Tough Pill to Swallow
Mary Poppins said that a “spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down.” But what if it’s a pill? When I was a kid I remember that I couldn’t swallow pills. Some people deal with this by crushing them and mixing the powder with apple sauce. I seem to recall that my mom would typically crush the Tylenol in a spoon and add a little water, at which point I would swallow the spoonful of bitter medicine. While I can swallow pills now, every once in a while, especially if it is a large pill, I still have the problem where it seems to get stuck back there, and I need a large glass of water to wash it down.
Today is Transfiguration Sunday. We could think of it as the perfect bridge between Epiphany and Lent! The Transfiguration fits nicely with Epiphany as Jesus disciples get a glimpse of Christ in His glory. At the same time, the whole scene and the context around it carries with it a deep foreboding of what is to come, making it an ideal text to study just before Ash Wednesday.
You might be wondering what swallowing a pill has to do with any of this, but bear with me. To find an explanation, lets turn to our Gospel lesson. It begins with verse 28:
28 Now about eight days after these sayings he took with him Peter and John and James and went up on the mountain to pray.
Notice that the text begins with “Now about eight days after these sayings.” Luke is about to recount the amazing events of the Transfiguration, but he first connects it with certain sayings that Jesus had said about 8 days earlier. What were these sayings, and what do they have to do with what comes next?
To figure this out, we must look backwards. Earlier in chapter 9 the disciples had witnessed the miraculous feeding of 5000 people with 5 loaves and two fish! This miracle had such an impact on the multitudes that John tells us that they wanted to make Him king, but that Jesus went away by himself to pray. Luke tells us that the disciples joined Jesus, at which point Peter confesses that Jesus is the Christ of God.” Leaving the Epiphany season, Jesus is revealed by His miraculous feeding and Peter’s confession. This would seem to be a high point in the Gospel account. Now for the difficult pill.
“he strictly charged and commanded them to tell this to no one” What? Why? “ saying, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.”
This makes no sense to the disciples! What kind of Savior is this? A dying Savior? How does that save anyone? I was recently speaking with an inmate at the Burleigh County Detention Center. The man I spoke to was somewhat knowledgeable of scripture, but he could not understand how Jesus dying was any kind of heroic act. How is that winning? Even Peter fell into this. After Jesus predicted His death, Peter had the audacity to say to God, “Far be it from you, Lord; this shall not happen to you!” And what is our initial response to such bravado? “That’s right Peter! This evil must be stopped!” But Jesus rebukes him and calls him Satan! What it comes down to is lack of believing; lack of faith. We don’t cheer for the guy who misses the winning shot, or strikes out in the bottom of the ninth, or fumbles the winning touchdown. These are the losers!
We don’t want to be losers! We long for glory. Maybe not fame and fortune (but maybe). We certainly want attention and respect. We want to be economically “comfortable.” We want a house and a car and a good husband or wife and children. And even as you may see where I am going with this, you may find yourself thinking what I was thinking even as I wrote this part of the sermon, “But these are good things! These are God’s gifts! Right?”
But then we remember. Jesus was a loser! He did not have any of these things: respect, fortune, economic stability, a house, wife, or children. Even His friends abandoned Him at His death, which was, by the way, on a cross, one of the most humiliating ways to die.
Then we feel the pains of guilt. For we realize that by despising this kind of difficulty, we are, in a way, despising our Lord. And then Jesus follows this with:
“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. 24 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.”
And we shudder. And then it gets worse. Jesus adds:
“whoever is ashamed of me and of my words, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.”
These are hard sayings. Who can hear these and say, “Yeah! Sign me up!” And yet this reluctance is a sign of our deep seated lack of trust in Christ. This is the difficult pill to swallow. A spoonful of sugar won’t help, and even if you crush it, the taste is too bitter to bear! Lord save us!
Now in spite of all that the disciples had seen, this was still a difficult pill for them. Before we move on, I want to bring to your attention a short verse from Deuteronomy In it Moses prophesies about one who would come after him.
15 “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen.
Jesus was about to prove that HE is the “prophet like” Moses.
Let’s return now to the Gospel lesson
28 Now about eight days after these sayings he took with him Peter and John and James and went up on the mountain to pray.
