Richard Davenport
February 11, 2024 – Transfiguration Sunday
2 Kings 2:1-12
Elijah the prophet did pretty incredible things. He lived around 850 BC. We don’t know much about him before his call as prophet, but we know his that as a prophet he was sent to bring God’s Word to Israel. He was sent to proclaim the need for repentance, that they should turn away from worship of false gods like Baal. All in all, his prophetic work lasted about 15 years before he was gone.
He did many incredible things in his life, one of which comes up in our reading for today. He rolls up cloak and hits the water with it. The water draws back so he can cross the Jordan on dry ground. Not as big or grand as some of his other miracles, but still it’s not something I could do.
In his early ministry, Elijah meets widow and son about to die of starvation because of severe drought. Through the promise of God, he miraculously makes the little bit of flour and oil they have left last them through drought. The widow and son would live in spite of drought and poverty. But after all that, the boy dies unexpectedly. The widow accuses Elijah of bringing tragedy on her. Incredibly, Elijah takes the dead boy upstairs, pleads with the Lord three times and God restores the boy to life. Elijah had done an incredible miracle and the widow believes that Elijah truly had been sent by God.
Later on, Elijah is sent to confront the king and queen of Israel, Ahab and Jezebel. They had been actively importing the worship of Baal and other gods. Elijah’s prophetic mission was to call people back from worshipping false gods. So, he challenges the king and queen and the hundreds of prophets of Baal. They built two altars to see which god would respond to a call and prove which was a true God and which was not. The prophets of Baal build their altar and offer their sacrifice. They call on their god for hours but to no avail. Elijah builds his altar and offers his sacrifice. He doused the whole altar in water several times and then called on the true God. The response is very different. Incredibly, the fire from heaven consumes the sacrifice, the altar, and the water, leaving no doubt as to who is God.
And then our reading for today, we find Elijah at the end of his ministry when it’s time for him to pass the job to his protégé Elisha so that he may continue the prophetic work. After travelling from place to place all day, incredibly fiery horses and a chariot appear. They collect Elijah and take him away to heaven. That makes Elijah one of only two incredible people in Scripture who never dies.
Elijah did many incredible things throughout his ministry. Of the great miracle workers in the Bible, Elijah ranks right up at the top with people like Moses, which is why he feels so different from us and our lives. It’s rather difficult to relate to his life when ours are generally mundane and uneventful, especially given that he lived almost 3000 years before us. His life was filled with conflicts and miracles, with visits from angels and demonstrations of God’s glory.
Our lives are not quite so extraordinary as his, and most days are pretty routine. If you’re a parent, then your days are spent getting the kids where they need to be, making sure everyone is clothed and fed, getting them to and from school. Many days you’re worn out in the evening even though you haven’t gone to the gym.
Even without kids, most of your days are pretty routine. One week looks a lot like last, as you attend to the basic things we all have to do: fixing dinner, cleaning house, running errands, every day every week. Elijah had all sorts of incredible things going on, but for us it’s just more of the same, day after day.
There are things that crop up that are out of the ordinary. Maybe you go to a concert or a play, perhaps a trip to the ballpark, a vacation to the coast, maybe a party. Fun while it lasts, but then it’s back to the routine. The big events in our lives just fly by, while Elijah’s life is remembered for thousands of years. Elijah is incredible. People like us look pretty ordinary.
Except Elijah is more like us than we sometimes realize. When you look beyond the miracles and look at the person, when you look at everything else we hear about him, we see someone who is often afraid, often lonely, fearing for his life. With all the miracles, you’d think he was dedicated and courageous, and he was sometimes. But many other times he was fearful and alone, depressed, sometimes thinking he was the only faithful person left in Israel. Even after his great victory over prophets of Baal he hears that queen Jezebel wants him dead so he flees for his life. He runs off and hides. Even this great man of God has moments of fear and weakness. That’s certainly something each of us can identify with.
