February 15 - “Dazzling!”
Dazzling!
Matthew 17:1-9
15 February 2026
Rev. Mary W. Nelson
First Congregational Church of Williamstown, UCC
The Transfiguration is one of the key stories signifying Jesus’s divinity. It shows up in Matthew, Mark and Luke, and some people think that John’s gospel alludes to it as well—and whether or not you think that it does, the fact that we want it to be in all four gospels is an indication of its importance.
The story is really this brief and simple: Jesus goes up to the top of an unnamed mountain, with Peter, James, and John, and while they’re up there, his face changes, his clothes become dazzling white, and Moses and Elijah appear as well, and they’re talking with Jesus. The three disciples hear a voice from a cloud saying, “This is my son, listen to him!” As this is happening, Peter—who is kind of the perpetual fall guy who says the boneheaded thing we’re all probably thinking but is clearly wrong—Peter says “hey, Jesus, I know! We’ll build some booths up here on this mountain, for you and Moses and Elijah!” That’s when the voice from the cloud interrupts Peter and the booths are graciously forgotten. The three disciples hear the voice from the cloud and they fall down on their faces, overcome with fear. After all, mere mortals cannot look God in the face and live, right? So they hit the dirt for safety’s sake, and Jesus comes and tells them to get up. They do, and things have returned to normal up there—no white robes, no Moses and Elijah, no cloud with a voice. And Jesus starts to lead them back down the mountain, saying to them that they shouldn’t tell anyone what they’ve just experienced. We’re just all supposed to know what a big deal this moment is. And sure enough, when they come down from the mountain, the Transfiguration is not discussed again. The story of Jesus and his disciples moves on.
As a theological event, the Transfiguration is more important in Eastern Orthodox Christianity than it is in western Christian traditions, but even so, it’s an important day for us. This is only one of two episodes in the story of Jesus when a voice from the clouds, presumably God, speaks directly and audibly to a gathered crowd of people (the other one is Jesus’s baptism). And in this event, the presence of Moses and Elijah cements Jesus’s place in the canon of key religious figures. A couple of weeks ago, we read a passage in Matthew’s gospel where Jesus mentions that he will fulfill the law and the prophets—and this moment with Moses, representing the law, and Elijah, the greatest of the prophets, is seen by some as the symbolic fulfillment of the law and the prophets. Moses and Elijah are, presumably, saying something like “Great job, bud, you’ve got this from here,” and fully passing the torch to Jesus. But that’s just speculation.
This is the last Sunday in the liturgical calendar before Lent begins on Ash Wednesday. And so what we’re really doing here today is juxtaposing an experience of Jesus’s divinity and an encounter with our own humanity. The word “Transfiguration” means transformation, but more literally it means to cross the face—that is, Jesus’s face was changed, his appearance was changed. This was the moment that his followers came to know that he was not just a teacher, not just a human. And Peter’s very human instinct was to build a monument to that discovery. The “booths” he suggests would be a place of worship, but mostly they would be something of permanence, to capture the fleeting moment. Peter’s instinct is to DO something. Do something that will last.
And Peter is all of us, isn’t he? When we encounter the holy, or we have an idea we think is inspired, we have this urge to make it permanent, to hang on to the feeling, the memory, the sensation of awe and excitement—by translating our experience into something we can touch, hold, put in our pocket, keep on a shelf, walk past and remember. Something tangible. And maybe we do build a building to mark the spot. A triumphal arch. A column. Maybe we do stack some rocks into a cairn, or put together a little pyramid of sticks or a pile of dirt.
But just at the moment Peter expresses this desire out loud, “Lord, let us make three booths, one for you, one for Moses, one for Elijah” – just as the words come out of his mouth, the voice from the cloud booms out an altogether different idea: “This is my son, the beloved: listen to him!”
