Deo Gloria
February 15, 2026
Transfiguration Sunday
Sermon
Pastor Martin Bentz
Text: Matthew 17:1-9
Theme: Jesus Reveals All!
- About himself
- About his connections
- About his mission
Britney Spears did it. Barbra Streisand did it. Nancy Reagan did it. So did President Obama. Each has published a book in which they reportedly “told all” to the world. They bared their souls, so to speak, and let us into their private lives. They told us about their childhood and about their years in grade school and high school. They told us about significant events that took place during those early years, events that had a lasting impact on them and helped shape their lives. They shared their successes and their failures, their hopes for the future and their disappointments of the past. Sometimes they even revealed closely guarded, family secrets, to the embarrassment of some of their other family members. Not surprisingly, books like that are often quite popular, especially when the person featured in the book is some famous celebrity.
This morning in the Book of Books, we find Jesus doing something similar with three of his disciples. No, we don’t find him writing a book. That is something he left for his disciples to do later on. We do see him, however, opening himself up for them. Jesus allows them to see things few people have ever seen. He allows them to sit in on conversations few people have ever heard. For the benefit of his disciples then and for the benefit of his disciples now Jesus reveals all. He reveals all about himself, about his connections and about his mission.
By this point in their lives I’m sure the disciples felt they knew Jesus pretty well. They had spent about two and a half years with him. And during that time they had witnessed some pretty incredible sights. They had seen Jesus calm a storm simply by standing up in a boat and saying, “Shhh! Be quiet,” which prompted them to ask, “What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the waves obey him!”(Mt 8:27) They had seen Jesus heal people who were blind and crippled from birth. They had seen him bring the daughter of Jairus back to life. All of which had led them to the conclusion that Jesus was no ordinary man, that Jesus was nothing less than the Son of God and promised Messiah. Peter was speaking for all the disciples when in the previous chapter he said to Jesus, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God”(16:16). Yes, they had seen some pretty incredible miracles during the time they had spent with Jesus. And yet somehow I don’t think they were quite prepared for what they witnessed on that mountain.
As they followed Jesus up the mountain, Peter, James and John saw something few people have ever seen. They saw the glory of God–and it was coming from Jesus. “His face shone like the sun,” Matthew tells us, “and his clothes became as white as the light”(v. 2). What the disciples saw on that mountain is what we will see one day in heaven. They saw Jesus in all his glory as the Son of God. Normally, Jesus kept his glory concealed under his clothes, under his skin, within the confines of his human body. Jesus deliberately chose not to display his glory openly while here in this world. Here on the mountain, however, in the presence of his three closest disciples, Jesus exposed himself. He revealed himself. He disclosed his true nature and his true identity. Here on the mountain he revealed his glory as the Son of God.
His purpose was to assure them, to assure them beyond the shadow of a doubt that he was who he claimed to be: the Son of God and Savior of the world. If they had had any doubts about it before, they didn’t anymore. Seeing Jesus in all his glory strengthened them in their conviction that he was indeed the Christ, the Son of the living God. And that was important, especially in light of what lay ahead.
You see, it wouldn’t be long before Jesus would be captured by his enemies. It wouldn’t be long before Jesus would be put on trial before the Roman governor. It wouldn’t be long before Jesus would be sentenced to die as a criminal. It wouldn’t be long before Jesus’ lifeless body would be laid to rest in a tomb. And when that time came, the disciples’ faith in Jesus would be severely challenged. They would be tempted to doubt whether Jesus actually was the Son of God. They would be tempted to question whether Jesus really was the promised Messiah. To prepare his disciples for that upcoming crisis and to give them an added measure of assurance, Jesus reveals himself to them.
Jesus’ transfiguration serves the same purpose for us. No, we may never have seen Jesus with our own eyes, but we don’t have to guess about his identity. We have the written record of those who were there. We have the testimony of eyewitnesses, eyewitnesses like Peter. And since we do, we too can be certain that Jesus is the Son of God and Savior of the world.
And yet, if that wasn’t enough, if seeing Jesus in all his glory wasn’t enough to convince them–and us–of his deity, Jesus takes it even one step further. He reveals his heavenly connections. “Just then,” Matthew tells us, “there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus”(v. 3). Moses and Elijah were perhaps the two greatest of all the Old Testament prophets. Moses, you may recall, was the one who led the Children of Israel out of Egypt. He was the one who parted the waters of the Red Sea, so the Israelites could cross over and escape from Pharaoh’s army. And he was the one who had met with God on Mt. Sinai and received from God’s own hand the 10 Commandments. As it states in the book of Deuteronomy, there was no prophet in Israel like Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face.(34:10)
Elijah too was an extraordinary prophet. Perhaps you remember his encounter with the prophets of Baal on Mt. Carmel, when he called down fire from heaven to consume his offering and fire actually came down, consuming not only his offering, but the wood and the stones and the water in the trench as well. Or perhaps you recall that Elijah is the one prophet in the Bible who never died, but was taken straight to heaven in a whirlwind.
