A Glimpse of Glory

Matthew 17:1-9

February 18, 2026 (Ash Wednesday) • Mount Pleasant UMC

It was an audacious request that had placed him in this situation. He knew it as soon as it came out of his mouth. As if he hadn’t been given enough already. Moses had led the people out of slavery and had seen amazing things on the journey—water parting, the most powerful army in the world defeated, water from a rock and the very finger of God writing on stone tablets. Amazing, miraculous things. And on that day he had been talking to God, trying to make sure God was going to go with them. He told God, “If you don’t go with us, then we’ll just stay here. There’s no point in moving forward without you.” And he really believed that. So when God promised to go with him and them—well, that’s when he said it. He couldn’t believe the words came out of his mouth. Before he even thought about it, he said, “Show me your glory.” And that’s how he ended up in this cramped little cave.

That God actually considered his request was astounding enough. But then God told Moses no one could see his face and live, so as a compromise, God would put Moses in a small cave on the side of the mountain and pass by that place. “I will…cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back; but my face must not be seen” (Exodus 33:12-23). And that is, apparently, what happened. Moses’ desire to see God’s glory was only partly met that day. It would be centuries later before he would finally gaze upon the face he had hoped to see that day.

In the Bible, significant moments and events very often happen in two places: mountains and valleys. And while in the Bible those are physical mountains and valleys, I often think about how the moments and events in our lives that we most remember are also often described as mountains and valleys. High moments, great times of joy, celebration—someone might ask, “Have you come down off the mountain yet?” Low times, discouragement, loss or depression—“Are you okay there in the valley?” Mountains and valleys often describe our life and our walk with God. And the Holy Land where the Biblical events occurred is full of mountains and valleys, some of which we are going to walk around—from the comfort of our pews—this Lenten season, to see what they might have to teach us about life with Jesus and how they lead us to the cross. So tonight we begin at a mountain that no one is quite able to identify: the Mount of Transfiguration.

Let’s set this in context as Matthew tells it. Six days ago (17:1), Jesus had taken the twelve disciples to the pagan city of Caesarea Philippi, way north in Israel, where he had asked them who they thought he was. None of them had a problem telling Jesus what other people thought, but when he made it personal, they got quiet. “Who do you say I am?” Peter finally confessed Jesus as the Son of God, and Jesus had blessed him for that. Then Jesus began to tell them all that he would be killed and that’s when Peter went the other way, telling Jesus that that couldn’t happen to him. Jesus shouldn’t say such things! One minute Peter’s a star pupil and the next minute Jesus calls him “Satan.” He’s probably had better days (Matthew 16:13-23).

We don’t know how long they stayed around Caesarea Philippi, or what happened in the next six days, but when chapter 17 opens, it is six days later and Jesus is headed up “a high mountain” with his inner circle of disciples: Peter, James and John (17:1). If you were to come with me to Israel this summer or some other time (see how I slipped in that shameless plug?), the guide will probably point to Mount Hermon in the far north as this “high mountain” because it’s a mountain that has snow on the top of it even in the summer. You can see it from a long way away, so it genuinely is a “high mountain.” However, scholars generally favor Mount Tabor, which is in Galilee, closer to the center of Jesus’ ministry. It’s tall, too, and honestly easier for tourists to get to. But the reality is we don’t really know which one it is or if it’s another one and Matthew apparently didn’t think we needed to know. It’s certainly a high point in the lives of these disciples, a moment when Peter’s confession is verified. There, on the top of that mountain, they get to see Jesus as he really is (cf. Card, Matthew: The Gospel of Identity, pg. 154).

Matthew says Jesus was “transfigured before them” (17:2). He was still Jesus, but he wasn’t. His face is shining like the sun, and his clothes, Matthew says, “became as white as the light.” Mark’s account of this event says his clothes became “whiter than anyone in the world could bleach them” (Mark 9:3). Years ago, we were studying this in a Bible study I was leading just before I went to the Holy Land for the first time, and I had told the group how we could only pack so much and I wondered what I would do when those clothes got dirty. We came to this verse, and someone in the group said, “I’ve got an idea for you. Just wear all your clothes to the top of the mountain and they’ll be made clean again!” I do not give that advice to anyone who travels with me. So here they are on the top of the mountain and, as I said often happens, something extraordinary takes place. Pastor Talbot Davis says, “Jesus turns inside out” (Come Alive: Matthew, pg. 133). His body glows; a glimpse of the glory he had before Bethlehem leaks out. What they see is a glimpse of the future, a glimpse of glory, a body designed for eternity (McKnight, Matthew, pgs. 261-262).

And notice who is with Jesus. “Just then there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus” (17:3). According to Luke, these two “superstars of the Old Testament” (Card 155) are talking with Jesus about his departure, or literally his “exodus” (Luke 9:31). They’re likely comforting and encouraging Jesus about the cross, but “exodus” is an interesting choice of words, and not just because Moses is there. The exodus in the Old Testament was the time when the people were rescued from slavery in Egypt. It was and still is the defining story for the Israelites. But Jesus has come to accomplish a new exodus, bringing rescue to all those who are in slavery to sin. Jesus has come to fulfill everything Moses and Elijah had pointed toward. And, in a wonderful twist, he’s also here on the mountain fulfilling Moses’ most earnest unanswered wish. As Moses stands there with Jesus, he finally gets to see the face he longed to see on another mountain so long ago (cf. Card 155). “Show me your glory,” and the voice on the mountain says, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!” (17:5).