We know now that the Transfiguration was the middle of Jesus’s ministry, but when it was unfolding in real time, of course the disciples had no idea what was still to come. Peter was dazzled by the change in Jesus himself, the bright white clothes, the historic figures who just appeared. He was, the text says, overwhelmed with fear in one moment, and probably quite stunned and confused in the next, as all that dazzling chaos was just …gone. It makes sense that Peter would think this moment was some kind of pinnacle of Jesus’s ministry. A moment of divine revelation that direct and world-changing hadn’t been experienced in hundreds of years, and he was there for it! He has to get the word out! He has to do something to mark this event!
Sometimes this very human impulse we have to DO SOMETHING, to make this moment permanent, to transform the numinous into the tangible—sometimes that instinct makes us miss the point of the holy thing that’s happening. We want it to last forever, and we lose the holiness of the fleeting moment. Don’t DO ANYTHING, just listen. Don’t try to manage, don’t try to control, don’t try to capture what God is doing. Just listen. Just witness the moment. Just be grateful you’re there to witness it. Stop trying to fix, stop trying to leverage, stop trying to produce. JUST LISTEN.
Peter, this moment isn’t about you and what you want. It’s about God, and what God wants. What you are doing is not as important as what God is doing. Your instinct to do something is going to get in the way of God’s doing something, so stop it. JUST LISTEN.
And sure enough, the moment passes, the light in Jesus’s face fades, his clothes go back to being their normal dusty whatever-color, Moses and Elijah are nowhere to be seen, and Jesus begins leading the Three back down the mountain. He makes them promise NOT to tell anyone. Don’t make this a permanent thing. Don’t hang on to it. Don’t try to convince anyone else that it was real, don’t try force your human impulses onto a divine revelation.
Peter, this moment wasn’t about you. Shut up! JUST LISTEN. Because what happened up on that mountain, yes, was a holy moment of God’s inbreaking into the world—the exact thing that the people have been praying for for a thousand years—but it’s part of a bigger picture that God is shaping, a bigger action that God is taking. And if you give in to your human instinct to make this one moment permanent and focus on it, you’ll miss the bigger thing God is doing in our midst. Your excitement and awe are a distraction: there is strategy here, Peter, and your impulse is serving your whim, not serving God’s strategy.
There is a reason we plunge so deeply every year off the top of the Transfiguration mountain into the depths of Lenten humility: we need to be reminded to listen to God’s voice, to check our impulse to center ourselves and our own experiences and reactions. Lent is a time to listen to what God is doing, and figure out how we might be a part of it more effectively. It’s a time to recognize that our will is usually separate from God’s will, and make sure we’re really trying to follow God’s will. It’s a time to make sure that we are not letting what dazzles us distract us… when we should be paying attention.
Lent is also a time to make sure that we’re listening to the right voices. Not listening to the voice inside me that says, “I want to Do the Thing. I want the attention, I want the points, I want the satisfaction, I want to be right.” When we take the time to listen, to stop talking and listen, stop doing and listen, we hear the voices of the people God is calling us to serve. The people God is calling us to serve! We hear them telling us what they need, instead of us doing for them what we think they need. We hear them telling us their stories, instead of the narratives made up for us by someone else. We hear them telling us their aspirations, instead of us crafting our own assumptions.
When we listen to their voices, instead of the voices we substitute paternalistically for them, we hear how God is calling us to serve. When we stop doing, and start listening, we become more like the Jesus we meet at the end of Lent: “Not my will, but yours be done, O Lord.”
So this is my invitation to you for Lent: The word “fear” in this passage can also be translated as “awe” (they’re actually the same word in Greek) – let yourself be overcome with awe, humble yourself face down in the dirt, forget your ideas for what you should do, and instead: just listen. Ask more questions than you answer. Listen for God’s voice, and make sure it is louder in your ear than your own voice is. Listen for how you can serve, not for how you can do. And wait for Jesus to guide you down the mountain and back into your ministry with a new sense of priorities–not your will, but God’s be done. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
