Thomas J Parlette
“Stop, Look and Listen”
Luke 9: 28-43
3/2/25, Transfiguration Sunday
Currently, the most popular – and in the minds of many – most well-done video portrayal of Jesus and his ministry might be the streaming series The Chosen. You can find it on several different platforms including YouTube, where you can watch it for free. My dad is a big fan, so I get weekly updates about what’s going on. I’ve watched a few episodes and I think it’s pretty good. It’s more than a pious, verse by verse depiction of the Bible, in fact – it’s not that at all. The show takes a bit of license and portrays characters and events around Jesus as well as Jesus and the disciples in a rather gritty and realistic way – which I kinda like. It has so captured a loyal audience that many people have contributed money for the ongoing production through a crowdfunding arrangement.
Many viewers feel invested in the show more than just financially. They want to see the biblical story of Jesus retold on the screen in ways that emphasize not only his humanity – which The Chosen does really well – but also his divinity. The series does that well, too.
But some fans were taken aback recently when Dallas Jenkins, the show’s creator, director and writer, mentioned in a YouTube interview that he was not planning to portray the Transfiguration. Which is interesting, because most scholars agree that this is the turning point in the Gospels – from here on out, the story is focused on getting to Jerusalem. Jenkins had previously said that the series is intended to support Scripture, rather than simply re-enact its events – which I think is a good way to go about it. In the interview, Jenkins added that showing the face of Jesus glowing, as the Transfiguration scene would require, seemed too much like something out of Return of the Jedi to him.
Now to be clear, Jenkins is not skeptical about the Transfiguration – but he is not convinced that depicting it visually would contribute to either the cinematic or the faith goals he has for the series. He might be right, if the special effects don’t work quite right, it could turn out cheesy-looking. Maybe it’s better to leave it to the viewer’s imaginations. (1)
Many of the fans pushing for the inclusion of the Transfiguration scene say it’s important because when God says, “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!” – it confirms Jesus’ divinity for the three disciples who were there.
Surprisingly, seeing Jesus transfigured on the mountain, doesn’t seem to change the disciples much. At first, they went to abandon the journey to Jerusalem and stay on the mountain – which of course is not what being a disciple is all about. Then, it’s not long after this story that James and John ask Jesus to be seated on his right and left when he comes in glory, which shows that they were still missing the point of Jesus’ ministry. And, it is after the transfiguration that Peter, who was right there when it happened, denied Jesus three times. So the disciples weren’t changed much. Perhaps Dallas Jenkins is on to something by not depicting this event – it’s probably unlikely to change us either.
It’s possible that the primary audience for the transfiguration was not the disciples at all, but Jesus himself. The account says that Moses and Elijah talked to Jesus during this radiant experience, though we don’t know what they said. Most scholars agree that they were preparing Jesus for the suffering and death he would soon face in Jerusalem. And God’s voice – the same voice Jesus heard at his baptism – confirmed for him that he was indeed God’s Son, with all the glory, pain and responsibility encapsulated in that relationship. Given that Jesus “set his face to go to Jerusalem…” following this encounter, the Transfiguration clearly had its intended effect on him.
Nonetheless, when God spoke on the mountaintop, the Divine words were addressed to both Jesus and the disciples. When Jesus became dazzling white, it was God’s way of saying – “Stop what you’re doing, pay attention! Something important is happening.” When God said, “This is my Son, the Chosen,” that confirmed for Jesus and the disciples that Jesus was indeed divine. “Look – this is my Son, the Chosen.” And then God adds, “Listen to him!” a directive obviously aimed at the disciples. In the Bible, the word “listen” implies both trust and obedience. “Stop, Look and Listen.”
I learned to drive when I was a high school student in Illinois. At that time, driving classes were part of the regular school day – you didn’t have to take a separate class like you do now in Minnesota. Usually our P.E. teachers were also certified as Driving instructors. So, once a week, for a double period, three of us would load up into a driver’s ed. car with our instructor and take turns driving around town.
Usually, being Illinois, the roads were pretty flat. There were maybe one or two hills where we could practice uphill and downhill parking – but nothing too extreme. This was in Bloomington Illinois, not a huge city, but comparable to Rochester. We could practice driving on the highway, busy city streets and quiet neighborhoods.
