Matthew 17:1-9

            {Prayer}

            The other day in Wal-Mart I found myself in the lightbulb aisle. Picking out a lightbulb isn’t an easy task anymore. It used to be what size and what wattage. Now there are a ton of options. Regular or candelabra base? LED, halogen, or incandescent? Clear or clouded? Lumens instead of watts. Daylight, soft white, warm white, cool white. Some LED lights even let you switch between all of them.

            And somehow, we have opinions about this. Daylight is too bright. Warm white is not bright enough. That bulb is too harsh, too dull, too yellow, too amber, too blue. 

            But this doesn’t stop with lightbulbs. We do the same thing with ourselves. We spend a lot of energy convincing others, and ourselves, that we’re shining. We post the bright moments. We hide the dim ones. We polish the outside while the inside flickers.

Because if we’re honest … a lot of us aren’t shining at all. Internally we’re dim. The light flickers. Sometimes it feels like it’s barely on. Sometimes it feels completely burnt out.

            And we’re not flickering in a well-lit room. We’re trying to shine in a world that feels increasingly dark. Scripture never promised ease. It promised struggle. Temptation. Suffering. And when the world grows darker, our little self-made light doesn’t stand a chance.

            Which is why what happens on the Mount of Transfiguration matters so much.

Jesus takes Peter, James, and John with Him up the mountain. In Luke’s account of this event, he says, “Peter and his companions were very sleepy” (9:32). Being with Jesus wasn’t always easy for them. There was lots of traveling by foot. There was teaching. Confusion. Corrections. Rebuke. The disciples’ faith flickered more than it shone.

            But then Matthew says something stunning, Jesus was transfigured, He changed, right there before them. “His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as light” (Matthew 17:2). White as light. Not just clean. Not just bright. Not OxiClean bright. Radiant.

             This isn’t Wal-Mart bright. This isn’t stadium light bright. This isn’t “turn the dimmer switch up a little” bright. No. This is glory breaking through.

            You see, when we talk about light, we talk about it in degrees of brightness. Brighter, softer, warmer, cooler. But on this mountain top, Peter, James, and John were not seeing Jesus in degrees of light. They were seeing the very source of light.

            Jesus isn’t just a bright bulb in a dark world. He is a completely different kind of light. Psalm 104 says God “wraps himself in light as with a garment” (104:2). Hebrews 1 says Jesus is “the radiance of God’s glory” (1:3). Jesus Himself says, “I am the light of the world” (John 8:12). John in Revelation 1 says that Jesus’ “face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance” (1:16).

            You see, Jesus doesn’t reflect light like the moon. Jesus doesn’t borrow light from some energy source. Jesus isthe Light. And so when Jesus is transfigured, when that kind of true light shows up … it does something to people.

            Peter’s kneejerk reaction to seeing Jesus transfigured and talking with Moses and Elijah is to put three shelters, one of each of them. But as Peter is sharing his bright idea with Jesus, a bright cloud envelops the whole mountain top. A voice comes from within the cloud. God says, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to Him” (Matthew 17:5). At this true light and voice showing up, the disciples “fell facedown to the ground, terrified” (17:6). 

            And why? Because real light doesn’t just illuminate beauty … it exposes everything. Not the “I’m a warm light” or “I’m a cool light,” but rather the truth. Real light exposes a flickering faith, a dim hope, a burnt-out love. Real light exposes shadows we’d rather not see, skeletons we hide in dark corners. It exposes pride we defend, bitterness we justify, and sins we excuse.

            When Isaiah stood before God in the temple, realizing the unholy cannot be in the presence of the holy, he cried out “Woe to me! … I am ruined!” (6:5). Jesus says in John 3 to Nicodemus, “Light has come into the world, but men loved the darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil” (3:19). We don’t just live in darkness … sometimes we prefer it. We believe we can hide things. We may be good at hiding things from others … but there is nothing we can hide from God.

            Everyone, it doesn’t matter who they are, Paul reminds us that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). As we see and experience, “everything exposed by light becomes visible” (Ephesians 5:13).

            The Transfiguration doesn’t just reveal who Jesus is … it reveals who we are not. We’re not radiant. We’re not glorious. We’re not a holy light. As we confessed earlier, we are by nature sinful and unclean. We’re dim people in a dark world.

            But notice what it is that Jesus does. “Jesus came and touched them. ‘Get up,’ he said. ‘Don’t be afraid’” (Matthew 17:7). In the midst of their fear, Jesus, the true light of heaven, doesn’t abandon them. He comes to them in their fear.

            You see, the Light doesn’t shame. It doesn’t condemn. It doesn’t destroy. The Light descends. It touches. It speaks mercy. The Light that exposes sin is the same Light that covers it with grace.

            But when the disciples are restored, the work of the Light doesn’t end. It descends down the mountain and heads toward to Jerusalem. There, Jesus is stripped of glory. Arrested in the darkness of night. Tried in a make-shift trial, Jesus entered the darkness of judgment. Jesus is lead to a mountain outside Jerusalem where He is crucified. Instead of being enveloped by a cloud of light, the mountain of Golgotha is enveloped in deep darkness. The sun itself refuses to shine and God is silent.

The Light that entered into the world to bring peace and restoration appears to be extinguished as life leaves His body and it is placed in the darkness of the tomb.

            John 1 tells us, “The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it” (1:5). Three days later, the Light that descended and became human flesh, the Light that shone on the mount of Transfiguration, stepped forth from the darkness of death glorified. Jesus defeated the darkness of sin, death, and Satan and ascended into heaven so that the Holy Spirit could come and live within us.

            Being dim, broken, flickering people, Jesus knew what it is that we need. Jesus, through His life, death, and resurrection has “rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son” (Colossians 1:13).

Rescuing us from darkness, God places the light of the Holy Spirit within us. Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 4, “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness’ made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ” (4:6). The brightest light in the universe, in all creation, chose the darkest cross for you.

            The season of Epiphany we are wrapping up this morning says, Look at the Light. See who Jesus is. Wednesday we enter the season of Lent. Lent says, Let that Light show you who you are … and who He is for you.

            You see, the Light, Jesus, shines on you and me, not to condemn us, not to shame us. He shines so that we can see the gifts He freely gives. Jesus shines on you to give you repentance, forgiveness, restoration, and to help you be a new light in a dark place.

            Ash Wednesday reminds us that we are dust. But we are dust that Christ shines upon. The forgiveness that Jesus gives … it doesn’t just brighten us up temporarily … it gives us new life. We heard Jesus say last Sunday in Matthew 5, “You are the light of the world … let your light shine before men so that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven” (5:14, 16).

            We spend a lot of time choosing light bulbs. Warm. Cool. Soft. Bright. The thing is … Jesus doesn’t offer a shade. He offers glory. And when His light shines on us, we don’t become brighter versions of ourselves … we become forgiven people who are radiating His light into a dark world.

            God said in the cloud, “Listen to Him!” As we prepare to enter into the repentant season of Lent and our Forgiving Challenge, I challenge you to do that. Listen to Jesus and let the radiant light of Christ shine forth from your lives to those around you. You can do it because the Light still speaks. The Light still forgives. The Light still shines. Amen.

            The peace of God, that surpasses all human understanding, guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.