what follows the transfiguration frame the story in a significant way, leaving little to no doubt as to its importance and its message. So we do well to take a moment to look at the larger context in which this story finds itself.

Prior to Jesus and the three handpicked disciples going up the mountain to pray, Jesus had asked his band of brothers “who do the crowds say that I am.” After they have provided several answers to the question, Jesus narrows the question, asking, “But who do you say that I am.” Peter answers for the group as he often does, saying, “the Messiah of God.”

In response to Peter’s answer, Jesus makes his first prediction of the forthcoming passion that he must endure, telling them, “The Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed and on the third day be raised.” Interestingly, Luke does not have the reprimand of Peter as do the other two synoptic writers when he responds to the prediction with “God forbid.”

Rather, Jesus moves immediately into the conditions for discipleship, stating forthrightly that “if anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily, and follow me.” In other words, the disciple follows in the footsteps of Jesus, denying himself, suffering for the cause, and experiencing rejection for choosing the way of Jesus rather than the way of the world. 

So, Luke sets the stage for the transfiguration by providing his reader with a deeper understanding of the identity of Jesus as the Messiah who will suffer and die and also giving us a better grasp of what it means to be a disciple, one who follows faithfully in the footsteps of Jesus, experiencing the same self-sacrifice, suffering, and rejection.

Now, leapfrogging over the transfiguration story, we find Jesus making the second prediction of his forthcoming passion. “Pay attention to what I am telling you,” he tells his followers. “The Son of Man is to be handed over to men.” Luke then adds, “But they did not understand this saying.” Jesus is making clear again his identity as one who suffers and dies for the sins of the world, but the disciples fail to grasp the full import of what he is saying.

It comes as no surprise, then, that immediately after this second prediction of his passion we find the disciples arguing among themselves “about which of them was the greatest.” They simply don’t get it, although Jesus has told them in very clear terms what awaits him in Jerusalem and what awaits them as they strive to follow in his footsteps.

Inserted between this sandwich of the two predictions of his suffering and death we will find the story of the transfiguration that accentuates the same message about the identity of Jesus and the cost of discipleship. Unlike the accounts in Matthew and Mark who simply state that Moses and Elijah appear alongside Jesus on the mountain, Luke tells us about the conversation that they have, writing, “They spoke of his exodus that he was going to accomplish in Jerusalem.”

Obviously, this is intentional on Luke’s part, wanting us to draw a parallel between the exodus of the Hebrew slaves from Egypt led by Moses and the upcoming exodus that Jesus will experience as he crosses from this world through his death into the promised land of eternal glory, having fulfilled his Father’s will that called for sacrificing himself on the cross even as the slaughtered lamb was sacrificed on the altar of the temple.

Again, the suffering and self-sacrifice of the Messiah are confirmed in this conversation, leaving no doubt as to the identity of Jesus as one who gives up his life for the many.  Likewise, the identity of the disciple also is confirmed when the voice comes from the cloud to announce, “This is my chosen Son. Listen to him.” The disciple, then, is the one who listens to the chosen one of God, most especially when he calls for denying oneself, taking up a cross daily, and following in his footsteps. 

It is easy enough to see all kinds of good reasons for this retelling of the transfiguration of Jesus to show up in our selections of scripture for the season of Lent. The predictions of the passion precede and follow the event and they are confirmed in the conversation with Moses and Elijah. The season of Lent looks towards this same passion and death of Jesus on the cross.

So, we are moving steadily during these forty days to the cross on Golgotha where the chosen one of God will endure his passion, putting before his disciples in that moment the cost of discipleship. As one who follows in his footsteps, the disciple also must deny himself, take up the cross each day, and follow Jesus even to the hill of Golgotha. 

At the heart of discipleship, then, is self-denial. It is the essential element in the identity of the disciple. Without it, there is no disciple, regardless of what one calls oneself. The identity of the disciple is in lockstep with the identity of the chosen one. If he must suffer and take up his cross, then the disciple must do the same. There is no way around that fundamental fact.

Given that Lent is a season of self-denial, at least in some sense, it is important that the message is found front and center during these forty days as it is in the story of the transfiguration, a reminder then of who we are as much as it is a reminder of who Jesus is. As the voice declared that Jesus is the chosen one, we can claim to be chosen as his followers only so long as we listen to him as the voice instructed us to do. If we do not listen to him, then we are little different from anyone else in the world.

Because the story is inserted into this season of Lent, a time of truth telling to ourselves, we also want to pay close attention to a little noted part of the story, at least as Luke tells it. Luke says that “Peter and his companions had been overcome by sleep.” In other words, they sleep through the conversation of Jesus with Moses and Elijah, a very important conversation since it confirms the upcoming exodus of Jesus in Jerusalem as he suffers upon the cross, awaiting his death that will allow him to cross over the sea into the promised land.

Hearing of the disciples falling asleep should cause our ears to peak up. Why? Because the only other instance of the same is found in the Garden of Gethsemane where Jesus awaits his being taken into custody by the soldiers and the chief priests. Jesus had asked the same three disciples–Peter, John, and James–to go apart with him and to pray alongside him as he faces his death, but they fall asleep once again as they did at the transfiguration.

Surely, Luke intends a message for us in that reference. However we may choose to interpret it, the fact remains that in both instances there is a failure on the part of these three trusted disciples. On the mountain, they become “fully awake” only after the conversation is done and in the Garden they become fully awake only after Jesus wakes them up, asking the question, “Why are you sleeping? Get up and pray that you may not undergo the test.”

I would suggest that the failure of the disciples to stay awake may be the most important lesson for us during this season of Lent simply because it is so typical of all of us. We get tired of discipleship, finding the weight of the cross too heavy to carry “daily” as Jesus has told us is a condition of being his follower. We doze off, tired of the commitment it takes to follow in Jesus’ footsteps, finding the cost too high and the road too long. We sleep through the struggles around us, preferring to shut our eyes to the pain of the poor, the cries of the ostracized, and the fears of the foreigner.

When we allow ourselves to be “overcome by sleep,” we do not “listen to him” as the voice directs us from the cloud. Asleep, our ears are closed to his call to self-sacrifice, to carrying our cross, and to following in his ways. We hear none of it, allowing us the comfort of a good night’s sleep. We can only hear his call to discipleship if we stay fully awake.

In fact, it may be the easiest temptation of all, becoming disciples who sleep walk through the demands of following Jesus, never fully awake, never fully engaged, choosing to move through the world groggy rather than with our eyes wide open. In so doing, we minimize the cost to ourselves and we lay aside the cross, content to let the world with its problems pass us by as we rest in our hammocks.

Pope John XXIII, about as level-headed a thinker as ever to sit on Peter’s chair, once said, “See everything, endure much, correct only one thing at a time. However, work always, and do not turn the pillow over to sleep.” His point was a simple one. The life of the disciple of Jesus is a life of self-sacrifice and service, not one of ease and time-off. We do not turn the pillow over because we know there is little rest if we truly follow Jesus. Instead, there is a need for continuous action. Inaction is a luxury not allowed us.

So, as we make our way through the forty day season of Lent, we might use some of this time to ask ourselves if we are fully active, fully engaged, and fully committed to the ways of Jesus, or if, on the other hand, we have allowed ourselves to be overcome by sleep. Should the answer be that we are sleepy-headed disciples, then these days are a wake up call for us.

–Jeremy Myers