It's Exodus, I'm telling you, not departure,
not passing on. Exodus. Luke doesn't waste words.
Jerusalem isn't tragedy. It's a crossing. If
you miss that, you'll miss the whole gospel.
Six days after Jesus said the word, no one wanted
to hear, suffer. He takes Peter, James, and John
up. The hill. The air thins. The noise drops
away. Gravel shifts under sandals, and he starts
praying. And while they are fighting sleep, the
veil thins. His face changes. His clothes blaze
white. Moses. Elijah. Law and prophets leaning
in, talking about his exodus in Jerusalem. Peter
panics and reaches for wood and canvas. It's
good for us. to be here a cloud swallows that
plan a voice cuts through it this is my son listen
to him and when the cloud lifts jesus is found
alone now the light softens into stained glass
and old wood in a small town sanctuary the hymnals
have a little dust on them the wood floors creek
coffee's hot if you're in a truck cab a kitchen
a dorm room Hey, you're in church with us. Slide
into the pew. Take a breath. Listen. And I'll
see you on the other side. As I begin this morning,
sometimes I hate mentioning this because I know
somebody's going to hear it and then they're
not going to feel it afterwards and go, oh, something's
wrong with me. I didn't hear it. I didn't feel
it. But sometimes sermons or Bible studies, man.
To me, they have a hum underneath them. And I
think today's sermon has a hum underneath it.
So I hope you can, if I preach this right, I
think you'll hear it. We'll see. So here we go.
Six days. That's how long he carried some words
that made zero sense. Six days since the disciples,
they were on that road to Caesarea Philippi.
Where the limestones were cool and the wind came
off of the Galilee sharp. Jesus said it to them
plain. Luke 9 and 22. The son of man must suffer
many things. And be rejected by the elders, chief
priests and scribes. And be killed. And the third
day. Be raised up. Must suffer. And Peter didn't
argue with him this time. If you know much about
Peter, he'd already done this kind of thing once
before with Jesus. Lord, that will never happen
to you. And that didn't go well for him. And
he had learned the hard way. The only way Peter
actually ever learned anything worth learning,
to carry what Jesus gave him without trying to
grab the wheel. So when Jesus said, Peter, James,
John, come with me, he went. No crowds, no questions,
just the four men and a mountain. The air thins
as you climb. The noise of the village drops
first. Smell of cooking fires. Then the sound
of playing children. Then just gravel under your
sandals. Wind whistling through the stones. And
the sound of Jesus praying just ahead. The most
natural sound you've ever heard, like water finding
its level. Jesus always prayed before something
broke open. And they were tired. They were bone
tired. Heavy with sleep. Luke will tell you that
honestly without trying to make them look better
than they really were. And while they were struggling
to keep their eyes open, verse 29 of chapter
9 says, the appearance of his face was altered
and his clothing became white and dazzling. Peter
had stood in a fishing boat when lightning hits
the water and the whole lake flashed like hammered
silver for one split second. And that was the
closest thing he had in his mind to what he was
witnessing now, except this time it didn't stop.
And what was being expressed here wasn't authority
over creation. This was something that was older
than creation itself. This was not Jesus becoming
something new. It was something that had been
hidden, had decided to stop hiding. The human
frame that it was built to hold. The glory. patient
inside of it for 30 plus years, deciding just
for the right moment to show you what you're
really working with. There are moments when the
veil thins, not tears, thins. The way light goes
strange sometimes in the afternoon. The way an
ordinary field, the way you'd walk by it a thousand
times, somehow looks painted in different colors.
He was shining, not reflecting, shining from
the inside out. And then, verse 30, behold, two
men were talking with him. who were Moses and
Elijah. Moses, the law, everything Israel was.
Elijah, prophets, the word that kept interrupting
Israel's comfortable arrangements whenever they
began to compromise. Everything Peter had memorized,
everything he had built his life around, standing
there talking to his rabbi. And Luke tells you
what they were talking about, verse 31. They
spoke of his departure, which he was about to
accomplish in Jerusalem. Departure. The word
Luke uses there is Exodus. Not tragedy, not defeat,
Exodus. Peter didn't understand that yet. All
he knew was that the one who had told him he
would suffer was now blazing with Sinai light.
And Moses himself was standing there like someone
who recognized finally what his whole life had
actually been pointing towards. And Peter didn't
want it to end. Friends, attune your ears this
morning to the reading of Holy Scripture. Today's
passage comes to us from the Gospel according.
to the physician Luke, beginning in chapter 9
and verse 28. Now about eight days after these
sayings, he took with him Peter, John, and James,
and he went up onto a mountain to pray. As he
was praying, the appearance of his face was altered,
and his clothing became white and dazzling. Behold,
Two men were talking with him who were Moses
and Elijah, who appeared in glory and spoke of
his departure, which he was about to accomplish
in Jerusalem. Now Peter and those who were with
him were heavy with sleep. They were fully awake.
They saw his glory and the two men who stood
with him. Let's make three tents. One for you,
one for Moses, and one for Elijah, Peter says,
not knowing what he had said. While he had said
these things, a cloud came and overshadowed them.
And they were afraid as they entered into the
cloud. And a voice came out of the cloud saying,
This is my son, my chosen one. Listen to him.
