One of my favorite comic strip characters is Ziggy. Ziggy is a likeable guy who is constantly finding himself in situations that prove Murphy’s Law: If anything can go wrong, it will. We’ve all been there at one time or another, maybe even this week. We find ourselves having to deal with life’s complications and challenges, and we wonder if we’re up to the challenge. In one comic strip that I’ll never forget, Ziggy makes the comment, “I saw the light at the end of the tunnel, and it turned out to be an oncoming train.”
Life is like that sometimes, bowling us over just about the time we think we’ve got it all figured out, presenting a new problem right after we solve the old one. We all say at times, “I’d like to see a light at the end of the tunnel.” In the story of the Transfiguration of Jesus, we are taught a different motto, a different way to look at things. We learn the lesson of the tunnel at the end of the light.
Things had been going well in recent days for Jesus and his followers, and his disciples must have been thrilled to be a part of the Jesus movement. People were coming from all over Palestine to hear Jesus teach, to see for themselves that he could work miracles, or to bring a loved one along hoping they might receive his healing touch. This swell of popularity must have been like a winning political campaign, with the aids all riding the waves of support and admiration. Just days before the Transfiguration, the disciples had watched Jesus feed a crowd of over five thousand people with just five loaves of bread and two small fish. If that wasn’t a miraculous crowd-pleaser, they didn’t know what was. With everyone hoping to get close to Jesus, they had the honor of being insiders.
When Jesus was finally able to make time to be along with his twelve disciples, he could tell that they were enthused and excited about what had been going on. But Jesus knew that his time was running out, and that the disciples had not yet begun to understand who he really was or what he came to do. They saw only what the crowds saw – that he was a brilliant teacher, powerful healer, and worker of miracles. It was time to start preparing them for the days ahead and help them see why things were going to end the way they were. Jesus began the conversation by asking them, “Who do you think I am?” The question hung there for a moment, and then Peter spoke up: “You are the Christ.”
Instead of congratulating Peter on figuring that out, or describing a glorious revolution that was going to soon begin, or calling down an army of angels to drive away the Romans, Jesus said something that must have felt like a slap in the face: “The Son of Man must suffer many things, and he must be killed. If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it.”
I imagine that you could have cut the silence with a knife. Those twelve men must have been in absolute shock, stunned by words they would never have expected to hear. And they were probably still in shock a week later, when Jesus took Peter, James, and John with him up onto a mountain to pray. The recent sleepless nights spent in idle speculation caught up with them, and the three disciples soon dropped off to sleep. Jesus was alone, but not for long. Because all of a sudden he found himself bathed in the light of heaven and face to face with Moses and Elijah. These three spent some time talking about what was ahead for Jesus. Moses and Elijah knew well the experience of suffering and death, and they could give Jesus courage to endure it.
About that time, the three disciples woke up. They saw Jesus in glory, and recognized Moses and Elijah with him. Can you imagine what must have been going through their minds? And how did they know that it was Moses and Elijah? I somehow doubt that they wore nametags that said, “Hello, my name is …” Were they having a shared dream? Was it a vision? Was it a hallucination brought on by high altitude or fatigue? Whatever it was, Peter liked it and proposed that they set up tents and stay there forever.
Then came the voice from heaven, booming like an earthquake: “This is my Son – listen to him!” In the midst of that bright light and heavenly wonder, the word of God was simple for them: Listen to him. But what was it that Jesus had said that they were supposed to listen to? The disciples had slept through Jesus’s conversation with Moses and Elijah. What was it that Jesus had said last? “The Son of God must suffer many things and be killed. Anyone who comes after me can expect to take up his cross and be willing to lose his life for my sake.” That was it – the tunnel at the end of the light.
Ken Gire writes, “The message Jesus has been trying to get them to hear is a crucial one: he must suffer and die, and they must brace themselves for that reality. He told them this before they climbed the mountain, but Peter refused to listen. He would tell them again after they made their descent. Then they will listen. And understand. And grieve … On that day on the mountain the disciples saw Jesus in a way they had never seen him before. Before that day, they saw themselves on a fast camel bound for glory, their minds dizzy with thoughts of greatness in the coming kingdom of Jesus. What they didn’t see was that the road to glory passed through the tunnel of suffering. Jesus asked his disciples to follow him through that tunnel.”
Jesus walked down the mountain from light into darkness, from the glory of heaven to the valley of the shadow of death, from exultation to humiliation. He could have accepted Peter’s offer and remain in that bright light forever. He could have stepped from earth to heaven that day. But instead, he went back down to where his life would end on a cross, because that was God’s plan, and because there was no other way to bring God’s light into the world’s darkness. And Jesus called his disciples to follow.
Jesus did not stay on the mountain and invite people to come up there with him to live in the light. He took the light down to where the people were. That is our mission today, the same as it was for the disciples: to leave our safe place of light and carry the light within us boldly into the tunnel.
We gather here every Sunday morning, and we come for a lot of different reasons: habit, commitment, fellowship, support, responsibilities, comfort. And I think that we also come to experience again Jesus’s light, to remind ourselves of the truth of his gospel, to receive again encouragement and strength to help us face another week outside these walls where darkness seems to be taking over. There’s no better place to be, no better time in the week than when we get together as a church to worship, pray, listen, and praise. Coming to church, though, is the easy part of Christian discipleship. The hard part is going from the light of God’s presence in this sanctuary into the world where darkness flourishes, hoping that in us someone will see and know that the light is there for them, too.
Jesus brought the light of heaven into our world. John wrote in his gospel, “In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” That was the same light that the disciples saw on the Mountain of Transfiguration. And Jesus has commissioned us as he commissioned the Twelve to let that light shine in our lives. He said, “You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead, they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men [and women], that they may see … and praise your Father in heaven.”
When poet Robert Louis Stevenson was twelve years old, his governess found him one night looking out his bedroom window. He was watching a man light the streetlamps, which in those days were lanterns. When the governess asked him what he was doing, he answered, “I’m watching a man cut holes in the darkness.” That is what we are supposed to be doing: cutting holes in the darkness so that the light shines through. That light will be noticed, and it will draw people to Christ. And the tunnel at the end of the light is Jesus’s willingness to suffer and die so that we might have salvation and eternal life. Let your light shine. Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.
