Feb 15, 2026 - Matthew 17:1-9 - Transfiguration Sunday

At home we’ve been watching a show that you can find online called, “All-Round Champion.” The premise of the show is that they take a number of teenagers who excel in some particular sport and make them compete against each other. Each kid comes from a different sport and every week has them competing in one of the sports that the kids represent. The kid whose sport is on for the week becomes a coach, along with some high-powered help, like a past Olympian, and over the course of 3 days they train the others in their sport so they can compete in it on the 4th day.

It’s pretty amazing to see what these kids can do already at their age. Most of them have been winning tournaments and championships in their sport for years. Many of them play a sport that I’d never even heard of before, but nevertheless requires a high degree of skill to do well. Unlike a lot of competition shows, the kids usually bond really well. They’re still competing, but they know everyone else there is in the same boat. They’re all going to be stuck together for the 2-3 months it takes to go through each sport at one a week. They spend their off time together, do homework together, practice together, train together, and then compete together.

What was even more interesting is that in season 5, they changed things up a bit. They still had teenage athletes who were at the top of their game in whatever sport they played, but this time all of the competitors were paraathletes. They’re all permanently disabled in some way. One girl was missing an arm. Several were missing a leg. Others couldn’t use one side of their body as well as the other for various reasons. Others had defects in their feet or hips. Another girl was slowly going blind. Still, for all of that, what they were able to accomplish was pretty impressive. They all had chosen sports where their disability was mitigated, at least to some extent.

You could see as the kids rotated through the different sports that, while one sport might mitigate a certain disability, it didn’t necessarily mitigate all disabilities. Wheelchair boxing or sled hockey were great options for people with leg problems, but they didn’t work as well for someone missing an arm.

For all of their skill and athleticism, their disability still defines a lot about who they are. Sled hockey still takes a lot skill. There’s a lot you need to do to be good at it. But sled hockey isn’t the same as regular hockey. Wheelchair boxing isn’t the same as regular boxing. A swimmer with one arm may be able to post some impressive times, but it’ll never be like what she could do with two good arms. The kids on the show are all pretty positive, not letting their disability determine how active they can be and that’s an admirable mindset. It could be really easy for them to succumb to defeatism and decide it isn’t worth doing anything because they can’t do this or that as well as an able bodied person. Instead, they do what they can to the best of their abilities.

Transfiguration Sunday is a bit odd as Sundays go. It’s an event we remember and consider every year and it always marks the last Sunday before Lent. We don’t treat it as as big a holiday as Christmas or the events of Holy Week, but it’s still very important in its own way. The disciples have been travelling with Jesus for a while now. They’ve been doing their jobs as disciples, whether they really understand that or not. They follow him and learn from him. That’s really their job right now. At this point, they probably don’t know all of the details of his miraculous birth. They’ve seen his miracles and they’ve heard his teaching, but the prophets of old could do many of the same kinds of things. He’s said he’s more than an ordinary human numerous times, but they either don’t understand that or they don’t quite believe it. I can think back to different classes I’ve had in college or even in seminary where a professor says something that sounds important but doesn’t quite make sense, so you just kind of nod and hope you’ll figure it out later. We see the disciples having a lot of similar moments, especially as they whisper amongst themselves about something Jesus has said.

Transfiguration Sunday changes things. You might have been able to get away with believing Jesus is just an important prophet or teacher before, but this is something else entirely. Jesus reveals a bit of his glory on the mountaintop. He is human, yes, but clearly something much more. The only other person who has displayed similar qualities was Moses, way back in Israelite history. When he came out of the tabernacle, where he had talked to God, his face would shine bright enough to be uncomfortable to look at and he had to wear a veil. But, even here, this was a reflected light, a light that Moses had soaked up, in a sense, directly from the source, and now he radiated that light. Jesus reflected nothing. The light was his own. He is the source of light, walking and talking with ordinary mortals. Before this, you might have been excused for thinking you were hanging out with a reasonably normal guy who can do some cool things. Now the illusions are gone. The only reason Jesus looks normal at all is because he’s holding himself back. The extent to which Jesus has been holding himself back all along is now painfully visible.

