February 18, 2007

How to Beam from Ear to Ear

by Rev. Dr. Jim Carlson

Luke 9:28-36

(Slide) Huge Sturgeon – Darren Horness speared a 107 pound 6 ft. fish. Couldn’t see what it was. Fish tired and came to the surface. Said his knees buckled.

That’s the thing about ice fishing, and fishing in general. You really can’t see what you’re getting until you get it out of the water. And sometimes the fish that ends up on the end of your line is quite different from what you expect.

People are really the same way. We think we know the people around us. But the closer you get, the more surprised you are because of who they turn out to be. Maybe they have talent you weren’t aware of. Maybe they have done something in their lives that you would never have expected them to do, given what you know about them.

I think it’s probably a good policy in life to always keep your mind open to the possibility that the people you interact with and think you know very well just might be very different from who you think they are.

Peter James and John, who we talked about a couple weeks ago, found that out for themselves in the passage we read for today. Between the time they left their nets on the shore to follow Jesus and the time of today’s story they came to slowly realize more and more about who Jesus was.

They watched Jesus heal people; they watched him cast out demons; and right before this they saw him take five loaves of bread and two fish and somehow feed 5,000 people. By the time we get to chapter nine, we get into some serious discussion about who Jesus is.

First of all we have this story about king Herod, who ruled the area where Jesus had done this ministry, asking around trying to figure out who this Jesus guy is. Some people said Jesus was really John the Baptist, who Herod had executed, returning after being raised from the dead.

Others said Jesus was the prophet Elijah, whose return had been expected since the book of Malachi. Herod didn’t buy any of those explanations, and he was very curious about who Jesus was.

So Jesus puts the question to his disciples in this chapter: “Who do people think I am?” Of course, his disciples repeated the rumors about him being Elijah or John the Baptist. Some people even said some old prophet had come back from the dead.

Then Jesus asked them what they thought. Now this is crucial to all of the gospel right here: Something about Jesus breaking the bread indicated to Peter that Jesus was in fact the Messiah, sent by God. Jesus basically agreed with him when he told the disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.

As you may have heard, when people talked about a Messiah being sent by God, they thought of someone who would liberate them from their oppressors and lead Israel to the point where they would be a sovereign nation again.

In contrast to what some people might have thought, Jesus tells them something quite different about what it mean for him to be the Messiah. He says that as Messiah he will be rejected by the people, be executed by the authorities, and come back from the dead after three days.

Doesn’t sound like much of a Messiah to me. And he basically tells them that if they want to be his disciples, they’re going to have to be willing to sacrifice their own lives too. But later on their sacrifice would be vindicated because Jesus was going to return with his angels and bring the kingdom of God fully to the earth.

Now that may all be very confusing, but it seems pretty clear that Jesus was much more the he appeared to be. There were lots of people who healed folks. There were lots of people who were considered to be great teachers and had people flocking to listen to them. Jesus was not unique in doing those things.

But if you were one of his disciples, you knew he was unique because he was the Messiah. And he has told you to keep his other identity a secret. I say “good luck keeping a lid on that one!”

Eight days later Jesus takes those same three disciples on a little retreat. They go walking up a mountain to get away from everyone and to pray. Now the way Luke tells this story can be a little confusing.

First, they way he describes their retreat is full of symbolism from the OT. To Jewish people this story sounds like the story of Moses going up to the top of the mountain to receive the law from God. It has shining faces, it has a cloud, it even has Moses himself. It’s supposed to remind you of that scene from the Ten Commandments.

Ascending Mountain vs. going to heaven – body had to be transformed.

Resurrection was transformed body, but not Jesus’ resurrection in Luke.

Jesus prays – is transformed – into glorified body.

Moses and Elijah appear – Peter wants to build booths. Cloud covers them. Words from OT similar to those at Jesus’ baptism.

Appearance of glorified Jesus. Resurrection story being placed earlier in the text – to remind disciples that the Messiah will die and be transformed.

Completes the section about who Jesus is – Messiah, will suffer and die, will rise and return to heaven.

Why important? No practical advice.

A way of giving hope to people who wondered where Jesus was and why he hadn’t returned.

Keep in mind heavenly reality – when earthly reality is sad.

Lose job, trouble with kids, fighting illness, struggling financially. Ultimate reality is resurrected Christ.

We look forward to that transformation. If we don’t have that hope, we have nothing.