Kate Base, Wendy Mayfield, Rachel Dodd, Writers & Presenters; Contributing Writers: Brian Bucknall & Carey Doughty
Luke 9:28-43a
"Youth Sunday Sermon"
The second reading this morning is Luke’s account of the transfiguration of Jesus and the healing of the epileptic boy. These accounts take place near the very end of Jesus’ ministry in Galilee, just before he goes into Jerusalem. At this point in Luke’s gospel, there is much discussion about just exactly who Jesus is. Jesus has already clarified for his disciples that he is not John the Baptist or Elijah, as others have claimed; indeed, he is the Messiah of God. Our Scripture reading picks up eight days after Jesus has been explaining to all 12 disciples both what it takes to be one of his followers and what is to come in the near future.
Listen now for the Word of God from
Luke, chapter 9, verses 28 through 43:
Now about eight days after these sayings Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray. And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Elijah, talking to him. They appeared in glory and were speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. Now Peter and his companions were weighed down with sleep; but since they had stayed awake, they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him. Just as they were leaving him, Peter said to Jesus, "Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah" -- not knowing what he said. While he was saying this, a cloud came and overshadowed them; and they were terrified as they entered the cloud. Then from the cloud came a voice that said, "This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!" When the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. And they kept silent and in those days told no one any of the things they had seen. On the next day, when they had come down from the mountain, a great crowd met him. Just then a man from the crowd shouted, "Teacher, I beg you to look at my son; he is my only child. Suddenly a spirit seizes him, and all at once he shrieks. It convulses him until he foams at the mouth; it mauls him and will scarcely leave him. I begged your disciples to cast it out, but they could not." Jesus answered, "You faithless and perverse generation, how much longer must I be with you and bear with you? Bring your son here." While he was coming, the demon dashed him to the ground in convulsions. But Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit, healed the boy, and gave him back to his father. And all were astounded at the greatness of God.
BRIAN BUCKNALL:
Jesus, for all his historical and religious significance, is perhaps one of the most elusive historical figures. The man has become infinitely larger than life despite constant reassurances, in the Bible and elsewhere, that he was fully human. Identifying with Jesus can be difficult as Jesus’ Godliness often outshines his humanity. And to make things more difficult, no religion can quite agree on either exactly who Jesus was or what he represented. Islam treats him similar to Christianity, right down to the virgin birth, while Judaism firmly denies that Jesus was the Son of God. The 14th Dalai Lama believed that Jesus was a Bodhisattva (a human with a high degree of enlightenment and who is very close to reaching Nirvana), while Hindus often suggest that he was a normal man, albeit a very wise one.
KATE BASS:
Thankfully, for us, Luke’s account of Jesus’ Transfiguration helps greatly in piecing together exactly who Jesus was. Within the space of a few verses Luke illustrates Christ as divine through his Transfiguration and the healing of the epileptic boy. In a dramatic scene at the top of a mountain, Jesus’ face becomes dazzling white. Moses and Elijah appear. A cloud comes over all of them and overshadows them. Then when a voice comes out of the cloud, proclaiming Jesus as the one and only Messiah, in an instant, somehow, Elijah and Moses are gone. Now, this voice is somewhat mysterious in and of itself. But we know that in Luke’s writings—as well as in Exodus and other biblical accounts—that clouds serve to manifest and conceal the presence of God. So, here is this big cloud, so big that it overshadows Jesus, Moses, Elijah, and the three disciples. So big that they were terrified. Some scholars say that the climax of Luke’s entire gospel happens right here, when God speaks from the cloud: “This is my Son, my chosen. Listen to him.”
It’s interesting to step back and take a look at what’s just happened. First you have Moses, Elijah, Jesus, and the three disciples. But why Moses? And why Elijah? It may be because they represent aspects of the faith that came to the people before Jesus came. Moses was the one who brought the ten commandments, or the law, from God to the people. Elijah, a dramatic prophet, is often considered the most famous of the prophets, who passed on his work to Elisha and the other prophets. So Moses and Elijah, representing the law and the prophets, appear on the mountain with Jesus.
And Peter says to Jesus, “let us make three dwellings: one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” The text then says that Peter did not know what he had said. The problem with his statement is that it does not set Jesus above the other two; instead, they are perceived as equals.
There’s a moment here in this story where Jesus is exemplified. When the voice comes from the cloud, commanding that Jesus is the one to whom we are to listen, it is interesting to note that Jesus was found alone. Moses and Elijah have disappeared, suggesting that Jesus has surpassed the “Law and the prophets,” which Moses and Elijah represent. Jesus is the one to follow, the one we listen to. If God tells you that this is his son, it’s a big deal. God’s not going to send his son to the earth and say listen to him if it’s just some normal guy.
We see that in fact Jesus is the divine Lord incarnate when he comes down from the mountain and cures the boy with the demon inside him. We read that Jesus “rebuked the unclean spirit,” and the boy was healed. And not only did Jesus heal the boy; he did something that the disciples were unable to do. Furthermore, the demon itself is powerful; this power is demonstrated in a final violent convulsion before submitting to Jesus’ power. It is as though even the demon knows Jesus is more than just human. Surely, this too shows the divine side of Jesus.
Even in today’s selfish American society, Jesus is revered as a holy figure. If you walked up to people on the street and asked them, “Who is Jesus?” I think most would answer along the lines, “He’s the Son of God.” or “He’s my Savior.” There is a strong pull for the holiness and divinity of Jesus. Jesus is granted a special place on a pedestal as God’s Son. For example, when we looked on Amazon.com, we found a book titled, Jesus in America: Personal Savior, Cultural Hero, National Obsession [by Richard Wightman Fox.] We also found a Christian community in Chicago called, “Jesus People USA.” And The Christian Science Monitor tells us that “every group in America—Christian or not—must deal with Jesus.”
