Listen to him!

"

"This is my Beloved, my Chosen One.  Listen to him!"
Those are God's instructions to the befuddled disciples on the top of Transfiguration Mountain.

Why "listen"

Why not "follow"  or "obey" or "worship" or "believe in" ?

Clearly the writer of Luke, where this particular version of the Transfiguration story is found, was trying to make a point with this instruction to listen.  What could that be?

In Luke's telling of the Jesus story, angels are prominent.  Now, in spite of what TV would have you believe, angels are not fluffly, guardian protectors.  Angels are messengers and in Luke they are always telling someone something they never imagined they would hear.  They bring God messages.

So perhaps it is right that God's message on the mountain was to "Listen" to the one, the Son of God, who was God in their midst, God at work in their world, God mending and healing the nations.  Listen to what Jesus has to say.  You should be hearing a new and strange thing that you never imagined before.

Just possibly, if you aren't hearing something strange and confusing, you aren't listening.  Sure, some of the words Jesus spoke were ancient texts from the Hebrew scriptures, texts that observant Jews would know....old words....with old meanings....old understandings.  Could God mean that the ancient words now have a new and unexpected meaning?

Then there are the old stories, like the feeding of the widow of Zarephath or the healing of Naaman the Syrian or the marriage of Boaz and Ruth the Moabite.  Jesus doesn't exactly change the story, he simply opens the meaning:  while Israel was certain that God was exclusively theirs, there has always been rich and ancient evidence that God has been at work throughout all the nations all along.

Add to this that time that Jesus took some of the ancient words and applied them to himself.  "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me to preach good news to the poor, release to the captives, to give sight to the blind and to set the oppressed free."  Isaiah first wrote those words around 600 BC and there in Nazareth Jesus claims they apply to him.

Then there were the words that spoke of his coming arrest, suffering, death and resurrection: impossible, painful, horrific words.  Those were words that had to be listened to as well.  Things were not going to go along the path that the disciples imagined; there would be suffering, there would be death.....and this too, there would be resurrection.

So, perhaps, before we can follow or obey or worship or believe in this God, we need to listen closely to what is being said.  This will help us in our daily struggle to follow Jesus and not our own rich imagination.  Too often it is our own voice (with the volume cranked up) that we mistake for God.

Listen for God, when you pray, when you are dividing up your income, when you encounter your cranky, impolite, sad, angry neighbors, when the darkness threatens to close over you.  Listen.  God speaks a new and unimaginable thing in Jesus......and it is out of love for you.