I talked at the beginning about athletes. Maybe you’re good at a sport, maybe sports aren’t really your thing. When it comes to discussions of God and life in this world, physical athleticism isn’t really the point anyway. So, let’s change the question just a bit. What kind of spiritual athlete are you? There are all kinds of spiritual sports, humility, generosity, compassion, peacemaking, service, and many more. How well do you compete at any of them? Ok, so it isn’t exactly a competition. Beating someone else doesn’t necessarily win you anything. But it can show you how well you’re doing at something.

That’s where the transfiguration becomes a little problematic. Everything’s going ok. You look around and think you’re doing pretty well. But then Jesus shows up and suddenly you see how far off the mark you really are. You two aren’t even in the same league. Even on your best days you can’t compete with him on his worst day. You are spiritually broken. Really, really broken. The only reason it looks like you’re doing well is because you’re comparing yourself to other people who are just as broken as you are. But now Jesus is on the scene. He isn’t broken at all. He’s perfect in every way. You can’t measure up to him in any way. Like trying to wrestle with no arms, play soccer with no legs, there’s nothing you can do that will even come close.

Like a major league baseball all star coming to play with the pee wee league, everything’s fine until Jesus really lets loose. You have no chance here. There’s no reason to bother even showing up at all. The Law does its work here. The Ten Commandments and all of the conclusions drawn from them are listed out in front of you and you realize you can’t check a single box and Jesus is checking every single one with ease. No coach will bother working with you. No fans will bother cheering you on, not when there’s someone so much better around.

Jesus reveals his glory on the mountaintop and any illusion you had that you actually had a chance of proving yourself with your own skill, your own talent, your own works, is just that. You can’t win. You can’t even get on the scoreboard. You have lost. You are lost. You have nothing at all to work with and are destined to be thrown out and forgotten.

The transfiguration reading comes as Jesus is heading toward Jerusalem for the last time. Before the end of this chapter, he’ll tell the disciples plainly, “The Son of Man is about to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him, and he will be raised on the third day.” He’ll say this again before he arrives in Jerusalem in chapter 21, but it’s a reminder of what this is all about. He isn’t here to show off. Only a couple of people even saw all of this with their own eyes. Those who do see it are instructed not to say anything until afterward, after the resurrection, after his journey here is complete.

The star athlete, the one with no flaws or defects, the one who never loses, is going to take the fall for you. He’s going to take the penalty. As often as you and I get into trouble, we should be thrown out entirely, but Jesus is going to take that instead. The athlete analogy only goes so far here. It isn’t having to sit on the bench for the rest of the game. It’s being cast out to where you are utterly and completely alone with no one to comfort you.

The perfect man dying for you, and not just the perfect man, but God himself, dying for you. He heals your brokenness, not by ignoring it or saying it doesn’t matter. Instead he trades it. His perfection for your brokenness. Everything the Father saw in his Son is yours now.

There’s no reason anyone would do this. Certainly no athlete would make such an exchange. The little leaguer suddenly has the career stats of the major league all star and the former all star is a nobody, ignored and forgotten. Jesus shows how far short we are, but, in doing so, shows what it means for him to take on our sin. He shows us how far down he has to fall in order to lift us up. There is no other explanation for this than love, his love for people who do little more than make a mess of everything he has done. He chooses to save us anyway. He chooses to give up everything anyway in order to heal us, in order to save us, in order for us to be the people he made us to be.

The season of Lent begins this upcoming week and we’ll meditate on that final journey more. We’ll see his last days and last hours with the disciples before his death. We’ll reflect more on just what it means for him to die for us. But then we’ll also see him rise again. We’ll see his righteousness on display once more.

If you go to the store, you can usually buy a jersey with your favorite athlete’s name and number on it, hockey, football, baseball, just about any sport that does something like that, you can find their jersey somewhere. It’s a way to show off who your favorites are. But, they aren’t real. No one’s likely to mistake you for a major league pitcher, an NFL linebacker, an NBA point guard. In Christ, in his death and resurrection, in making this exchange with us, something wonderful happens. As St. Paul says, when we are baptized into Christ, we put on Christ. The white robes that Jesus reveals here on the mountaintop become yours. The all star gives you his own jersey and your Heavenly Father treats it like the real thing. He looks at you, and all he sees is Jesus, his perfect righteousness covering all of your sins.

This Lenten season, consider the gift you’ve been given and what had to happen for you to receive it.