The word “rendezvous” originally came from French and means “present yourselves” – let’s meet. When men like David Thompson, the first European to erect a building in the Spokane area, walked and floated down rivers into this country, he came on business – it wasn’t a vacation. He sent his men out in every direction to look for more lakes and rivers – furs, food and natives. And he would tell them that in six months or a year they were to “rendezvous” at Spokane House, or at Kootenay House or at other posts which they had established. I can just imagine the excitement of those mountain men, trappers and traders, as the day of rendezvous approached. For some of them, they hadn’t seen a white man or spoken French or English in as long as a year.
On the occasion of our scripture, it was the Commander himself, who was out on a mission. I can’t tell you if it was God the Father, or His “beloved” Son, but someone arranged this mountain-top meeting – this “rendezvous.” What was the state of Jesus’ heart as He first knelt in prayer, knowing what was going to happen? Christ was the Saviour, the Creator, the Commander, and even a sort of friend to Moses and Elijah. How much time had they spent together in glory before the incarnation? What exactly will be the character of OUR Heavenly fellowship when we join Elijah, David, Daniel and the others at the foot of our mutual Saviour? And of course, what sort of emotions, if that is the proper word, will fill the heart of Christ at our “rendezvous” in the air and then for eternity in Glory?
I can only guess, but this was probably the most memorable event between Jesus’ baptism and His crucifixion. Imagine how refreshing it was to once again enjoy the glory that He had with the Father before the world began. You know it is to take a shower after a week or two of camping; maybe this was just as refreshing. This was something which had often been on His mind, and He prayed about it in John 17. I don’t know how Moses and Elijah felt when they were first told that they were returning to earth. Probably, initially, they weren’t too excited about it. But when they learned that they were going to spend a few moments with their Saviour, I’m sure that they were thrilled. And I would guess that the focus of their excitement was on being with the Lord once again. It wasn’t about the novelty of getting out of Heaven for a while – it wasn’t a vacation. It wasn’t about the honor of Lord’s choice of them over all the other residents of Paradise. For them it was all about being with the Messiah.. It had been several earth-years since they had been together. Being with our Saviour is what Heaven is all about.
But for the other THREE disciples – Peter, James and John – the speaker, the worker and the thinker – the transfiguration of the Lord was quite different. They improperly elevated that event over just about everything else. In the transfiguration they saw Christ in His glory, coming into His Millennial Kingdom – or so they thought. Those men had a glimpse of the past and the future, with a new revelation of the Lord Himself. It was an once in a lifetime event; an once in human history event. But meals built on effervescent dainties eventually make the diners sick. God leads His dear children along, not with miracles, visions and special revelations, but with one step after another – usually along very common paths. We are far better off focusing on the Bible and the person of Christ Jesus than seeking transfigurations. But, Peter, James and John did see miracles and the added blessing of the transfiguration of the Lord Jesus.
Most of you know how I don’t particularly like allegorizing the scriptures. But we have looked at this scripture from a couple of different, literal points of view, so there should be no problem spiritualizing it for the sake of a lesson. I’d like you to think about what the disciples saw when they raised their heads. And I’d also like you to consider what they might have seen, but didn’t.
What would it have meant if – when they looked up – Jesus, Elijah and Moses were gone?
What if they covered their faces in fear for a few minutes, hearing the somewhat angry voice of the Father, but when they slowly peeked out between their fingers, the cloud was gone – along with those three most eminent people? Would they have been relieved to find that they wouldn’t be killed? If they found themselves alone, would they have panicked? Would they have begun running around looking and calling? After a few minutes searching, what sort of emotions might have run through their hearts? Loss? Acute, painful emptiness? Might Peter have blamed himself for the disappearance of Jesus and the others?
Think about this: Has there ever been a time in your life, when you felt really, really homesick? Maybe it was while you were away at college, or at your first job out of town. I can remember both of those situations. I also remember what I think was the first night that I spent at a friend’s house who was not a relative. I was just a little guy, half a block up Frederick street at Mark and David Wormington’s house. Whether or not it was my very first sleepover, I got a bad case of infantile homesickness that night. I grabbed my clothes, and I walked home in the dark. Some of us; many of us know what it is to be homesick. Do you suppose that humanly speaking, the Lord Jesus could have been homesick? The cloud which caught away Moses and Elijah could have taken the Saviour back home as well.
