Luke 9:28-36

            {Prayer}

            If you haven’t been there and done it … you’ve probably seen it happen. A student stays up way too late playing video games, scrolling through their phone, or watching movies. For me in college, it was bowling. You’d think that a bowling alley with 48 lanes wouldn’t have a waiting list at 2 in the morning on a Tuesday, but this one did … and of course we waited the 45 minutes to get a lane.

            Anyway, the next morning … ugh. The next morning that student, myself included, would drag themselves to school … walking the hallway, entering their class like a zombie, barely able to keep their eyes open. They tell themselves, “I’ll just rest my eyes for a second …” Next thing they know, either their teacher is standing over top of them waking them up or the bell rings and class is over. Having slept through class … they have no idea what they just missed.

            Even worse, when the test comes, the teacher asks a question, and that student realizes … that was the one thing I need to know! That must have been from the day I fell asleep in class! Ugh!”

            Peter, James, and John … they are handpicked to go with Jesus up this mountain to pray. They’re up there with Jesus and Luke tells us that “As {Jesus} was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became as bright as a flash of lightening. Two men, Moses and Elijah, appeared in glorious splendor, talking with Jesus” (9:28-31).

            Here, Jesus is shining in all His divine, godly glory, talking with Moses and Elijah, two of the greatest Old Testament prophets, heaven is literally touching earth and what are these disciples doing? They were sleeping! Luke says they were heavy with sleep, they were very sleepy! This isn’t like they were taking a little cat nap. They weren’t sitting at their desk catching a little shut eye, still listening to what was going on around them so if the boss walked down the hall they could wake up and act like nothing was happening. No. These three disciples, they were sound asleep! They were out cold!

            And because they were spiritually and physically exhausted, Peter, James, and John almost missed the whole transfiguration event. As we gather, how are we doing? Are we growing spiritually sleepy and becoming unaware of God’s presence in our lives?

            If were honest … these questions are for all of us, myself included. God is continually speaking to each of us through His Word, He’s revealing Himself here in worship, He’s working in our lives … but we’re spiritually groggy and distracted by the things and pressures of the world.

            I’m sure we would like to think that if I had been there on that mountain with Peter, James, and John … I would have been fully awake, my eyes would have been opened wide, they would have been fixed on Jesus, I would have been soaking in the moment. But would we? You and I … we aren’t so different than the disciples.

            Luke tells us that Peter, James, and John were weighed down with sleep. And this would have been at the moment that Jesus was revealing His divine glory. God Himself was shining there in their midst and yet their eyes were heavy, their minds are dull, and their bodies are sluggish.

            Like the disciples, we’re weighed down too. And not just physically or emotionally, but spiritually. We juggle family, work, finances, and countless number of distractions. And in all of it … we barely notice that Jesus is right there in front of us. Paul warns us in Ephesians 5, “Wake up, O sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you” (5:14). But instead of waking up, we hit the snooze button on God’s presence in our lives.

            And when we do wake up, we’re distracted by the world instead of listening to Jesus. Notice that when Peter finally woke up, his first instinct wasn’t to listen but to talk. Luke says, “As the men were leaving Jesus, Peter said to them, ‘Master, it is good for us to b here. Let us put up three shelters’” (9:33). Instead of just being in the presence of God and soaking it all in, Peter tries to take control.

            Sounds kind of familiar to me. Instead of listening to Jesus, we fill the silence with our own voices or the voices of others. Instead of soaking in God’s Word, we rush to find quick fixes and easy answers to the things we’re dealing with. Instead of trusting in God’s presence, instead of trusting that God is in control and is working behind the scenes … we scramble around trying to manage our lives on our own terms.

            But while Peter was speaking, God interrupts. God descends upon them in a cloud and says, “This is my Son, whom I have chosen; listen to him” (Luke 9:34-35). You know, at times I think we are so busy talking, worrying, planning, and chasing after the next thing, that we fail to do the one thing God commands. We fail to listen to Jesus. Jesus warns us in Matthew 13, “For this people’s heart has grown dull, and with their ears they can barely hear, and their eyes they have closed” (13:15). Our hearts have become dull to the things of God, and hearts are asleep to His voice.

            And so, we miss the promises of God. Back in Deuteronomy 34, Moses is overlooking the Promised Land, but unable to enter it, because of his failure to fully trust in God. Moses sees a glimpse of God’s promise but never fully receives it. had prepared for His people.

            How often is that us? We see God working in the lives others, but we don’t believe that He can do the same for me. We hear His Word, but we don’t inwardly digest it and make it a part of who we are. We know the Gospel, but we still live as if we have to earn God’s love.

            Like Moses, we can be near God’s glory and still miss the fullness of His promises. The writer to the Hebrews warns us, “We must pay closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it” (2:1). Are we awake to Jesus’ presence, or are we distracted, drifting away from Him?

            Are we asleep to the cross? When Jesus was transfigured, He spoke to Moses and Elijah about His “departure”, about His exodus. Jesus’ glory on the mountain was pointing to something greater. It was pointing to the cross, to the place where He would accomplish the true exodus of His people. Jesus accomplished our salvation.

            But just as the disciples struggled to stay awake on the mountain, they did the same thing in the Garden of Gethsemane. As Jesus prepared for the cross, He told them, “Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation” (Luke 22:40). But what did Jesus find them doing? Sleeping.

            That’s us. Whether we like or not, whether we are willing to admit it or not, that’s us. Jesus calls us to stay awake to His suffering, to His sacrifice, to His presence in our lives … but we drift off, we’re lulled by the comforts and distractions of this world.

            When we are asleep to the cross, we forget the depth of our sin and our need for grace and forgiveness. We forget the power of Christ’s victory over sin, death, and the devil. We forget the urgency of sharing the Gospel, the good news of Jesus, with the world that is still in darkness.

            The disciples’ sleeping on the mountain of Transfiguration was just a preview of their drowsiness in the garden … and it’s a reflection of our spiritual sleepiness.

            The disciples, they were asleep … but Jesus didn’t leave them in their drowsiness. He shined His glory and spoke His Word, and when they fully woke up … “they saw Jesus alone” (Luke 9:36).

            This is the heart of the Gospel. Even when we are spiritually groggy, distracted and weighed down by the pressures of life … Jesus doesn’t leave us there. He comes to us, He wakes us up with His Word. He shines His light into our hearts. He calls us to listen, to trust, and to follow Him.

            Do you remember what it was God said on the mountain?

            “This is my Son, whom I have chosen; listen to him” (Luke 9:35). That is our challenge for this season. As we step down from the mountain of Transfiguration and into Lent, as we prepare for Ash Wednesday and the journey to the cross … will we listen?

            The Red Letter Challenge we are doing is a way to wake us up spiritually, to take Jesus’ words seriously, and to truly follow Him in our daily life. Lent is a time of repentance, reflection, and renewal. It’s a season to stop sleepwalking through faith and truly follow Jesus.

            We don’t want to be that student who slept through class and missed the most important lesson. Let’s wake up. See His glory. Listen to Him.

            Let His words shape your life in this season and beyond, because when we wake up from death to see Jesus, we see the only One who can truly lead us into life, hope, and salvation. Amen.