The Rev. Dr. John Tamilio III, Pastor

© 2025, Dr. Tamilio

The story of the Transfiguration is a strange one.  What’s the point?  Jesus takes his inner circle of disciples up a mountain to be physically transformed before them.  His body and clothing become dazzling white — all aglow.  Moses and Elijah appear as well.

I love what Laurence Hull Stookey (whom I have cited many times) has to say about this passage.  He writes the following: “…the glistening appearance of Jesus prefigures the resurrection.  Dazzling brightness is another form of theological shorthand.”[1]  But it isn’t just Jesus.  The Old Testament reading for today spoke of the time Moses’ face was all a-glow after having an audience with God, and we know that Elijah ascended to heaven on a chariot ablaze with glory.  So, what we see here — better yet, what Peter, James, and John see — is the human manifestation of the Law (Moses), the Prophets (Elijah), and the Gospels (Jesus) radiating the full glory of God.

I am sure that this had to be utterly surreal to Peter, James, and John.  People typically focus on the fact that Peter wants to stay and says, “’Master, it is good for us to be here; let us set up three tents, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah,’ not realizing what he was saying.”  I am interested in the end of that verse.  Why didn’t he not know what he was saying?  I get it: he wanted to stay.  What’s so difficult to understand about that?  It would be like being a child and going to Disney World and then, after say thirty minutes, your parents say, “Okay, it’s time to leave.”  What kid wouldn’t want to stay in Disney World forever?

But the disciples can’t stay, and that is the point.  It’s sort of like the announcement when it’s last call at the bar: “You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here!”

But why?  Why can’t we bask in the glory of God all day long?  Why can’t life here and now be like Heaven, or at least like the mountaintop experience these three disciples had?  Why do we have to descend into the valley?  Why can’t it all be sunshine and rainbows 24/7/365?

The easy answer is that there is work to do in the valley.  We could stay on the mountaintop (or in our sanctuary) and bask in the glow of Christ all day long, but that will not fulfill what we are called to do.  We, like these three disciples, have to descend the mountain.

I’ve descended the mountain over the last couple of days.  Actually, it’s been longer than that.  I have officiated at a large number of funerals so far this year — far more than I typically do in any two-month period.  Two days ago, I attended the funeral of my eldest cousin, Ronnie.  The day before that I heard that the girlfriend of a longtime friend of mine lost her battle with breast cancer.  Just prior to getting that news, I was on the phone for a half an hour with a childhood friend of mine who is battling pancreatic cancer.  Yesterday, as I was working on this sermon in my home office, I received a call from the Hellenic Nursing Home that someone there (who has no connection to our church) would be dying shortly and they wanted me to come and give her our version of the last rites, which I did.  Upon arriving home, there were a number of cars at our next-door neighbor’s house.  Dave, who is in his early 80s, has been battling cancer for a couple of years now.  I got out of my car and saw his eldest son, who told me that Dave had just passed away.

Death.  It’s everywhere, and I want to know why.  Not why does it appear to be happening all around me right now, but why does it have to occur at all?  Why can’t we just continue to live this life?  Who wants to die?  Furthermore, if you’ve ever contemplated the possibility that this life is all that there is, then death is even more terrifying.  It means that when you die, the lights go out.  That’s it.  No more consciousness.  No more you.  A friend of mine, who is an atheist, is terrified of dying for this very reason.  “It’s all I think about,” he often says.  As we get older, we think about death even more, because we’re getting closer to it.

We’re all going to get there.  There’s no escape.

But is it the end or is it simply the end of the beginning?  That’s what we’re hoping for.  That is our deepest wish.  But it is also one of the greatest gifts our faith offers to us.  As Millard J. Erickson writes, Jesus went to heaven “to prepare an eternal dwelling for believers (John 14:2-3).”  Erickson continues: “As God’s abode, heaven is obviously where believers will be for all eternity.”[2]

So, why do we need to live in the first place?  Good question.  I don’t know, but I’ll take a stab at it.  We were created, first and foremost, to be in relationship with God.  Life is truly a gift — the greatest gift of all.  God’s love is all the more-full because he shares it with us.  Love is something you get more of the more you give it away!  If we are going to see Heaven in all its radiating glory — just as Peter, James, and John saw Jesus transfigured before them — then maybe we need to move towards it in stages to fully appreciate it.  Maybe we all have to spend some time in the gutters, as Oscar Wilde said we all do.  If you want to truly appreciate the glory of God, then you have to see the opposite of it first.  You have to see death.  You have to look it in the face.  You have to experience the fullness of this life: the good, the bad, and the ugly.

But death is not the end.  As T.S. Eliot wrote, “In my beginning is my end.  In my end is my beginning.”[3]  But, believe it or not, there is an authority higher than Eliot!  As the Apostle Paul told the Corinthians, “But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?  If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised.  And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith” (1 Corinthians 15:12-14).

Indeed, Scripture is our authority.  It is God’s witness to the Risen Christ, who, having rose from the dead, defeated the powers of sin, evil, death, hate, and all horror.  It says no to the flesh — not what we do in the flesh, but the fact that the flesh is just the shell.  We will emerge from our earthly cocoons.  We will dance with the saints, and we will walk with the angels.  And our jaws will truly hit those streets of gold when we see Jesus just as Peter, James, and John did — all aglow in glory.

You can’t stay here.  And thank goodness, you don’t have to, because there’s something much, much better.  Amen.

[1] Laurence Hull Stook, Calendar: Christ’s Time for the Church (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1996), 136.

[2] Millard J. Erickson, Introducing Christian Doctrine, 3d ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2015), 470.

[3] T.S. Eliot, “East Coker” from Four Quartets.