²⁸About eight days after Jesus said this, he took Peter, John and James with him and went up onto a mountain to pray. ²⁹As he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became as bright as a flash of lightning. ³⁰Two men, Moses and Elijah, ³¹appeared in glorious splendor, talking with Jesus. They spoke about his departure, which he was about to bring to fulfillment at Jerusalem. ³²Peter and his companions were very sleepy, but when they became fully awake, they saw his glory and the two men standing with him. ³³As the men were leaving Jesus, Peter said to him, “Master, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.” (He did not know what he was saying.)

³⁴While he was speaking, a cloud appeared and enveloped them, and they were afraid as they entered the cloud. ³⁵A voice came from the cloud, saying, “This is my Son, whom I have chosen; listen to him.” ³⁶When the voice had spoken, they found that Jesus was alone. The disciples kept this to themselves, and told no one at that time what they had seen. (Luke 9:28-36)

On Sunday, I mentioned I had three questions that came up in looking at this passage. I was only able to get through the first two, and so here is the third question: Why did Peter want to build three shelters?

Peter is one of the best known disciples. He is an enthusiastic guy, excited to be with Jesus. But he doesn’t understand things correctly. Namely, he is the disciple who seems most resistant to the idea of suffering. He is the one most committed to the idea that Jesus, being the Messiah, should be a military leader. He wants a Messiah who will defeat the Romans and reinstate Israel as a sovereign nation (see Luke 22:47-51). But Jesus kept contradicting this vision and Peter keeps getting upset.

Consider Matthew 16:21-28. Jesus essentially says, “I’ve come to suffer and die.” Peter responds saying, “Never, Lord!” Then Jesus rebukes Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of man.”

Understanding this about Peter we can better see why he is so excited about the glory stuff that is happening up on the mountaintop. This is the stuff he’s been waiting to see, not all that talk about suffering and dying! And you can imagine Peter’s mind going crazy as he wakes and sees the glory of Jesus and Moses and Elijah stand there:

“Wow! This is awesome! This is what I’m talking about. This is what the Messiah is supposed to do. This glory stuff is it, not all that suffering stuff.  This is heaven. Let’s freeze this moment!”

Then he sees that Moses and Elijah are leaving and he voices his thoughts: “Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Don’t go! We’ll build you houses, and stick it out up here. Let’s live here. We can start our Mountaintop Holy Club up here! This is where we belong, not down there with all those dirty losers. I’ve had enough of all those needy, sick, demon-possessed people. I’ve had enough of all that talk about suffering.”

And then Luke very appropriately says, “He did not know what he was saying.”

You see, what Peter was proposing contradicted the very thing Jesus, Moses and Elijah had been discussing. They had been talking about his “departure,” his death. Jesus’ glory is shown only after this. And so Peter misses making this connection. He doesn’t see that Jesus’ suffering is the glory of God.

One of the most important points about the event of the Transfiguration is that the Mt. Sanai God doesn’t stay up on the mountain. He comes down the mountain to us, as one of us. This is exactly what the hymn in Phil 2 is talking about. The glory of God is not so much found in the mountaintop experience as it is found in coming down from the mountain to serve the sick, the poor, the outcast, the sinner, just as Jesus came down from Heaven to empty himself.

If we are going to glory God then, we cannot pitch our tent on a mountain. We must come down from whatever mighty mountain we stand on. We have get in the trenches and serve the least in our society. Specifically, it might mean that we forgo just cashing in the privilege of our wealth and glorify God by how we share it and invest it in the Kingdom. It may mean we forgo the option of looking down at others for not being as spiritual as us, for not being on the mountaintop with us, and instead come down to serve them.

Some of us long to have these deep, spiritual moments with God. And God sometimes gives them to us. But we must not be like Peter and think that those moments of glory are what being a Christian is all about. God gives some of us those moments so that we can come down the mountain to put that experience to good us for the sake of others and the Kingdom. Let’s not get caught up in seeking the glory of the mountain at the cost of glorifying God in the trenches of life, for that’s where the real work is.