What would that have meant to the three disciples, to us and to the world? Peter, James and John, would have ceased to be disciples, because they wouldn’t have had a teacher. And down at the foot of the mountain the rest of the disciples were in a little skirmish with unbelief. That would have been a battle they would have lost. If Christ had ascended into Heaven at that moment, there may not have been a ministry of the Holy Spirit. But more importantly, there would have been no perfect sacrifice for sin. The Jews would have still had their Passover and the Atonement. But those of us who are Gentiles would have had nothing at all. We would continued to have been “without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world.” We would have been like a little boy with his baseball glove, standing in front of Safeco Field, but without the admission price to get in.
Perhaps we know just what that feeling might have been like. Have you ever been thrilled by a sermon, but on your way home, you got into a quarrel with someone? Think about that Ethiopian man – what if Philip hadn’t intercepted him to tell him about Christ? There he was ripe for the gospel, but if the evangelist hadn’t been sent by God, he would have returned home still hopelessly lost. There are still, a large number of Americans who have heard a summary of the Gospel without ever having been redeemed. Some may be able to describe certain Bible stories, and even talk about the death of Christ. They may be able to quote Psalm 23 or the Lord Jesus’ example prayer, but they have not met the Great Shepherd. Just as they have heard of Churchill, Aristotle and Moses, Jesus is just an historical figure to them. For most of the people of this country, Jesus Christ is not much more than George Washington or Thomas Jefferson. They may attend the local “high place” watching a religious service, but when they go home, it is without Christ Jesus.
Praise God, that is not the way that the transfiguration ended – with Christ gone and the disciples empty.
But what would it have meant if when the three heads were raised, Jesus was gone and Moses was there?
Certainly we don’t have to use our imaginations very much, because this is exactly what millions see. They have nothing but Moses, and the law, and their duty, and an impossible road towards heaven. There are basically two ways to look at the Old Testament law and Moses its scribe. All those laws are either the means to peace with God – or proof that peace can never exist. And even though most of the world thinks that first thought, the second is the truth. The law was designed by God to make us cry “uncle.” To paraphrase the words of Job – “I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear from all the liberal preachers and religionists: but now mine eye seeth thee (through the revelation of the Law.) Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” And as Paul said, “But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” There are millions of people who see MOSES as their Saviour. They ride to church, climb into their unauthorized, religious ”high place.” They bow their heads when they are told to do so; they kneel at the appropriate place,but when they look up again, all they see is Moses. And sadly, they don’t know what they are missing. They compare themselves with what they think that the law says, and they approve of themselves. But actually, they don’t really look at the Law at all. Or maybe I should say that they look at the law through themselves, rather than looking at themselves through the unadulterated law of God. And as a result, they conclude that all is well – but it isn’t. They fail to see that the law demands an Atonement offering, And they fail to see that the Law was never given to the descendants of Japheth, Ishmael and Esau.
The problem with the New Testament Galatians, was that they saw both Jesus and Moses. They knew without a doubt that Abraham was a saint of God, because of his faith in God’s promises. But then they thought that since the Law came after Abraham, that it was essential to salvation as well. The whole purpose of the Book of Galatians was to strip away that heresy. If you are looking for salvation, when your lift up your eyes you must see Jesus only, or be forever condemned to the Lake of Fire.
But what if Peter, James and John only saw Elijah when they looked up?
Let me allegorize Elijah to become a picture of God’s ambassadors, His servants, His messengers. (I wonder if the transfiguration would have been much different if it had been John the Baptist instead of Elijah there that day.) There are a lot of Elijah’s with captivating personalities and preaching styles sweeping people off their feet. There are religious professionals who are as dynamic, as charismatic, and as handsome as the latest Hollywood star. There are hundreds of churches which are thriving through the ministry of people such as that. When Elijah says “jump,” in unison the whole congregation jumps, shaking the foundations of that church and sending shudders through the balconies. When Elijah tells people to give ‘til it hurts,” so that they can build a bigger religious theater, they give. When Elijah tells everyone to invite their city to hear him preach, they pack their building like sardines. But when the Elijah is carried away in his black shrouded chariot, the church crumbles.
