"Get up. Don’t be afraid."
“Why are the nations in an uproar?” the psalmist asks. “Why are the nations in an uproar? Why do the peoples mutter empty threats? Why do the kings of the earth rise up in revolt, and the princes plot together?”
Today’s psalm is thousands of years old. And it could have been written this morning.
The book of Ecclesiastes was right, I suppose. There’s nothing new under the sun.
The psalm we read this morning doesn’t pretend that the troubles of the world aren’t real, or that they won’t affect us. But it does make a claim: The uproar won’t get the last word.
Hold on to that promise as we go up the mountain with Jesus, Peter, James, and John. Remember that they knew the psalmist’s promise too.
Three men go with Jesus up a high mountain. Far from the crowds. Far from the demands of the work they’d already begun. Far from the threats, fears, and hopes that surrounded them on all sides.
And on that mountain, something happens. Jesus changes before their eyes. His face begins to shine like the sun. His clothes become dazzling white. And two figures appear beside him: Moses and Elijah. The giver of the law and the greatest of the prophets. It’s almost as if all the promises of scripture gathered into one place.
And remember: Peter, James, and John were fishermen. Ordinary people who had left their nets to follow a wandering preacher. They knew Jesus was important. Peter had already declared him to be “the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” They had some idea of who Jesus was and what he’d come to do, but they didn’t fully understand.
But now, on a mountainside, the veil between heaven and earth becomes thin, and they’re dazzled by light and vision and a new kind of clarity.
Peter (being Peter) speaks before he thinks. He wants to build three tents. One for Jesus, one for Moses, and one for Elijah. I don’t know what I’d do if I saw the face of Christ blazing like the sun, but I don’t know that my first thought would be a new construction project. But I can understand wanting to hold on to that moment, to preserve it before it fades.
While Peter’s still talking, a bright cloud overshadows them. And from that cloud comes a voice: “This is my Son, the Beloved, with him I am well pleased. Listen to him.”
And the disciples fall on their faces, terrified. And who can blame them?
There’s so much drama in this scene. But it’s what happens next that I want to focus on.
Jesus walks over. Touches them. And says: “Get up. Don’t be afraid.”
And when they look up, Moses is gone. Elijah is gone. The blinding light has faded. All they see is Jesus, looking like himself again. And the road back down the mountain.
Get up. Don’t be afraid.
What did the disciples carry with them down the mountain? They hadn’t learned some new strategy for dealing with all the challenges they faced. They carried something simpler. A new understanding. And perhaps a new certainty. They had seen who Jesus was. And they couldn’t unsee it. The disciples went back down to a world still in uproar, but with new strength to meet the challenges they faced.
It’s one thing to understand an intellectual proposition about God. It’s something else to know it in your heart. Once you’ve seen God’s presence – even if your experience isn’t as dazzling as that of Peter, James, and John – it becomes a light you carry within you. It might happen in worship, in prayer, in the face of another person, on a city street, or on a mountainside. But however it happens, it changes you.
I’m tired right now. Many of you have told me that you’re tired too. Not the kind of tired that’s fixed by a vacation. The kind of tired that comes from the relentless news of nations in an uproar—news we can’t stop reading. The kind of tired that comes from the worry we carry for people we love. It’s the feeling that the world is asking more of us than we have to give.
In such a time as this, doesn’t it sound nice to escape to a mountaintop? If God would just show up clearly, wouldn’t most of us happily build a tent and stay forever?
But Peter, James, and John didn’t get to stay on the mountaintop. And neither do we.
Jesus touches us and says what he said to them: Get up. Don’t be afraid.
We’re not sent back into the uproar and the struggle empty-handed. We carry the light we’ve seen. And we are sent. Sent to places where frightened people yearn to hear those words themselves: Get up. Don’t be afraid.
This week, we enter into the season of Lent. We’ll mark our foreheads with ashes and remember that we are dust. But we’re dust that has seen the face of Christ shining like the sun. We’re dust that has heard a voice from heaven. We’re dust to whom Jesus’s words still ring out: Get up. Don’t be afraid.
The nations will rage. They always have. But we’ve seen God’s light. And it isn’t ours to keep safe on a mountaintop. It’s ours to carry into the world God loves and refuses to abandon.
And so get up. And don’t be afraid.