The challenge is one we all encounter on our spiritual journey. We cannot avoid it because it is a normal, inherent part of the spiritual journey. How we navigate this challenge determines the progress we make – or don’t make – on our spiritual journey. How we navigate this challenge determines whether we grow or become stuck, trapped in stagnant spiritual immaturity.
This challenge is reflected in the transfiguration experience of Jesus. The account in the gospel of Matthew - Mathew 17:1-8 – suggests the experience was for the three disciples Jesus took with him on the mountain retreat: Peter, James, and John. What the three disciples experienced on the mountain falls into three parts.
First, Jesus was transfigured before them. “His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white,” Matthew 17:2. It was as though the veil that separates the physical realm from the spiritual realm was briefly pulled aside, allowing them to see Jesus in the glory he would experience beyond death. Then they saw Jesus talking with Moses and Elijah – the lawgiver and the first of the Hebrew prophets recorded in the Hebrew Scriptures. As though these two visions were not enough, the three disciples were overshadowed by a cloud, representing the presence of God. A voice spoke to them out of the cloud. God spoke to them.
The background to their experience is what helps us understand what God said to the three. Six days before the transfiguration experience (Matthew 17:1), Jesus had engaged the three, along with the other disciples, in a conversation about his identity. In that conversation, which took place at Caesarea Philippi, they said what they had been thinking and whispering among themselves. It was the first time they said it out loud. Peter was the one who spoke for the group. “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God,” Matthew 16:16. They recognized that Jesus was indeed the long-awaited messiah.
Jesus affirmed Peter for his insight, saying it was from God. Jesus then began to build on that understanding. Now that they recognized Jesus as the Messiah, he began to teach them what being the Messiah involved. He began to teach them of the suffering and death he would experience in Jerusalem, Matthew 16:21. Jesus understood that the Messiah was the Suffering Servant spoken of by the unidentified prophet of the exile, Isaiah 42:1-9; 49:1-6; 50:4-11; 52:13-53:12. The vision Jesus had at his baptism confirmed this understanding, Matthew 3:13-17.
Suffering and death were the farthest things from the mind of the disciples when they thought of Jesus as the Messiah. Their thinking about the Messiah was shaped by the world’s view of greatness. Their thinking revolved around how the world uses power. They assumed the Messiah would be a warrior king like David – one who would defeat their enemies and restore the nation to a place of dominance among the nations. Acting out of this kind of thinking, Peter rebuked Jesus for talking about suffering and death.
In Peter’s rebuke of Jesus, we see the challenge we all inevitably face on our spiritual journeys: hearing what we don’t want to hear, embracing what we don’t want to accept.
The spiritual journey involves moving from how the world trained us to think and live to accepting and embracing how Jesus taught us to think and live. The ways of God Jesus taught and lived challenge how we inherently think and live. Like Peter and the other disciples, we naturally hold onto what we already think, resisting what Jesus teaches us. We struggle to hear what we don’t want to hear.
That’s where the transfiguration experience comes in. In the transfiguration, the three disciples saw Jesus in a glory that far exceeded what they had envisioned. They envisioned Jesus as the messianic king ruling an earthly empire – much like the Roman emperor. In the transfiguration, they saw Jesus exalted in a spiritual realm. They saw a glory that exceeded anything they could imagine. They saw Moses and Elijah talking with Jesus about what he faced in Jerusalem (Luke 9:31). In other words, they heard the Hebrew Scriptures confirm what Jesus was saying to them about his suffering. (“The law and the prophets” was how the Hebrew people spoke of their scriptures.) Then, to drive the point home, they heard the voice of God speaking to them.
What God said to them has two parts to it. The first part of what God said echoed the voice Jesus heard at his baptism. “This is my Son, the beloved; with him I am well pleased,” Matthew 17:5. “This is my son, the Beloved” came from Psalm 2, the coronation psalm that was used whenever a new king was crowned. This phrased affirmed the disciples’ understanding of Jesus as the Messiah. It was as though God said to Peter, James, and John, “You’ve got it right … up to a point.” The second phrase – “with whom I am well pleased” – came from Isaiah 42:1, the first Servant Song. This phrased affirmed what Jesus was teaching them about the nature of the Messiah. Jesus, as the Messiah, was the Suffering Servant of the Lord.
The second part of what God said to the three disciples was pointed. “Listen to him!” Matthew 17:5. In essence, God said, “Quit resisting!”
Being a follower of Jesus calls for a teachable spirit – a willingness to learn what Jesus taught. When we live out of a teachable spirit, we recognize the resistance that rises from deep within when what Jesus teaches challenges what we think. When we live out of a teachable spirit, we are willing to acknowledge the resistance without clinging to it. A teachable spirit leads us to sit with that which goes against what we think and how we live, open to the Spirit’s guidance. (Remember: insight comes from God, through the Spirit’s work.) When we live out of a teachable spirit, we are open to new understanding and insight – understanding and insight shaped by the ways of God. A teachable spirit is evident in the willing to move beyond how the world trained us to think and live, embracing the ways of God Jesus taught. A teachable spirit is the pathway to progress – spiritual growth into the likeness of Christ. We can never grow spiritually as long as we cling to the ways the world trained us to think and live.
The challenge – hearing what we don’t want to hear, embracing what we don’t want to accept – is a normal part of our spiritual journey. It offers us the opportunity to take the next step on our spiritual journey to becoming like Christ.
Listen
to him!
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