In the dark, looking for a switch. That’s a good image, isn’t it, for how it feels some days? We want to be better Christians, we want to read our Bibles more, we want to pray more faithfully, we want to be better husbands, wives, kids, we want to be more faithful in worship. Noble desires, but they lead us to think we gotta do something about it, we gotta fix it, we gotta make ourselves into better children of God. It’s as if you are trying to earn God’s attaboys and attagirls for what you’re doing.
There’s a term for this idea that you gotta do something. It’s called “functional atheism.” Now, don’t mis-understand me. I’m not calling anyone here an atheist. I said functional atheism. Let me explain.
Functional atheism – as best as I can determine, this was coined by social observer Parker Palmer (ibid) - is the misunderstanding that ultimate responsibility for everything rests with us. It’s the unconscious, unexamined conviction that if anything good is going to happen, we are the ones who are going to be making it happen. If, by definition, an atheist is a person who disbelieves or lacks belief in the existence of God or gods, a functional atheist is a Christian who acts as if they are greater than God. Either He isn’t doing what needs to be done, or He’s taking such a long time going at it that I can speed things up by doing it for Him. It’s the equivalent of putting God in a retirement home and telling Him He’s no longer needed. Not literally, of course – just functionally.
I submit that Peter is acting as a functional atheist.
When you go home today, read Matthew 16 and you’ll see what I mean. In the middle of chapter 16, Peter confesses Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the living God (16:16) and Jesus praises this confession as being heaven-sent. But when Jesus speaks clearly and plainly that He must go to Jerusalem and suffer and die at the hands of the Jewish leaders, Peter stands, and with the same mouth that confessed Jesus as the Son of God, rebukes Jesus. “This shall never happen to you, Lord!” he said. Peter doesn’t want Jesus to die, I can understand and sympathize with that emotion, but he has forgotten that this is what Jesus has come to do: be the once for all sacrifice for the world’s sins.
That was a week earlier. And, now here they are on the mountaintop. Just moments before, Peter – along with James and John - had seen Jesus transfigured, where His appearance became brighter and whiter than sunshine on fresh snow white. Where Jesus’ divinity had been hidden since His Bethlehem birth, on the mountain, His glory shone with all of its radiant brightness. If that’s not enough to stun Peter, James and John, Jesus is joined on the mountaintop with two of the Old Testament’s great heroes of faith: Moses, the great lawgiver, and Elijah, the great prophet. Jesus fulfills the law given through Moses, and is the one foretold by Elijah.
Matthew simply states that Moses and Elijah were talking with Jesus. Luke, however, gives us the fuller report. Elijah and Moses “spoke of Jesus’ departure, which He was about to accomplish in Jerusalem.” In other words, they were speaking about His Passion, that He must suffer at the hands of the chief priests and scribes, be crucified, and with his death pay the full wages of sin with his own death.
No, no, no…not that crucifixion talk again, not that death talk, not that dying at the hands of the leaders. Peter was not ready for Jesus to go down to the valley of the shadow. If he could delay Jesus, if He could impede His descent from the holy mountain down to where Jesus’ enemies would be waiting, then all would be well. Peter has the chance to do something, to step in, to stop – or at least stall – Jesus from going back down the mountain. Peter’s not an atheist – he has just confessed Jesus as the Christ, remember? – but he has go to do something! Our translation says Peter offers to make tents, but the better translation is tabernacles – think Old Testament tent of worship. Surely that will be acceptable and pleasing to Jesus. Peter can be a first century Solomon who builds a tabernacle in which Jesus might dwell along with Moses and Elijah so that they can all stay up on the mountain and live happily ever after. No death…no dying…none of that stuff we don’t want to talk about.
The group is suddenly swallowed by a cloud. Throughout the Scriptures, clouds are symbols of and even manifestations of the glory of God. Where moments earlier, Jesus face shown with the radiance of His glory, they are now overwhelmed by an even greater glory. If there is any doubt of what is taking place, the voice of the Father in heaven shatters the moment. “This is my beloved son. Listen to Him.”
Those words echo Jesus’ baptism where the Father spoke to Jesus, “You are my beloved Son.” The Father’s words re-focus the entire purpose of Jesus life and ministry. Jesus did not come to dwell in a tent built on top of a mountaintop. His purpose in ministry wasn’t to hide up in the clouds with two heroes of old and three disciples in training and live in blissful abandon. Jesus must go down the Mount of Transfiguration and then up the mountain of Zion, where Jerusalem sits, where the cross is waiting for Him; He will be arrested; He will be convicted; He will die abandoned and forsaken by everyone.
We are entering the season of Lent. It is a somber season, intended to be one of penitential reflection as we consider our own mortality and our own sinfulness. We will hear Jesus speak of His coming passion. We will see tensions rise between Him and His enemies and they will plot to kill him. We will ponder this incredible story of love once again, the perfectly sinless Son of God who becomes our substitute. The hymns become heavier, both in tone and in the theology they carry, and we will set aside the use of the word alleluia. Alleluia is a word of praise and celebration; Lent is not a time for that word, so we will “bury” it until Easter morning when we will mark it’s own resurrection with the Easter cry “Christ is risen, He is risen indeed, Alleluia!”
But we are not there, yet. First, we must listen to Him, and He says He must go down the mountain into the valley of the shadow. With Jesus we will descend the Mount of Transfiguration. We will journey with Jesus to the cross. But more than that, know that Jesus journeys with you as you carry your own cross this Lententide.
I am always amazed at Jesus’ action. He doesn't rub their faces in the dirt for dismissing Him and not listening to Him. He touches Peter and James and John. I imagine it as a firm, but gentle, grip on the arm, the kind of touch that says both “I love you,” but also gives direction. "Get up and don't be afraid." He doesn't leave them in their fear to teach them a lesson. No, He says, "Get up and leave your fears down there." When the disciples lift up their eyes, Luke says, they saw no one but Jesus only.
Look to Jesus. It’s not as if He’s in a glass case labeled “Break Glass In Case of Emergency.” He is Christ is the Son of the Living God who has come into the world to rescue and redeem sinners like you, and like me, and Peter. He Look to Jesus who stood on the Mount of Transfiguration and prepared to go to the cross for you.
Get up my friends. We're going down from this mountain with Jesus alone, and Jesus is enough. We're going with Him to dark Gethsemane, darker Calvary, and brighter Easter. When your sins burden you, look up and see Jesus only. Amen.
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