Preachers will tell you this is one of the hardest passages of Scripture, certainly in the Gospels, to preach on because what do you do with it? Shiny Jesus, on a mountain? Great story, but even The Chosen avoided trying to tell this story! There are two things I want us to consider in this story tonight, remembering the context. Jesus has told his disciples that he is going to die soon, and that he will suffer. He’s even made reference to a cross (16:21-27), perhaps the worst form of execution the Romans had. This transfiguration is, in many ways, meant to give them hope in the midst of everything they are going to go through soon. When they see him on the cross, I think Jesus wants these three to remember this moment. When he is hanging in shame, remember his glory. When his clothes have been stripped and divided among the soldiers, remember this moment when those clothes were whiter than white. When there are two criminals hanging beside him, remember that he also walks in the company of Moses and Elijah. When darkness comes over the land, remember the brightness of this mountaintop experience. And when it takes a pagan soldier to declare that Jesus is the Son of God, remember that you heard it first from the very mouth of God the Father (cf. Wright, Matthew for Everyone—Part Two, pg. 14). Jesus allows Peter, James and John to experience this moment so that they, in turn, can help the rest find hope in the midst of the cross, meaning in the middle of total devastation. One reason we’re reading this story at the beginning of Lent is so that we, too, can remember. When it gets dark, the light is still there. Death is not the last word; glory is (cf. McKnight 260). You might even say it this way: the worst thing is never the last thing.

The second thing I want us to notice is we might call “adventures in missing the point,” which is a title that could apply to a lot of the reactions from the disciples, but particularly at the top of this mountain. Peter (of course) is the only one who speaks, and his suggestion is that they build three shelters (or literally “tabernacles,” small tents they would use during one of their feasts)—one for Jesus, one for Moses and one for Elijah. He wants to build a place of worship. Let’s just stay here, Jesus, in the glow and the good feeling. “It is good for us to be here,” he says (17:4). I love the fact that Jesus doesn’t even respond to him. Not a word about his suggestion. Not even the typical, “Well, Peter, I’ll think about that.” No, Jesus just continues on in his conversation with Moses and Elijah until the voice from heaven interrupts them all. At that moment, the disciples seem to get it. Matthew says they “fell facedown on the ground, terrified” (17:6). Rightly so! They are in the presence of the one who told Moses no one could see his face and live. After hearing the voice, they have to be wondering if they are going to get off this mountain alive!

But that’s the point. With the coming of Jesus, everything has changed. Jesus is the face of God we can look at and not die. Jesus is everything God wanted to say to us, everything he wanted to show us and teach us. Jesus is the one who wants us to come to him, behold him, worship him, and leave transformed. He is not the only one being transfigured there on the mountain; the disciples would have left that experience forever changed as well. Nothing for them could ever be the same. And I believe, as we come to this night, that Jesus wants to transfigure us as well (cf. Armstrong, Mountains, pg. 101). He wants to use this Lenten season, these next forty days and seven Sundays, as a time to change us, to mold us, to make us more like him.

Think about the way this moment changed each of the three disciples. For Peter, this moment shaped much of what he thought and preached about later. He uses transfiguration imagery when he writes his letters in the New Testament and calls himself an “eyewitness to majesty” (2 Peter 2:16). I love that phrase. Even more, he says we, Jesus’ followers, are called “out of darkness into his wonderful light” (1 Peter 2:9). Peter was changed on the mountain. So was James. He’s a disciple you don’t hear a lot about but tradition tells us he became bold even in the face of tyrannical kings. Seeing the glorified Jesus gave him the courage to stand up even to King Herod, at the cost of his life. And John, the beloved disciple. Light imagery is all through his writing. He writes, “God is light; in him there is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5). John tells the church that to love one another means you are living in light; to ignore that command is to live in darkness. And when he sees the risen Jesus in the vision that becomes the book of Revelation, John seems to say that the glimpse of glory he saw on the Mount of Transfiguration is nothing in comparison to the light and the hope and the glory that awaits when Jesus returns and the new heaven and the new earth are established (cf. Armstrong 102-103). Peter, James and John never got over the Transfiguration. After the light faded on the mountain, Jesus touched them and when they looked up, Matthew says, “they saw no one except Jesus” (17:8). May that be so for us as well.

That’s one of the reasons I love this season, this time of the Christian year. Tonight, Ash Wednesday, we begin in ashes. In a few moments, I’m going to invite you to come forward and receive the sign of the cross on your forehead in ashes. Why do we do that? The sign of the cross indicates that we are claimed by Jesus, and it’s usually done on your forehead or on your hand because those are places Biblically speaking that indicate decision or action (cf. Revelation 14:1). What we do, who we are—we are claimed by Jesus and we are being transfigured by him. And we do it in ashes as a sign of our mortality. Many years ago, a friend of mine was serving as an associate pastor in a large church in Florida, and as they began the service, he asked his senior pastor what they should say as they put ashes on people. My friend said, “I was taught to say, ‘Dust we are and to dust we shall return.’ Is that good?” The senior pastor said to him, “Well, that’s a little morbid, isn’t it?” And it is! But it’s true. Every year in this church family we learn how fragile life is and that we will return to dust. We say goodbye to loved ones and friends and we remember the brevity of life. Dust we are and to dust we shall return. Now, I’m not going to say that tonight. Usually I will say, “Repent and believe the Gospel” because that is our only hope out of hopelessness. That is the only thing that has power to transfigure us into something new: the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Lent begins in ashes, but it will end in glory for all of us when we repent and believe the Gospel, when we—like the disciples—allow the light of the glory of Jesus to change us, to shape us and to call us to worship. Tonight, we begin in ashes, even as we lean forward toward the light of the resurrection.

So Moses finally got to see the face he’d longed to see. And one day, those who trust in Jesus will get to see that same face as well. But until then, and especially tonight, let’s be watching for glimpses of the glory yet to come. They’re everywhere. As the poet said, “The world is charged with the grandeur of God.” Even in the ashes, the promise remains: you too can be transfigured and made new.