How Good Lord to be Here!

Today we celebrate the Transfiguration of Our Lord, It’s an amazing account in Scripture of Jesus in dazzling glory, appearing with Moses and Elijah.  Three of his disciples were with him, on a mountain top, saying, “How good, Lord, to be here!”  This past summer I was in the Grand Teton National Park, and there was a chapel of the Transfiguration there.  It was a tiny, little log chapel and looked out onto the mountain range.  It was beautiful.  I thought, “Oh, it’s good to be here!”  The disciples had an amazing experience, one that made them want to stay on that mountain with Jesus.

You don’t have to look very far; these messages all over the place—I’d rather be fishing; I’d rather be sleeping; I’d rather be playing Bingo; I’d rather eat dirt; I’d rather be fishing with my grandpa; I’d rather be hunting.  “I would rather be . . .”   You can fill in the blank—where would you rather be?  A lot of us at any given time might think, “I rather be someplace else—like this little Hawaii license plate.  I think today is a great day to say, “I’d rather be in Hawaii.”  Right?!  U-betcha!  I’d rather be in Hawaii--especially when we’re considering getting so much snow. 

There are good places and bad places to be.

We’d all agree that it’s not good to be in adversity.  It’s not a comfortable place.  We’d love a ticket to someplace else if we’re facing adversity.  Or poverty, it’s not good to be in poverty.  It’s not good to fail or to feel like your failing, or to be in a constant state of failure.  It’s not good to be there.  It’s not good to be suffering.  No one wants that.  Captivity, I know around the world there are many, many people who just are not free.  They’re held captive in jails, prisons, detention camps, and all over the place.  It’s not good to be experiencing regret or fear.  These things are very difficult on our mind and emotions.  It’s not good to face so much temptation in the world around us.  It’s not good to be in a state of war.  None of us would argue that it’s not good to be sick.  It’s not good to be in a state of sin.  Death is not good.  Any one of us would take a look at that list and say, “I’d rather be . . .” and fill in the blank.  Yes, there are some bad places to be in this life.

I want to place this amazing event called “The Transfiguration” into context for us.  Calvary is very close.  We’re told that this event happened just before Jesus went to Jerusalem, where he would suffer and die to take away our sins.  We’re told that Jesus goes up there to pray.  Now, he did this quite often.  He went up on the mountain to pray and to be with God.  He often sought God’s confirmation and direction in moving forward in his ministry.  It was wonderful how he did that.  It’s a great thing that happens for Jesus to just have this opportunity to be alone with God and his disciples.  It’s a wonderful get-away. 

Now, let’s look at this get-away --the view, the visit, and the voice.  Here’s the view… Jesus was once again enveloped in the glory that belonged to him.  He was so dazzling white--the account says, “He was shining like the sun.”  And his clothes became whiter than any launderer could get them.  Amazing!  Then there was the visit...  We’re told that Moses and Elijah were there.  It was a wonderful connection bridging the past with the present, and pointing to the future.  It was as though Moses, the great leader of God’s people in the past and Elijah the great prophet of God’s people in the past, came together to tell Jesus, “You can do it.  This is what we’ve been telling the people about.  You are the one.  You are the chosen of God.  Step forward.  Go to Jerusalem.  The glory of God awaits what you will do there.”  It’s a wonderful connection.  And then there was the voice...  “This is my Son, whom I have chosen; with him I am well pleased.”  It was confirmation for Jesus.  What an amazing event!  But Peter and the other two disciples could have missed it entirely.  I wonder if you caught that in the text.  We read that these disciples were “heavy with sleep.”  That meant, like usual, Jesus went off to pray and they found a little rock or a clump of soft grass and took a good nap.  I could just see them right now, “Oh, I love it when Jesus does this.  We get away for a little while, take a good snooze, it’s great.”  So Jesus is over praying away and the disciples just take a little snooze. 

This is illustrative of the fact that there are many, many things that dull our mind and spirit to make us spiritually asleep.  Lots of things.  These are the kind of things that get in the way of our spiritual alertness, and we all face these things from time to time:  Prejudice, self-satisfaction, lethargy, ignorance, apathy, blindness or deafness to the truth, unbelief, exhaustion.  Any of these things could dull us and make us fall into a little spiritual slumber--where we miss the things of God; where we miss the glory of the Lord Jesus being revealed; where we miss the visit of confirmation from God and the connection to the past.  The disciples very well could have missed this. 