These two outstanding Old Testament prophets met with Jesus on top of the mountain. That tells you something, doesn’t it? For one thing, it tells you something about the reality of the afterlife. Moses and Elijah had left this world hundreds of years before this–in Moses’ case, more than a thousand years. And yet, here they were, still alive and well.
But more than that, it tells you something about Jesus. Imagine if Anthony Edwards and Julius Randle both came over to your house to talk basketball. You compared notes with each other. You talked about how the season was going and how things looked for the playoffs. From that point on your friends would look at you a bit differently, wouldn’t they? They might say, “Hey, Dave must really be a wiz when it comes to basketball. He must really know his stuff. Maybe we should go and talk to him too. Maybe we can pick up a few pointers.”
That these two great prophets came to meet with Jesus is once again indicative of Jesus’ true identity. You see, like Moses and Elijah, Jesus was a prophet, a great prophet, in fact the greatest prophet of all. As the Son of God, Jesus was God’s ultimate spokesman.
But don’t take my word for it. Listen to what God himself had to say: “While he was still speaking, a bright cloud enveloped them, and a voice from the cloud said, ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him’”(v. 5). You see, Moses and Elijah were not the only people from heaven to show up that day. God the Father did as well. He appeared in the form of a bright cloud, a manner similar to the way he appeared to the Children of Israel in the Old Testament. And just as he spoke on occasion to Moses and to the Israelites, so he spoke to the disciples now. He said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” Can there be any doubt about Jesus? Can there be any question about his true identity? Not in my book. Not in this one either.
And then notice the last three words: “Listen to him!” “Listen to him,” says the Father. As I mentioned before, Jesus was a prophet, the ultimate prophet of God. Jesus could speak God’s Word like no one else. He could speak God’s Word with authority because he was the Son of God. And that’s exactly what he did while he was here in this world. He spoke the words of God. So if you want to know about God and what he is like, listen to Jesus. If you want to know what God’s will is and how he would have you live your life, listen to Jesus. If you want to know the truth, the truth about yourself, the truth about life and death, the truth about morality, listen to Jesus. If you want to know about heaven and how to get there, listen to Jesus. Listen to him!
So why don’t we then? Here we have a direct command from God the Father himself to listen to Jesus. And yet so many people don’t. So many today are too busy to listen to Jesus. Oh yes, they have time to go skiing on the weekends or snowmobiling. Yes, they have time to sleep in. They have time to party till 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning. They have time to play basketball or work out at the gym, but they don’t have time to come to God’s house and listen to Jesus.
Other people do listen to Jesus, but they don’t obey what he says. They know, for instance, what he says about divorce, but they get a divorce anyway. They know what he says about lying, but they lie anyway. They know what he says about misusing his name, but they do it anyway. It’s almost as if they see Jesus’ words as mere suggestions. If they want to, they’ll follow what he says. But if they don’t, they won’t.
You’re not one of those people, are you? You take time to listen to Jesus, don’t you? Here in church? At home in your own private or family devotions? You obey what Jesus says, right, even when what he says differs from your own ideas or feelings? If not, now’s the time to start, friends. Repent of your failure to listen and obey in the past. Ask Jesus to forgive you. And then start listening. Listen to your Savior every day, and take to heart what he tells you. If, on the other hand, you do listen to Jesus already, whatever you do don’t stop. Don’t ever stop. Listen to your Savior often. Obey him always. His words are the words of life.
Thirdly, as Jesus reveals all to his disciples on the mountain, he sheds light on his mission. We see that especially in v. 9: “As they were coming down the mountain,” Matthew tells us, “Jesus instructed them, ‘Don’t tell anyone what you have seen, until the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.’”
First of all, it should be noted that Jesus’ mission was not to remain on the mountain, as Peter suggested. Sure it would have been nice to stay there; but if he had, he never would have completed the mission he was sent to accomplish. And what was that mission? What extremely important task had the Son of God been sent to carry out? Jesus alludes to it in the very last phrase: “…until the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.” Before Jesus could be raised from the dead, he would obviously have to die, which is why he came. The Son of God came to die. That was his mission. It was a rescue mission, to rescue those who were destined to die because of their sins, people like you and people like me. The Son of God came to take our place. He came to take our sins and our punishment upon himself and to give his life in payment for them. It was a simple exchange: his life for ours. And yet, it was by no means cheap. It cost Jesus everything.
This mission of his would not, however, end in death. As Jesus himself indicates in v. 9, the Son of Man would be raised from the dead. Having made a full and complete payment for our sins, Jesus would come back to life, assuring us that our sins are indeed forgiven and that we too will one day rise from the dead. That’s the mission our Savior Jesus came to accomplish. That’s the mission we will be examining more closely during the next six weeks as we follow our Savior through his suffering, his death and his resurrection.
As we begin that journey this week, remember what the disciples witnessed on the Mount of Transfiguration. Remember what Jesus revealed to them, and to you, about himself, his connections and his mission. And then be sure to listen in next week as we open the Book of Books to yet another revealing chapter in the life of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, our Savior. Amen.