Perhaps using Elijah in this way is not a good illustration, because he was not the popular preacher. Despite his eccentricities, he was not trying to draw attention to himself. He magnified the Lord, and the reason that he didn’t have a huge following, was because he exposed the sinful follies of the crowds. He didn’t duplicate the worship services of idols and cover them with the facade of Jehovah. He didn’t imitate the entertainment of the world to attract the crowds, or to make them feel good. He simply tried to tell and retell the message of God.
And that is what all of God’s Elijahs are supposed to do. Nevertheless, woe to the person who follows Elijah rather than the Saviour whom he preaches. Paul rebuked most of modern Christendom when he wrote – “Ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men? For while one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos; are ye not carnal? Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man? I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase. So then neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase.”
What would it have meant to us, if after the transfiguration all three of the visitors remained?
At first glance, that might have been the best conclusion possible, but not so. Why do we wish to see Moses, when all of the ceremonies of the Law have been fulfilled in Jesus. The Atonement, the Passover, the Sabbath, the Tabernacle and the Temple are all pieces of legalism. Why would we want to keep the prophet, when the prophecies are either fulfilled or soon to be fulfilled?
It is better to see Moses and Elijah IN Christ that WITH Christ Jesus. In glory one of these days, we will see all the great heros of the Old Testament. Joshua will be there, along with Elisha, Isaiah and Daniel. And we will all bow as equals before the glorified Lord Jesus. Perhaps we will shake hands, or even hug some of the saints, but we’ll kiss the feet of Christ. The most eloquent preachers of the past, the golden mouth orators who served the Lord in days gone by, will be as speechless as the rest of us, when we see Christ high and lifted up.
As we grow taller some things appear smaller. And as we grow in grace, most earthly things become only as big as they were meant to be. But no matter how tall we are in the Lord, Christ Jesus will be head and shoulders above us.
What the three disciples saw when they finally looked up, was Jesus only.
Christ is all that we need for deliverance from sin. When someone washes the dishes, they might put them under the faucet, but water is not enough. And yet if all that they did was just squirt some of liquid dish soap on them, that might get the dish clean, but it would not be clean enough to eat from, because it would still be covered in soap. It’s a combination of water, soap and a little elbow grease that gets the plate clean. But sin is not like a plate with the remnants of egg on it. There is no cleanser sufficient to cut the filth of sin except the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. And the fact is, the more elbow grease we apply to our sins, the more filthy our soul becomes. And the water of baptism doesn’t help either, because that river is just as polluted as the sin itself. As we look up, we must see Jesus. “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.”
As the four men descended from the mountain, they found their companions embroiled in the midst of a confrontation over a young demon-possessed boy – one for whom the disciples had no help. After a few moments of rebuking and teaching, the Lord Jesus cured the child. We have no record that Moses ever did that sort of thing, and Elijah could do it only with borrowed power. But in Christ is the unlimited authority and power of the Creator. “All dunamis and exousia are given unto Him in Heaven and in earth.”
And something more – seeing Jesus only is all that we need for comfort. What was the first reaction of the disciples when the cloud overshadowed them and the voice of God spoke from heaven? Those were awe inspiring circumstances; but was a fearful situation. Those three men remained afraid until they saw the Lord Jesus only. “Let not your heart be trouble, ye believe in God, believe also in me.” Neither Moses nor Elijah ever made such a statement; neither of them could make such a statement. Jesus said, “These things have I spoken unto you that in me ye might have peace.” “The peace of Christ passeth all understanding.” Moses can make our ears tremble, and Elijah can make us shake in our boots, but Jesus actually uplifts the Child of God.
As you put yourselves into John’s or James’ sandals what do you see of the transfiguration? The vast majority of the world either see nothing – or would prefer to see nothing at all. Most of the world would rather not even open their eyes. But if you are not looking unto Jesus, then you have no saving faith and certainly no happy finish to your eternal life. Take your eyes off Moses and the Law – let them do their work by pointing you to the Christ Jesus. And take your eyes of Elijah, the prophets, and the rest of God’s ministers, until you have studied in depth the fulfilment that was made at the cross. I repeat the words of the pre-incarnate Lord Jesus, “Look unto ME and be ye SAVED all the earth. For I am God and there is none else.”