When the voice came, Jesus was found alone. Well,
since reading a scripture this morning, friends,
but hold on to that. And Peter panicked. Let's
say it plainly because Luke already did. That
tent comment was not a theological proposal,
not a tribute. It was panic wearing the costume
of reverence. Verse 33 says, Master, it is good
for us to be here. Let's make three tents. Sounds
good, doesn't it? Of course it was good. Up there,
on that mountain, no cross at the end of this
road. No crowd choosing Barabbas. Just visible
confirmation that Peter had not made some catastrophic
mistake when he left his nets on the shoreline
and his family behind him. So when he felt Moses
and Elijah beginning to fade, he reached for
wood and canvas in his mind, something to build,
something to make the mountain a permanent address,
not a momentary mercy. Luke says simply, not
knowing what he said. He's right. Peter was trying
to preserve a moment that was never designed
to be preserved. So let me ask you. Have you
ever tried to build a tent around a particular
season in your life? Like trying to keep the
lightning in the bottle? A job. That finally
fit. A relationship that feels like it's found
its footing. Stretch of Sunday mornings started
to feel like Sunday mornings were supposed to
feel like. It's good for us to be here. Yes,
it is. Yes, it is. The desire to stay wasn't
sinful. It was human. Which is to say, it's the
very thing Jesus came to save, not condemn. But
mountaintops, my dear friends, are not addresses.
They're revelations. And the difference between
revealing something and possessing something
is everything. And here's what Peter's actually
doing. Under the construction project. He's trying
to put Jesus in a row. With Moses and Elijah.
Three tents. Three equal shelters. The tidy logic.
Of a man who thinks he can organize. What God
is doing. If he finds the right containers. And
the father interrupts him. Not rudely. But completely,
verse 34, a cloud came and overshadowed them.
And they were afraid as they entered into the
cloud. Fitting, we hear the rain on our roof
because we Okies, we think we know a little bit
about weather. But in the Bible, clouds don't
just drift in Israel's story. Clouds mean presence,
capital P. The cloud at Sinai, the cloud over
the tabernacle, the Shekinah, the presence of
God. And now this cloud swallows Peter's construction
plans whole, and they're inside it. And they
were afraid. Not odd. Afraid. The way you're
afraid when the thing you have been told about
your whole life shows up and is actually real.
Sinai didn't feel safe either. Moses hid his
face. Israel came undone. The presence of God
does not negotiate comfort. It makes you real.
And the voice arrives into that fear, not after
it, into it. Verse 35 says, this is my son, my
chosen one. Listen to him. Not build stuff for
him. Not compare him to these other two dudes.
Listen to him. And what had Jesus said just six
days earlier? That he would suffer. He'd be rejected.
He would be killed. Peter wanted the glory without
the cross. And the father said, stop building
and start listening. The mountain doesn't cancel
out Jerusalem. The glory on that mountaintop
does not compete with the cross. It reveals who's
actually hanging on it. And Moses didn't come
as credential. He came as companion. Someone
who had already led people through a sea that
looked like death came out with liberation on
the other side. The first Exodus. The archetype.
The shadow. He recognized the road Jesus was
walking because he had walked it first in a different
key on a different ground. The law. And the prophets
bending towards this very moment. This man. This
road that looks like defeat. But turns out to
be the hinge on everything that actually turned.
Cross is not the end of the story. It was the
passage through the sea. And Peter. would not
fully understand any of this until the other
side of a rooster's crow, an empty tomb, a charcoal
fire on a beach, where a man who had every single
right to be done with him offers him breakfast.
And as a result, years later, in his first letter,
He writes these words, Peter's words. For we
didn't follow cunningly devised fables when we
made known to you the power and the coming of
our Lord Jesus Christ. Listen. But we were eyewitnesses
of his majesty. The mountaintop didn't make him
fearless. It made him certain. There's a difference.
Fearless is something you perform. Certainty
is something you carry through what you know
is coming. And there is a valley, friends, doesn't
announce itself. It just happens. Shimmer fades.
The clarity softens, and you're standing in an
ordinary Tuesday, wondering when the light changed.
And some of you are standing in it right now,
not six days after, not even sure anymore if
you were really up there, or if maybe your memory
had just gotten generous and called it glory.
The shimmer's gone. The light went back into
his skin where it lives. Moses left. Elijah left.
The cloud scattered like it never was. And the
mercy in this story isn't that the glory comes
back. It's what's left when it goes. Because
there is Jesus. In ordinary clothes, patient.
When the voice came, scripture says, Jesus was
found alone. Not lonely, alone. That's not less.
That's actually the whole thing. And he says,
follow me down the hill. Back into a world where
the questions don't resolve cleanly. Where you
will stand in a crowd and forget what you saw.
Where Sunday morning starts to feel like a Tuesday.
Where listening will cost you something that
you're not quite sure you can afford to lose.
He says it like it's not a promise. He says it
like it's a choice. He says, listen to me. And
if you're standing there in the valley, and you
don't know if you heard him on the mountain or
just dreamed it, and he is asking you to follow
anyway. So what do you do? Choice? Always. Yours
to make. Amen? Amen. You don't have to hold the
mountain. You don't have to recreate the shimmer
or prove you were really there. When the cloud
lifts and the light settles back into ordinary
skin, Jesus is still there. That's the comfort.
And here's the conviction. Stop building tents
around yesterday's glory and start listening
today. Follow him down the hill. Follow him into
Tuesday. Follow him into the places that don't
feel bright but are still holy ground because
he's standing there. The cross is not the contradiction
of the glory. It's where the glory is going.
So if you learn something new today, if you've
heard something you hadn't considered before,
if something felt fresh to you, throw that old
like in the offering plate like we used to do
in church. And if you want to keep walking with
us through Lent this year, go ahead and tithe
that subscribe. That way you'll know when we
as a church start walking towards Jerusalem again.
And until then friend, be blessed.