Something big was about to happen. First of all, they are going up on a mountain. Important things in scripture often happen on mountains (Ten Commandments, Elijah and the fire from heaven, the Sermon on the Mount, the crucifixion, the Ascension.) Second, Jesus takes only three disciples. There are a few other times in scripture where Jesus handpicks Peter, James and John to come alone with him somewhere. One time He raises Jairus’s daughter from the dead, another time is when He prays in the Garden of Gethsemane before His arrest, and another is this one. The tension is building. Jesus is about to remove all doubt as to His identity and the truth of the hard sayings above. We will see four things in this text to prove the identity of Christ. This is the “Epiphany season part” of today’s lesson!
29 And as he was praying, the appearance of his face was altered, and his clothing became dazzling white. 30 And behold, two men were talking with him, Moses and Elijah, 31 who appeared in glory and spoke of his departure,[b] which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. 32 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. 33 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. 34 As he was saying these things, a cloud came and overshadowed them, and they were afraid as they entered the cloud.
All doubt as to Jesus true identity is removed. Is Jesus the one like Moses spoken of in Deuteronomy? Yes. The Greek word for dazzling actually means “to flash or gleam like lightning”. His clothes flashed with blinding white light. This would have brought to the disciples’ minds something that had happened in the Old Testament. When Moses came down from the mountain we read that his face was altered/ shining such that he had to cover it with a veil. Secondly, Jesus is talking with none other than two of the most influential men of the Old Testament: Moses and Elijah. Moses, who delivered the Law, and Elijah, who was the quintessential prophet of the Old Testament. Here they are testifying as to Jesus’s identity.
Then the cloud comes! Hmmm . . . now where oh where have we seen a cloud overshadowing a mountain before? Oh yeah! When Moses was on Mt Sinai, receiving the Ten Commandments! This was indeed an important event. And then, as if this is not enough,
“a voice came out of the cloud, saying, “This is my Son, my Chosen One;[c] listen to him!” 36 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.”
What’s that that the Father just said? “This is my Son, my Chosen One;[c] listen to him!” Umm . . . let’s look back at that Deuteronomy passage again:
15 “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen.”
He is the one! Only He is greater than Moses. Listen to Him! But what does He say? This brings us back to the difficult pill. Now we have a real problem. The Transfiguration seems to have simply put an exclamation point at the end of Jesus difficult sayings earlier.
24 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it” and “whoever is ashamed of me and of my words, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when he comes in his glory.
WE still find ourselves wanting to hold out on Christ; hedging our bets. As one Christian singer in the 80s wrote “We all want to go to heaven but nobody wants to die!” And yet that is what He calls us to do! To die to ourselves!
So where is our hope? You and I need help because we cannot swallow this pill. It’s too much! Too bitter! We cannot drink this cup! Lord help us!
Let’s look back again at what was going on on that mountain.
“And behold, two men were talking with him, Moses and Elijah” Okay, we know that much. But what were they talking about? What kind of conversation that must have been! We read that they
appeared in glory and spoke of his departure,[b] which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.
This word, “departure”, in greek is actually the word “exodus.” I can’t help but think that this word is used intentionally to draw our minds toward the Exodus of the Old Testament, and the prophet Moses. It was in that first exodus that God delivered His people from slavery to Egypt, leading them to the Promised land.
But what is the “exodus”, this departure, that Jesus was about to accomplish in Jerusalem? His death. His resurrection. His ascension. And notice who is in charge here. Jesus is going to accomplish this! It is not something outside of His control. It is His intention. This second and greater Exodus is lead by a second, and greater one than Moses. It frees God’s people from a greater slavery; a slavery to sin and death! In this Exodus we are led into a greater promised land, not flowing with milk and honey, but flowing with living waters; eternal life in a a new heaven and a new earth.
So now we return to that bitter pill, a perfect set-up for the upcoming Ash Wednesday and the Lenten season. That hard saying of Jesus: “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. 24 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.”
We are called to take up our cross daily and follow Him; to lose our life. But we have! The Apostle Paul writes
3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
In our baptisms a daily death does occur. Our old Adam is daily drowned, “to die with all sins and evil desires that a new man should daily emerge to arise and live before God in righteousness and purity forever.” With this death comes a promise: We will rise again, just like He did! This new and greater exodus has freed us!
5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6 We know that our old self[a] was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved (not to Egypt, but) to sin.
And this is a reality only because Jesus really did take up His cross. He lost His life to save, not His own life, but yours! And mine! We take up our crosses daily, remembering our baptisms in which our old sinful flesh was put to death. An even though that old Adam keeps trying to tread water, screaming out that HE wants the attention and the glory. We drown him daily, knowing that the struggle will one day be over; that Christ had won us forgiveness and that a greater Promised Land awaits.