Paul Walker, “Jesus Was Found Alone”

When singer Dua Lipa was on The Stephen Colbert Show not long ago, she turned the tables and interviewed Colbert. You may know that Colbert grew up as a catholic and returned to his faith as an adult. He recalls being handed a little green pocket bible in Chicago one frigid night. He cracked open the pages and read the Sermon on the Mount. “I stood on the street corner in the cold and read the sermon,” he said. “And my life has never been the same.”

     Colbert is public about his faith, so Lipa asked him which rules over the other, his faith or his comedy? He said, "I think ultimately, being mortal, the faith will win out in the end. I certainly hope when I get to heaven, Jesus has a sense of humor.”  

     Speaking of, here’s a little bit church humor to get us going. I found a $20 bill in the parking lot, and thought to myself, “what would Jesus do?”  So, I turned it into wine!

     Jesus clearly does have a sense of humor, because the comic nature of the gospel is obvious. First will be last? Fools for Christ? All our serious spiritual striving amounts to absolutely nothing? And a guy like me standing up here preaching to people like you? I mean, come on!

     Colbert says faith will win out in the end. Jesus will win in the end. This is always true and it feels especially important right now, with all the tumult in the world. We’ve gone from an Afghani crisis to a Ukrainian crisis. We are almost at the 2-year mark of the pandemic. Most people are weary and in need of real hope. We need to know that Jesus will win out in the end.

     Well, that is exactly what we see in today’s gospel. Jesus takes his 3 besties up a mountain. He is transfigured – His clothes become dazzling white. His true nature as the Son of God radiates out of Him. All the sudden, Moses and Elijah show up, talking, as the text says, about Jesus’ “departure” - i.e.  the cross. 

     Their business apparently accomplished, Moses and Elijah start to leave. What happens next? The glorious scene springs Peter into action. And maybe he wants a word with Moses and Elijah before they vamoose. He barges in and exclaims, "Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah". 

     Peter is making the mistake that is easy to make when it comes to faith. And you can’t really blame him. It’s not every day that a fellow sees Jesus in glory, much less Moses and Elijah, both long dead, show up on a mountain. By offering to set up camp all together on the mountain, Peter is in effect saying that we need a little bit of the Law (Moses), a little bit of Spirituality (Elijah) and a little bit of, well, whatever Jesus has to offer. In Peter’s mind, that is still unclear.

     How does all this translate to today? On that mountain, Moses represents God’s Law. Knowing what is right, knowing what is best, and then doing it. Well, when things feel out of control, most of us turn back to the Law to try to right the ship. We feel we need to “lay down the law” with misbehaving children. Or use threat and bluster. Every time I turn to the Law, it is in response to a need to gain control over myself or others. And you may make some headway in the short run, but in the end it always fails. As we often say, if the Law would have worked, it would have worked a long time ago. In fact, it would have worked the moment that Moses came down another mountain with the Law, his face also shining.

     What about Elijah? He represents the prophets – what I’m calling “spirituality”. Prophets were people who had direct words from God. Elijah performed miracles. He represented a God of power. A God who could subdue the enemy. A God who answered prayer in spectacular ways. You might say, the God of the mountain top experience.

     I love a mountain top experience! Evidently, so did Peter. That’s why he wanted to put down roots there – build a little compound for the Moses, Elijah, and Jesus. But we all know that mountain top experiences don’t last. They come and go, and once again you find yourself back in the valley. Life is not a mountain top experience.

     That’s why none other than God Himself joins the conversation. In response to Peter’s suggestion, a “voice from the cloud came a voice that said, "This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!" And then we have what I believe to be the key line in this account. “When the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone.” 

     Jesus was found alone. The Law and the Prophets have been fulfilled in Him. The reformers used the phrase “solus Christus” – Christ alone. That means all our hope, trust, and faith is in His atoning work on the cross for our sake. Not in the Law. Not in heady spirituality. But in Christ alone, who would descend the mountain to make His departure alone, to be crucified alone.  Christ is all we need. When the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone.

     I’ll close with a moving account of a man confessing Christ alone. This man knew the strife and pain and weariness of the world in ways few of us can imagine. I’m talking about Frederic Douglas. Born into slavery, and supported and appointed by God to become the great orator of liberation. These are his own words.

     “I was not more than thirteen years old, when in my loneliness and destitution I longed for someone to whom I could go, as to a father and protector. The preaching of a white Methodist minister, named Hanson, was the means of causing me to feel that in God I had such a friend. He thought that all men, great and small, bond and free, were sinners in the sight of God: that they were by nature rebels against His government; and that they must repent of their sins, and be reconciled to God through Christ. I cannot say that I had a very distinct notion of what was required of me, but one thing I did know well: I was wretched and had no means of making myself otherwise.

    “I consulted a good old colored man named Charles Lawson, and in tones of holy affection he told me to pray, and to "cast all my care upon God." This I sought to do; and though for weeks I was a poor, broken-hearted mourner, traveling through doubts and fears, I finally found my burden lightened, and my heart relieved. I loved all mankind, slaveholders not excepted, though I abhorred slavery more than ever. I saw the world in a new light.”

     In Christ the new light of grace has dawned. And Jesus will win in the end.

     Amen.