Then you almost gloss over the next point in the text, which is “When they were fully awake they saw his glory and the two men.”  What are the things that wake us up?  What are the things that open our eyes spiritually?  Well, sometimes, it’s the very things that cause us trouble and difficulty.  They can wake us up.  They can get us to pay attention to our deep need for God.  We often times like to brush that stuff aside and say, “I’d rather be someplace else.  I’d rather have an easier way of life.  I’d rather have less pain.”  But sometimes these very situations where we’d rather not be, cause us to open our eyes to see the glory of God. 

In these trials and pain we need three things:  First, we need a word from God.  There are times when our own wisdom simply fails--where we need something specific from God to address our concerns.  Lot of times we just need to know who we are in Christ.  During these times we need a way to God.  Sometimes it seems that it’s such a distance, such a great divide between us and God.  It’s almost like we need to find a way to reconnect with God when we feel lost in these great difficulties.  During these times we need a walk with God.  You’ve all heard that “Footprints in the Sand” poem, talking about two footprints in the sand and then how it fades into one.  It’s when God carries us through difficult times that we realize he’s always walking with us.  We need that walk.  That mountaintop experience gave these disciples those three things.  You had Elijah, Israel’s greatest prophet.  Peter, who was there, would later write this in II Peter 1:16 and following:  For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.  For when he received honor and glory from God the Father, and the voice was borne to him by the Majestic Glory, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased,” we ourselves heard this very voice borne from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain.  And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation.  For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.  Peter is saying that that amazing experience on the mountaintop was not greater than hearing the clear Word of God—the prophets have spoken and they are absolutely reliable.

Then this experience also gave them an encounter with Moses--perhaps Israel’s greatest leader.  He led them on a long, long journey from the captivity in Egypt to freedom in the Promised Land.  Moses, we are told, even learned God’s name at the burning bush.  Learned his name—Yahweh.  He received God’s Laws.  He worked faithfully to help settle disputes and lead the people through a very difficult time in their history.  He pointed to Christ again and again.  So the disciples had the great prophet, Elijah, the great leader Moses, and they saw in all his glory Jesus, Israel’s greatest hope.  He came to walk with us; to be one of us; to live in perfect obedience to God’s Laws—like Moses and Elijah couldn’t; like we can’t.  And that hope that he’s given us is the ultimate way, truth and life, because he paid for our sins on the cross.

I want to encourage you to think about how the disciples felt about being with Jesus.  They said, “Lord, it’s good to be here.”  I think it’s good to be here—at Berea.  Don’t you?  I think it’s good to be here week after week.  We come to hear a word from God.  We hear lessons read.  We speak about these lessons and apply them to our lives.  It’s a wonderful place to be, because we have a word from God.  It is here that we listen to and experience the way to God.  As we come to the Lord’s Supper, as we draw near to him he draws near to us.  It’s so good to be at Berea, because we have a way to God.  Here we experience together a walk with God.  It’s good to be here.  But we can’t stay, sorry, we have to drive away.  The disciples wanted to stay, encountering Jesus and his closeness—his glory.  We have to drive away from Berea, and it’s not because we want to shut this place down and not do anything all week long.  We need to get away from Berea and go back.  The action is back where we came from.  Now that could be a work place, it could be your home, it could be your school, and the action is there.  Just like Jesus who came down from the mountain with his disciples, after this great experience, he stays with us where the action is.  I like that last verse in the hymn we just sang:  “How good Lord to be here!  Yet we may not remain; but since thou bidst us leave the mountain, go with us to the plain.”  And indeed he does still offering us a word from God, a way to God, and a walk with God.

Let’s pray.  O Gracious Lord, thank you for being with us, and for giving us your clear Word and showing us the way.  We pray for Berea, and ask that you would make us a faithful place to gather and grow closer and closer to you.  Thank you for your Word.  Thank you for the way.  And thank you for the walk you’ve given us to share.  In Jesus name, Amen.