What Happens on the Mountaintop, Stays on the Mountaintop, a sermon based on Luke 9: 28-42, preached on March 2, 2025

Last Monday, Ken Miner invited me to attend a special lunch at NorthStar Church in Kennesaw. Leaders in the community were invited to glean faithful leadership skills from Scripture. Our focus was Joseph, whom we read about last Sunday in the book of Genesis. Joseph was a leader in Pharoah’s Egypt. What did he do, and how did he conduct himself? What lessons might we learn from his example as we work and lead in this community? There are seven days in a week, but how often do we leave faithfulness to Sunday? What about Monday? That’s a challenge. It’s a challenge to lean on your faith in a world where people are ashamed to ask for help. That’s a challenge for us. That was a challenge even for the disciples who saw Jesus up on a mountaintop. In our Gospel lesson for this morning, notice with me that the miracle of the mountaintop doesn’t last. It doesn’t last for the disciples as they make their way back down into the valley. Today, we celebrate what happened up on the mountaintop. Today is one of those high holy days of the year that no one pays too much attention to. You might say that Transfiguration Sunday is the Arbor Day of the Church year. It’s an official holiday, but no gifts are exchanged. No one plans a big family meal to celebrate the Transfiguration. Does anyone even know what it is? The best example from popular culture is probably in Star Wars. Either Star Wars or Harry Potter. In both, the hero faces death. In Star Wars, our hero, Luke Skywalker, goes to fight his great enemy, Darth Vadar. Likewise, in Harry Potter, our hero, Harry, the boy wizard, goes to face the evil Voldemort, but before either goes to face his foe and his probable death, he’s suddenly joined by figures from beyond the grave. In Star Wars, it’s Luke’s greatest teachers, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda. In Harry Potter, it’s Harry’s parents and the two most important figures from his days at Hogwarts, Professor Remus Lupin and his godfather, Sirius Black. My point is not to reveal to you how many times I’ve watched these two movies, but to assure you that you know more about the Transfiguration than you think you do. You just didn’t know that Star Wars and Harry Potter got the idea for those scenes from the Bible. As Jesus fully recognizes that He’s going to the cross to die in order to defeat the greatest enemy, death itself, He is encouraged up on that mountain by the two great heroes of our Old Testament: Moses and Elijah. The disciples recognized them, and I remember that once, in a Bible study, someone asked, “How did the disciples know that it was Moses and Elijah?” They had never seen a picture of them. No one knew what they looked like. Someone else in the Bible study said, “Maybe they had on nametags.” They didn’t have on nametags. The disciples just knew, and how they knew isn’t as important as considering why they were there. Why did Moses and Elijah appear to Jesus? It was to encourage Him as he prepares to face the cross. You can’t overcome life’s greatest challenges all on your own. That was true for Jesus, and that is true for you and me, and yet, the next day, they had come down from the mountain, and a great crowd met Jesus. Just then, a man from the crowd shouted: “Teacher, I beg you to look at my son; he is my only child. Suddenly a spirit seizes him, and all at once he shrieks. It convulses him until he foams at the mouth; it mauls him and will scarcely leave him. I begged your disciples to cast it out, but they could not.” Why not? Disciples can’t always do what the Master can do, but if the Master is with them… Bring your son here, Jesus said. While he was coming, the demon dashed the boy to the ground in convulsions. But Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit, healed the boy, and gave him back to his father. My friends, Jesus can do things that we cannot, and He is with us, not just on top of the mountain but down in the valley below, but are you trying to heal the world’s demons all on your own or will you call out for help? Now, that’s not easy. I don’t like asking for help. I don’t like people knowing that I need it. Just last Thursday, I was trying to get out of the hospital’s parking lot. I’d just been to visit a member of this church who’d had surgery, and I was trying to pay for parking at the kiosk. The machine didn’t like my debit card. A young woman asked if I needed help. She was in her 20’s. She asked me if I needed help, and I was too proud to accept it. I decided just to stay trapped in the parking garage, as though what I say from this pulpit has no bearing on how I live my life. Are we not always in need of help? Then call out for it. Ask and you shall receive, but so long as we go along this road thinking it’s all up to us and we know all the answers, we will be paving our way to Hell with our good intentions and our best-laid plans. Yet, the moment we turn to Him to confess our sins and rely on His grace; He will lift us up and take us to the Promised Land. My friends, we call him the Savior because we need saving. Watch the news if you don’t think we’re broken. Yet after watching, call on Him for help and trust Him to cast out demons and make us whole. Amen.