A New Chapter
Before reading this passage, please review with me some key background facts. The people of God in the time of Jesus would have been very familiar with these details.
- Background Fact 1: God brought his people out of slavery in Egypt in what we call the “Exodus” (Greek: “The Departure”).
- Background Fact 2: Little shelter huts, or “tents,” made of leafy branches were a festive part of the Jewish tradition. They were a way to camp outside. Every year (even today), many Jews still make and live in outdoor huts to remember their time in the wilderness when these temporary leafy huts would have been part of daily life. Making a temporary shelter would allow the people to stay outside, protected from the sun, for a long time (Leviticus 23:43).
- Background Fact 3: God chose Moses and brought him up onto a mountain to talk with him and to give him the law. God met with Moses face to face as a friend, and after speaking with God, Moses’s face shone. Moses came to represent the Law — the rules, commandments, ordinances, and judgments — given by God to show us our need for God’s help (Exodus 24:19, Exodus 33:11, and Galatians 3:24).
- Background Fact 4: God’s glory (Hebrew: “shekinah”) appeared to the people in a glowing, fiery pillar of cloud. It glowed day and night and rested on the mountain of God when Moses would enter the mountain to speak to God. Later, it rested on the movable temple, the tabernacle, which the people built for worship (Exodus 13:21-22, 24:15-18, Exodus 40:34).
- Background Fact 5: God made Elijah a prophet, that is, a man of prayer who spoke God’s words to the people. He especially represented God to the people of Israel who had stopped worshiping God. Because God used him to do powerful works, he represented the prophets (1 Kings 17:1, Malachi 4:5).
- Background Fact 6: Moses himself had promised the Israelites that God would send another prophet like himself who would speak God’s words to them in a way that wasn’t frightening (Deuteronomy 18:15-19). Moses tells them what to do when this prophet comes:
“LISTEN TO HIM”
Luke 9:28-36
[Jesus tells his disciples:] “I tell you truly, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God.” Now about eight days after these sayings he took with him Peter and John and James and went up on the mountain to pray. And as he was praying, the appearance of his face was altered, and his clothing became dazzling white. And behold, two men were talking with him, Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory and spoke of his departure [Greek: Exodus], which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.
Now Peter and those who were with him were heavy with sleep, but when they became fully awake they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him. And as the men were parting from him, Peter said to Jesus, “Master, it is good that we are here. Let us make three tents, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah”—not knowing what he said. As he was saying these things, a cloud came and overshadowed them, and they were afraid as they entered the cloud. And a voice came out of the cloud, saying,
“This is my Son,
my Chosen One;
LISTEN TO HIM!”
And when the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. And they kept silent and told no one in those days anything of what they had seen.
As they ascended the mountain with Jesus to pray, Peter, John and James might not have fully grasped the significance of this mountain hike. If they remembered the stories of scripture, — the wilderness tents, God’s glory in a cloud, Moses’s promise of another prophet like himself — they might have sensed a profound setup by Jesus. This was no ordinary excursion; it was a deliberate echo of God’s encounters with man.
The story is a continuation of the story as well as a new chapter. By going up the mountain to pray, Jesus walked in footsteps similar to those of Moses before him. The disciples saw Jesus’s face aglow, revealing the glory of God and reminding them how Moses, after speaking face to face with God, came away with a radiant face. God spoke to Moses about their Exodus (departure from Egypt), and here, Jesus is continuing the conversation about his Exodus (departure from Jerusalem).
Although stunned by the situation, Peter nevertheless recognizes it as a wonderful thing! Clearly, this was the Kingdom of God appearing on Earth, so they should get comfortable. He offers to make some shelters for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah, so they can stay on the mountain a long time and be comfortably shaded from the hot sun.
But instead of a shelter made of tree branches, the Spirit of God overshadows them. It’s an awe-inspiring, radiant cloud surrounding them all, like the pillar of fire for the Israelites in the desert and the pillar on the mountain where Moses spoke with God. The disciples are surrounded and engulfed by God’s glory.
And just like God speaking to Moses, our Father spoke to the disciples, and through them, he spoke to all of us: Don’t try to get comfortable with the word of Moses and Elijah. They aren’t here to stay but rather to bring you all to Jesus. They won’t satisfy your deepest needs. Moses and Elijah were good servants to introduce you to Jesus, but Jesus himself is God’s own son. His is the message you should be learning. He’s the one chosen by God. So listen to HIM!
By speaking this way, God starts a new part of the story. Yes, it continues from what we already know, but it helps us understand what comes next.
A few months later, Jesus would stand in the temple in Jerusalem beneath a huge lamp that reminded them of the pillar of fire that guided the Israelites. There, he would say, “I am the light of the world!”
Even though it’s amazing to see these similarities, don’t just stop at being amazed. Think about what it means: God uses the same pictures from the Exodus story to teach us about Jesus. Our life without Jesus is even harder than when the Israelites were slaves in Egypt. Without the freedom that comes from God’s Spirit, our sin nature controls us as strongly as any taskmaster. These similarities show that we need a rescuer just like Moses did. They show that we need God to talk to us. We need a covering shelter, not the leaves and branches that we can make on our own, but a protection made by God. The Israelites couldn’t follow God’s laws and make him happy, which shows we need someone to take away our sins, clear our guilt, and fix our relationship with God. That someone is Jesus.
