"Jesus the Homeless by Kevin.Hong on Flickr"

Matthew 17:1-9
Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. Then Peter said to Jesus, "Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah." While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, "This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!" When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear. But Jesus came and touched them, saying, "Get up and do not be afraid." And when they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone.

As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus ordered them, "Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead."
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Last week, I saw my first preview for the new movie, Son of God, which hit theaters this weekend. As best I can tell from a thirty-second ad, it seems to be a pretty conventional Jesus movie: a handsome, well-coiffed Jesus with sparkling eyes and a dreamy, authoritative voice doing a representative mish-mash of teachings and miracles as smushed together from all four gospels, leading up to a pretty gruesome flogging and crucifixion scene. They didn't give away the ending in the preview (wink, wink!), but I imagine that the resurrection scene will be a pretty tried-and-true scene of light flooding out of an empty tomb, conveying temporary blindness to the movie-going audience until the figure of Jesus emerges, with even better hair and downy white robes, his hands outstretched and his eyes gleaming.

You have to pardon me if I sound a bit dubious about this latest effort to put the life of Jesus on the big screen. It's not that the life of Jesus isn't a pretty fantastic story to tell, and it's not that I think broad cultural exposure to the life and ministry of Jesus is intrinsically bad. But this movie, like other movies and mini-series before it, is culture's latest attempt to reveal Jesus to the masses, a stylized effort to show Jesus for who he is, at least in the opinion of a set of screenwriters and producers.

By accident or on purpose, the movie was released this weekend, Transfiguration weekend. So while one attempt to see Jesus for who he is has just hit theaters, another attempt to see Jesus for who he is is taking place here, in our churches, because Transfiguration is all about seeing Jesus in a different light.

So let's dig in to our gospel. Let's see who Jesus is, for real.

Jesus, Peter, and James are up on a high mountain. Just before this, Jesus has been positively identified by Peter as "the Messiah, the Son of the living God," and he has taught the disciples that his identity as Messiah is bound up in a particular fate: death at the hands of the authorities, and resurrection on the third day. He has also told the disciples that following him means following him all the way to the cross, following him even into suffering and death for his sake.

So now, these three have hiked up to the top of this mountain, and while they are standing there talking, light descends upon them. Jesus face shines, his clothes become whiter than white, Moses and Elijah appear, and Jesus is transfigured. A curious word, "transfigured." It means a metamorphosis, a change...and yet not a change. You know how you might think you know someone, and then something happens, for good for for bad, and even though they look the same in a physical sense, you "see them differently" or "see them in a different light?" That's the idea of transfiguration. The disciples saw Jesus in a new light as he was standing there with Moses and Elijah in this dazzling display.

And then they hear a voice from heaven: "This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!" You might recognize these words from back at Jesus' baptism, which we celebrated at the beginning of this season of Epiphany. At his baptism, Jesus' identity was revealed. Here at his transfiguration, his identity is affirmed. God confirms him as the the Son of God, the fulfillment of all the law and prophets that came before him - symbolized by the presence of Moses and Elijah - and the one who will defeat death by rising from it.

Amazed, terrified, unsteady in the overwhelming presence of the divine, the disciples fall to the ground in fear and trembling. Jesus pulls them back up, comforting them, saying “do not be afraid, do not fear.”


And as they stand up, just like that, the moment has passed. The birds start chirping again, and the sky looks like itself again. Jesus isn't sparkling anymore, Elijah and Moses have vanished, the ominous voice-of-God cloud has disappeared, and life has returned to normal. There is no reason to stay up on the mountain any longer, and so Jesus and the disciples head down. This journey down the mountain is the journey back to the wilderness of the world, and the start of Jesus' journey to Jerusalem, the place of his ultimate demise.

Jesus' transfiguration only takes up two paragraphs in the whole of Matthew's gospel, but these two paragraphs tell us the entire story of who Jesus is. The disciples on the mountain and all of us, in this blaze of light, see Jesus for who he really is.

And who is he?

Jesus is the Beloved, the Son of God.
Jesus is the one who both dazzles us and picks us up from the ground.
Jesus is the one who says to us, "do not fear."
Jesus is the one who leads us up the mountain into the presence of God, and the one who leads us down the mountain to live as faithful disciples in the wilderness of this world.

Because while movies and TV mini-series would have us believe that we see Jesus most clearly in all of his dazzling, victorious, glorious, up-on-the-mountain moments, the truth is that seeing Jesus for who he really is means following him beyond his mountaintop blaze of glory, down into the world, all the way to the depths of our human suffering and sorrow, all the way to the cross.

See, from the top of this Transfiguration mountain, we get a clear view another hill, Golgotha, where Jesus will take his place not flanked by Moses and Eljiah, but by thieves, one on the right, and one on the left, as he hangs on the cross to die. The brightness of Christ here on the mountaintop illuminates the landscape down below, where we see human frailty and a world in need. If we really want to see Jesus for who he is, then we need to look beyond his shining face into the faces of the frail and the broken, the poor and the outcast, the sick and the oppressed, the lost and the forgotten. Because these are the ones that Jesus came to love and to save, and we in our own brokenness can find ourselves numbered among these humble saints.

A new piece of artwork is being installed in front of St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Davidson, North Carolina. It is a bench, with a life-sized bronze sculpture of a human figure laying on it, covered in a blanket, with only his feet sticking out the end. At first glance, it appears a sculpture of a homeless man, sleeping on a park bench. Only upon closer examination of his wounded feet does it become apparent to the viewer that this homeless figure is actually Jesus.

This sculpture has been at the center of controversy, rejected by two different churches before finding its home in front of St. Alban’s. For some, the idea of Jesus depicted as a homeless man is vulgar, upsetting, and inappropriate.

But for others, the figure speaks to the heart of Jesus’ own heart. For Jesus is the one who says elsewhere in Matthew’s gospel, “as you do to one of the least of these, so you do unto me.”

For in this statue, we see the truth about who Jesus is: he is the one who came to save the last, the lost, and the least. He was born in the mud of a stable, himself without a permanent home to rest his head. He was the one willing to get mud on his hands to heal a blind man, and to get mud on his reputation to preach good news to a Samaritan woman with a sketchy past.

Friends, the Jesus we see, the Jesus we follow, the Jesus who loves us, the Jesus who died for us: he is more than just an interesting character to portray on the big screen. He is more than a pretty face and soothing voice.

Jesus is found among us, every day, in the faces of those whom he came to save. Jesus is God-with-us - really with us! - and he is the one who will save us from our sin, break the bonds of death. He is the living, breathing, walking, talking fullness of God for us and for our salvation.

This week, we will join Jesus in heading down the mountain as we begin the season of Lent. We will pass through the dusty terrain, remembering that we ourselves are dust, and we will follow Jesus all the way to the valley of the shadow of death. Together, we will listen to Jesus as he declares himself living water, sight for the blind, and the resurrection and the life.

And from the mountaintop of the transfiguration to the hilltop of Jesus’ death, we see Jesus for who he really is: the Beloved Son of God in human flesh, who emptied himself of all glory that he might take on the weight of the world, so that through him, all things might be redeemed.

Thanks be to God.
Amen.