When the Glory Is Hidden Again

There are moments with God when it feels as though He pulls back the curtain and allows us to see something we somehow knew was true but had never seen quite like this before.

Peter, James and John had one of those moments.

Jesus took them up a high mountain, away from everyone else. And there, right in front of them, something extraordinary happened.

“There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light.”
Matthew 17:2, NIV

For a moment, they saw Jesus differently.

But I don't think we should say that Jesus became glorious on that mountain.

He already was.

The disciples had walked beside Him. They had eaten with Him. They had watched Him sleep, become tired, walk dusty roads and sit beside ordinary people. They knew the Jesus whose face looked like any other human face.

And then, for a moment, they were permitted to see something more.

His face shone like the sun. His clothes became white as light. Moses and Elijah appeared with Him.

A bright cloud covered them, and from that cloud came the voice of the Father:

“This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!”  Matthew 17:5, NIV

I wonder what it was like to stand there.

Peter apparently didn't want the moment to end. He began talking about putting up shelters one for Jesus, one for Moses and one for Elijah. He wanted to do something with what he was seeing. But before Peter could finish speaking, the Father interrupted him.

“This is my Son… Listen to him.”

And then almost as suddenly as it began, it was over.

The cloud was gone. Moses was gone. Elijah was gone. The brilliant light was no longer visible.

Matthew tells us:

“When they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus.”
 Matthew 17:8, NIV

Just Jesus.

And yet He was not just Jesus in the way they had understood Him before.

Because now they had seen.

What Changed When Their Eyes Were Opened?

I've been thinking about this alongside another passage I've been studying recently: Elisha and his servant in 2 Kings 6.

Elisha's servant woke one morning and saw that the city was surrounded by an enemy army. He was terrified.

But Elisha wasn't.

Elisha prayed:

“Open his eyes, LORD, so that he may see.”
2 Kings 6:17, NIV

And suddenly the servant saw the hills filled with horses and chariots of fire.

Here's what I love about both passages:

The servant's opened eyes didn't create the heavenly army.

It was already there.

And the Transfiguration didn't create the glory of Jesus.

It was already there.

In both stories, what changed was what human eyes were permitted to see. And I think there is something here for those of us who walk with God.

Sometimes God allows us moments when we see.

There have been times in my own life when God has seemed so close that His presence was almost overwhelming. Times when Scripture seemed to open before me. Times in prayer and worship when I knew His nearness with a certainty I couldn't have explained to anyone else. Those moments are precious.

But they don't last forever.

Eventually we open our eyes, and the room looks ordinary again. Eventually we walk down the mountain.

And perhaps one of the greatest mistakes we can make is believing that because our experience of His glory has changed, something about Him has changed.

It hasn't.

The glory may be hidden again. But it never left Him.

Then Jesus Walked Down the Mountain

I love what happens next in the Gospel accounts because Jesus doesn't allow Peter, James and John to remain on that mountain.

They have seen His glory.

Now they have to walk back into life.

And what awaits them below could hardly be more different from what they have just experienced. There is a crowd. There is arguing. There are disciples who have encountered something they cannot fix.

And there is a desperate father with a suffering son.

Think about the contrast.

They have just heard the voice of God. Now they hear the cries of a father.

They have just seen the face of Jesus shining like the sun. Now they are standing in the middle of human suffering.

They have just witnessed something beyond anything they could have imagined. Now they are faced with something painfully ordinary: need.

And yet the Jesus standing in that valley is exactly the same Jesus they saw on the mountain. His face isn't shining now. There is no bright cloud. Moses and Elijah aren't standing beside Him.

But nothing about Jesus has diminished.

That's what I don't want to miss.

Peter couldn't keep the mountaintop experience. But he didn't lose Jesus when he came down.

Jesus came down with him.

The Man Who Didn't See the Mountain

And then there is the father. I keep thinking about him.

Peter, James and John had just been given an extraordinary revelation of who Jesus was.

This man had not.

He didn't see the shining face. He didn't hear the Father's voice from the cloud. He didn't see Moses and Elijah.

He encountered Jesus down in the mess of the valley while his child was suffering and his own faith was struggling.

And he said something that may be one of the most honest prayers in Scripture:

“I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!”                                             Mark 9:24, NIV

I love that Jesus met him there. The man didn't need Peter's experience before he could come to Jesus. He didn't need perfect faith. He didn't need a mountaintop.

He needed Jesus.

And Jesus was just as present in that man's desperate valley as He had been in Peter's glorious mountaintop.

Maybe that's important for some of us to remember.

Because not every season of walking with God feels like the mountain.

Sometimes we're Peter, remembering what we've seen. Sometimes we're the father saying, I believe. Help my unbelief.

And sometimes we may feel like Elisha's servant, looking around at circumstances that seem to contradict everything we thought we knew.

But what we can see has never determined what is true about God.

Maybe the Mountain Was Given for the Valley

We love the mountaintops. Of course we do.

We love those moments when God seems unmistakably near. When worship comes easily. When our faith feels strong. When we see something about Jesus that leaves us overwhelmed by His beauty.

But perhaps God doesn't give us those moments so that we will spend the rest of our lives trying to recreate them.

Perhaps He allows us to see so that we will know what is true when we cannot see.

Peter would eventually experience things far more difficult than the walk down that mountain. He would see Jesus arrested. He would watch circumstances unfold that seemed completely incompatible with the glory he had witnessed. He would fail. He would deny Him. And eventually Peter would suffer for the Jesus he loved.

But Peter had seen something.

Years later, when writing about the Transfiguration, he said:

“We were eyewitnesses of his majesty.”
2 Peter 1:16, NIV

He remembered.

The mountain had shown Peter something about Jesus that the valley could never take away.

And perhaps that's one reason God gives us those moments too. Not so that we can live forever in the moment when we saw. Not so that we spend our lives chasing another experience.

But so that when the cloud lifts, when the feeling fades, when life becomes ordinary again or when we find ourselves somewhere we never wanted to be we remember:

The Jesus in the valley is still the Jesus whose face shines like the sun.

His glory has not diminished because I cannot presently see it. His presence has not disappeared because I cannot presently feel it. His goodness has not changed because my circumstances have changed.

And I don't have to find my way back up the mountain to find Him.

He came down with me.

Maybe the mountain was never meant to become our home.

Maybe it was given so that when we find ourselves walking through the valley, we will recognize the One walking beside us.

The glory was hidden again.

But it never left Him.