Consider too the film The Passion of the Christ and its overwhelming success. The film portrayed the passion narrative in a very graphic manner. And did you know that The Passion of the Christ ranks 13th overall in gross ticket sales for opening weekend with almost 84 million dollars? In total, the film grossed almost 371 million dollars. Yes, we are a Jesus-obsessed society…but are we looking at the full person of Jesus, or just one side?
WENDY MAYFILED:
Certainly, we see Jesus’ divinity with his transfiguration and healing of the epileptic boy, but is that all there is to Jesus? What about his humanity? What does this passage in Luke tell us about who Jesus is and what he is capable of doing? We see a counterpart to Jesus’ divinity when he responds to the disciples’ inability to heal the boy. We see a different side of Jesus, a more human side. When reading the passage out loud in our sermon group, I stumbled on the words Jesus said accidentally saying faithful instead of faithless. The typed words on the page did not want to come out of my mouth because I did not want to believe what I thought Jesus just said. When studying Jesus, we tend to concentrate on his divinity and rarely focus, or even see his human side.
And yet if you look at pictures of Jesus from different cultures, it’s interesting to note that Jesus looks like the people who drew him. Each culture has a representation of who Jesus is that looks just like them. Think about the classic picture of the American Jesus. Does he look like he comes from a middle eastern area? Or, does his light brown hair, blue eyes, and white skin look more like us? We want to know Jesus as a human, but we know deep inside that he is the Messiah, the Son of God. So, how can he be human?
According to this passage in Luke, the day after Jesus’ transfiguration, he is approached by a man begging him to look at his epileptic son who is convulsing and foaming at the mouth. The father tells Jesus that he asked the disciples to cast out the demon, but they could not. Jesus replies immediately saying “you faithless and perverse generation, how much longer must I be with you and bear with you?” We see this human side of Jesus when he says this, putting a spotlight on a different side of Jesus we rarely see.
It is hard for us to believe that he is capable of being angry when we only see him as being loving and caring. The response from Jesus raised many questions in our sermon group. Is this foreshadowing the fact that Jesus will be rejected by the people he was sent to save? Why do we rarely see this angry, agitated, and even annoyed, fully human Jesus? And, who is Jesus talking to?: the crowd, the father, the disciples?
We looked to Matthew and Mark, but found no clear answers to these questions. However, in both these texts, Jesus’ response is right after the father says the disciples could not cast out the demon. Possibly Jesus is mostly angry with them because it is the disciples that Jesus is teaching to carry out his word and practice. This situation could have easily caused Jesus some frustration causing him to respond and lash out as he did just like any other human being would have done.
This passage in Luke also raises the questions of how can Jesus be fully divine and fully human and is he more human or more divine? These are mysteries that we cannot seem to solve. Yet, we cannot ignore this fact that he is indeed both fully human and fully divine. In addition to being fully divine, knowing that Jesus is also fully human is comforting to me because it makes us able to relate to him as a person that once lived on this earth, breathing this air and walking this ground.
RACHEL DODD:
So we are called to listen to this man whose character, both fully human and fully divine, is beyond our comprehension. It is difficult grasping the idea that Jesus was both fully divine, as well as fully human. How do we come to terms with this? If we fully understood exactly who Jesus is and was, would we be any less hesitant to obey his teachings? This would no doubt aid our unbelief, but it would deprive us of the mystery.
It appears as though everyone nowadays is striving to recreate reality—to make it black and white; there’s no room for grey area. Yet that is what Jesus is; that is what religion is: this grey area in which we grow and discover through the mysterious facts and the hidden details.
But listen. We are called to listen. Listen to a messiah, a lord, a son, a teacher, a savior—listen to the Son of God who is both fully divine and fully human. His words cannot be heard directly from his person, so we must look to scripture and listen intently to our fellow brothers, sisters and friends around us. No matter how similar or how different we are, we must learn to listen.
In today’s world, the most obvious way to listen to Jesus is in scripture. Through it, we attain a sense of the person and the Lord that Jesus was. His teachings are printed out for us and set before us, waiting to be unveiled. We cannot simply read the scripture and expect to learn and grow in our faith. This would be the equivalent of reading a recipe and expecting the meal to cook itself. We must put what we know into practice. It doesn’t take extreme wealth or advanced technology to brighten someone’s day, and it doesn’t take excessive knowledge to reach out to others. Acts of kindness are occasionally overlooked such as when time is running short, or traffic is backed up, or crowded halls become too overwhelming. To be able to step outside the boundaries and look past this hustle and bustle is an act of trust. This is the trust Jesus sought from his disciples—a trust that stands firm no matter how hard the outside world beats down on it.
This trust is not easily gained; it is attained over time. Once we gain this trust, it becomes immensely easier to listen to Jesus. The scandals and tragedies of the world make trusting God a more difficult task as they cause us to question God; hence, the task of carrying on the Creator’s work may seem overwhelming. In our modern world, there are many role models, people, objects, jobs, commitments and groups that we can follow or base our actions on, but the only one that holds true relevance in our lives is God and the teachings of Jesus.
So with the mystery of Jesus, in our complex and ever-changing world, we must listen to the voice of God. Even with our struggles with trust and faith and the hasty atmosphere of today’s culture, we must be careful to not allow ourselves to drone out the voice of God. Instead, we must follow in Jesus’ example and carry on his work of spreading peace and love in all that we do and say. In order to do this, we must not let the grey area and all of the gaps in Jesus’ persona get in our way of listening and incorporating what we learn into our lives. By doing this, perhaps we will be able to direct our attention away from what we do not know and cannot understand, and focus on Jesus’ teachings and follow in his footsteps, accomplishing what we are called to do.
Amen.