One of our instructors though had this special route that he was known to take his students on. He would have us drive out of town, way out in the country – which wasn’t far being in central Illinois. He would take us to this one particular railroad crossing, that didn’t have any flashing lights or crossbars to lower across the road when a train was coming. Instead – there was a big sign that said “Stop, Look and Listen.”
Then our instructor would have us put the car in park, get out and go right up to the tracks, usually telling us a story about some teenager who wasn’t paying attention and got hit by a train, to emphasize that the train was much bigger and much heavier than anything we were driving. Never mess with a train. The he would have us turn to the right and look down the track for a few seconds. And then we’d turn to our left and look the other way. And then he’d say, “Now, be very quiet and listen. You can hear a train coming from a long way away – they don’t sneak up on you. If you hear anything, get back in your car and wait until the train passes.” Stop – Look – and Listen. Good advice. That’s what God says about this mountaintop experience as well.
When we say we’re listening to Jesus, we don’t usually mean that we’re hearing an audible voice. Most of the time we mean we’re paying attention to those spiritual nudges that we get sometimes. Or, we might mean we have received an inner assurance or comfort from Jesus, or maybe we’ve witnessed something that seems like an answer to prayer.
Personally, I don’t rule out anyone’s experience actually hearing the voice of God or Jesus. Lots of people have such an experience. Hey, if it happened back in the biblical times, why couldn’t it happen now. The Roman Catholic Church even has an established procedure for evaluating such claims. It has endorsed only a fraction of them, but it doesn’t rule them all out.
But if, by listening to Jesus, we mean something other than hearing a voice we can perceive with our ears – how do we do that? We could start by reviewing the things that Jesus said in the gospels. But, beyond that, listening to Jesus today means seeking to apply what we know about Jesus to the circumstances of our lives and our relationships with other people. If we’ve been fortunate enough to have had a mountaintop experience with Jesus, it’s what we do after that experience that gives it reality and meaning and qualifies it as listening to God’s Son. As biblical commentator R. Alan Culpepper puts it: “Faithfulness is not achieved by freezing a moment – like Peter wants to do – but by following on, in confidence that God is leading and that what lies ahead is even greater than what we have already experienced.” (2)
Even though it’s a central part of this story this morning, we shouldn’t get too hung up on whether we’re hearing from God, or Jesus or the Holy Spirit. If there’s one thing the Trinity communicates it’s that, as Frederick Buechner says, “Father, Son and Holy Spirit means that the mystery beyond us, the mystery among us, and the mystery within us are all the same mystery.” (3)
Religious leaders rightly tell us that we can listen to the triune God not only through the reading of Scripture, but also through praying and even by paying attention to our thoughts and our consciences. The Lord speaks through those sometimes. The Persons of the Trinity also speak through the circumstances of our lives. C.S. Lewis famously wrote, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain: it is God’s Divine megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” (4)
It would be easy to go home today after worship and feel guilty that we aren’t better listeners, or that we have selective hearing when it comes to listening to God and Jesus. But the prophet Isaiah has some helpful words about listening, especially as we are about to enter the season of Lent where listening is something we are called to do. Isaiah says, “Morning by morning God wakens – wakens my ear to listen as those who are taught. The Lord God has opened my ear.” The original Hebrew for “opened” is actually, “The Lord God has caused sound to flow to my ear.” (5)
So as we come to the table today to be nourished for our Lenten journey, let us remember to “Stop, Look and Listen” – repeating Isaiah’s prayer, “Open my ears, O Lord – cause sound to flow once more.
May God be praised. Amen.
1. “Interview with Dallas Jenkins – creator and director of The Chosen” YouTube, www.youtube.com, comments at about 37 minutes in.
2. R. Alan Culpepper, The New Interpreter’s Bible, Vol IX, p. 207.
3. Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking (Harper&Row, 1973), p. 93.
4. “Reflections: God’s Megaphone.” C.S. Lewis Institute, October 1st, 2021.
5. Homileticsonline… retrived 2/5/25.
