Mountain Before Wilderness

Exodus 24:12–18 | Psalm 2 | 2 Peter 1:16–21 | Matthew 17:1–9

There is always a mountain before the wilderness.

Before Lent begins its forty days of prayer, repentance, and self-examination, the Church takes us up a mountain—into light, into glory. Before ashes, there is radiance. Before the cross, there is revelation.

Today we stand with Peter, James, and John on the holy mountain. And what they see changes everything.

The Mountain of Glory
In Exodus 24, Moses goes up Mount Sinai. A cloud covers the mountain. The glory of the Lord settles like consuming fire. For six days the cloud remains. On the seventh, the Lord calls to Moses from the midst of it.

The pattern is unmistakable.
Then in Matthew 17, after six days, Jesus takes Peter, James, and John up a high mountain. There He is transfigured before them. His face shines like the sun. His clothes become dazzling white.

The same God.
The same glory.
The same cloud.

But something is different.
In Exodus, the glory rests on the mountain. In Matthew, the glory shines from a Person. Jesus does not merely reflect God’s glory—He radiates it. The cloud that once concealed now reveals. The voice that once spoke to Moses now speaks about Jesus:

“This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.”

The mountain is no longer simply a meeting place between God and humanity. In Jesus, God and humanity meet in one Person. 


Moses and Elijah appear, speaking with Jesus.
The Law and the Prophets. The whole story of Israel stands there on the mountain. Everything that came before points to Him.
And yet they are not speaking about past victories. They speak about His coming “departure”—His exodus—which He is about to accomplish in Jerusalem.

The first exodus led Israel out of slavery in Egypt.
The new exodus will lead humanity out of slavery to sin and death. The glory on the mountain is not separate from the suffering to come. It reveals who it is that will go to the cross. The One who will be mocked and crucified is the beloved Son in whom the Father delights.
The face that shines like the sun will one day be struck.

The Transfiguration does not bypass the cross.
It prepares us for it.
Peter Wants to Stay
Peter, overwhelmed, says, “Lord, it is good for us to be here. If you wish, I will make three tents.”

We understand him. When heaven feels near—When prayer feels luminous
When God seems almost tangible—We want to hold on. To preserve the moment.
To stay on the mountain.

But the voice interrupts him:
“This is my Son… listen to him.” Not: build something.
Not: capture the experience.
Not: remain here forever.
Listen. The Christian life is not about chasing spiritual highs. It is about obedience. It is about listening to the Son—on the mountain and in the valley.

Fear and the Touch
When the voice speaks, the disciples fall on their faces in fear. This is holy awe—the same trembling Israel knew at Sinai.

But then something happens that did not happen at Sinai.
Jesus comes to them. He touches them. He says, “Rise, and do not be afraid.”
The glory that overwhelms also stoops. Divine majesty does not crush—it raises up.
When they lift their eyes, they see no one but Jesus only.

Moses is gone.
Elijah is gone.
The cloud has lifted.
Jesus only.

And that is enough.
A Lamp in the Darkness
In 2 Peter 1, Peter looks back on this moment:
“We were eyewitnesses of his majesty.” For him, the Transfiguration was not a mystical memory. It was confirmation. When persecution came, when suffering intensified, when he faced death himself, he knew: the One who suffered was the Lord of glory.

The light on the mountain guaranteed the meaning of the darkness to come.
Peter calls it a lamp shining in a dark place. And we live in such a place. The world is fractured. The Church is imperfect. Our hearts are divided. But the light has already shone.

Why Before Lent?
Why does the Church give us this feast at the threshold of Lent? Because we are about to walk toward Jerusalem. Soon we will hear of betrayal and denial. We will stand at the foot of the cross. We will confront sin—our own included.
Without the Transfiguration, the cross might look like failure. But we know who hangs there.

The beloved Son.
The radiant One.
The Lord of glory.

Lent is not a journey into despair. It is a journey with the One whose face shines like the sun. 

Down the Mountain
At the end of the story, they come down the mountain.
The vision ends. The glory is veiled again. Ordinary life returns. But nothing is the same. They descend with memory. With promise. With a voice echoing in their hearts:

“This is my Son… listen to him.”

As we prepare for Lent, we too descend. We will fast.
We will pray. We will face our mortality. But we do not descend alone. We have seen His glory. We have heard the Father’s voice.
We have felt the touch of grace.

So when ashes are placed upon our foreheads, we do not lose heart. Because beyond the cross stands the same light that shone on the mountain. And one day, we will see not a fleeting glimpse—but the unveiled face of the beloved Son, forever. Amen.

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