It’s becoming a bigger and bigger concern. We have our cellphones, our email, facebook, and all sorts of other social media venues. Yet for all of that, so many people still feel lost and alone. We have so many ways to connect and yet we still have so few close and personal relationships. Our country saw this especially during COVID, when we had so many different ways to connect and yet we still felt cut off.
And then there are all of the things we fear, the things that keep us awake at night, the things that make us sick with worry, losing your job, losing your home, losing your spouse, your children, your parents, losing your mind and body to old age, losing your possessions and piece of mind to theft or deception, the loss of your relationship with God because your own weakness and sin. Elijah feared for his life, but we aren’t any different. Maybe Elijah isn’t so strange after all.
If we skip ahead several hundred years, we find Jesus standing on a mountaintop with Peter, James, and John. What comes next is pretty incredible. He changes. Suddenly he stands there in clothes that are brighter than the brightest white. He is transfigured right in front of the disciples. They see Jesus in his divine glory, but Jesus and the disciples aren’t the only ones there. Moses and Elijah are there. Elijah has returned, but he isn’t the focus of this story. Jesus is the main character here. The Father speaks and says, “This is my beloved Son; listen to him.” and then Moses and Elijah are gone again.
But that shouldn’t really be surprising. It’s been the same focus all throughout Elijah’s prophetic life. He did so many incredible things but not so he could get attention. Instead he turned people’s attention to the one, true God. He calls them to worship the true God and to serve him only, a job he continues to do here on the mountaintop. Here he is again, directing our attention to the one, true God in Christ Jesus and telling us to serve him only. It’s not so obvious how he does that. After all he seems to just be standing there and talking to Jesus.
So what are they talking about? Scripture doesn’t give us the exact words. We know they’re talking about incredible things, but not Elijah’s incredible things. They’re talking about Christ and the incredible things he has done and the more incredible things he will go on to do as he heads to Jerusalem.
However, Jesus will be all alone when he does them. His friends and disciples are with him for a while, but as soon as he’s arrested they are running away. He faces the cross alone to make it so you never have to be alone. He takes all of the loneliness, all of the fears, all of the things that keep you up at night and he takes them to the cross to stay. Like when Elijah called down fire from heaven to burn up the sacrifice, all of our fears and loneliness, our sins and our grief is offered to God and destroyed.
If that weren’t incredible enough, there is more. Jesus dies and is laid in the tomb, but then he reappears in glory. He returns so that we will never be parted from him. That means we’re just like Elijah who stands next to Jesus and talks to him. Jesus rises from the dead and stands with us where he is always ready to talk to us and hear what is on our hearts and minds.
He is there not just in those few wonderful and incredible moments in life, but even in the everyday, mundane moments. All of the times when we’re running errands and washing dishes, cooking dinner, when we’re crawling in bed at the end of a long day. He’s there whether the day is new and exciting or whether it’s same old same old. He’s there even when we’re feeling lonely and fear is all around us.
We look back at Elijah’s life, all of the things he did and lived through and yet the most incredible thing he got to experience was standing in the presence of his savior there on the mountaintop. He’s talking to him about his trip to Jerusalem, his death on the cross, his glorious resurrection and all of the incredible things that come to us when Christ fulfills the prophecies that are given about him.
So, though Elijah leaves us again after this scene on the mountain, Christ is still here and invites us to be with him on the mountain. He invites us to his table where he shares his feast with us. He comes to us in his glory to be present in our loneliness, to strengthen us against fear, to forgive our sins. He comes to us to show us that he accomplished all that he set out to do, that the day that Elijah was looking toward has already come.
We share this meal with Christ, with each other, but also with Elijah and Moses and all of those who have come before. Those who have died in the faith now forever share in the glory that Christ displayed on the mountain, just as we will. They have nothing to fear for they are with God forever. They are never lonely for God never leaves them.
Christ comes to us in this celebration to show us that this is already true for you and me, in this ordinary bread and wine. Christ does something incredible as he comes to be with us an offer us a share in his glory. He offers us freedom from fear, freedom from loneliness, freedom from sin. He offers us a place with him in joy and life everlasting.