Delivered into Our Hands

The three disciples on the mountain of transfiguration must have been shaken to the very core of their being. Their teacher took off the robe so-to-speak and showed them in blinding light and a divine presence so intense that they fell to their faces, that He wasn’t a teacher only, but God. I can’t imagine how the three could ever see Jesus the same way again. Usually when something so shocking and sense-eclipsing happens to us, our brains have a habit of dimming the memory so that it doesn’t overwhelm us as we remember. I say this, because in the mundane of life on the road with Jesus, the memory had to be worn over with the dust and grime of living in the world. The exalted Son who lit up the night sky was still eating, sleeping, excreting, and sweating along with them. The robe was back on, and the living flame of love was obscured by the day-to-day grind Jesus had to endure like everyone else. Yet their expectations for the future that their Messiah would bring to the world must have been heightened. Their King would sit on David’s throne and smash the occupying Romans, breaking Israel free... 

Yet, according to Luke not long after Jesus shone like the sun, He made this cryptic remark to all the disciples:  

“Let these words sink into your ears: The Son of Man is about to be delivered into the hands of men.” But they did not understand this saying, and it was concealed from them, so that they might not perceive it. And they were afraid to ask him about this saying. Luke 9:44-45 ESV 

If we really look deeply into this, Jesus giving Himself into our hands was a mind-blowing concept. All their messianic expectations were about the be dashed, and they had no clue. The blinding light of their king was about to be snuffed out; God was willing to let people do what they wanted to Him. 

“Son of Man” is a messianic title and that came from Daniel 7:13-14 and was a key Scripture for Jesus’ self-understanding of his messianic identity. It reads: 

And behold, with the clouds of heaven 
there came one like a son of man, 
and he came to the Ancient of Days 
and was presented before him. 
And to him was given dominion 
and glory and a kingdom, 
that all peoples, nations, and languages 
should serve him; 
his dominion is an everlasting dominion, 
which shall not pass away, 
and his kingdom one 
that shall not be destroyed. (ESV) 

In a sense Jesus is telling them that the one who will receive glory and dominion (the Son of Man), must first be vulnerable to the humanity he came to reign over. This is jarring to all concepts that we humans possess of what power looks like. An exalted divine king isn’t supposed to be whipped, beaten, and crucified. Kings are supposed to subjugate, gods are supposed to ordain the subjugation, the masses are supposed to cower in fear. This was how the kings in the ancient near east did business, the Messiah was supposed to be Yahweh’s version of the same thing.  

This was and is scandalous. It isn’t for power’s sake that the Messiah came; it was for love’s sake.  

The love of a Son who was blinding light. The love of a Triune God who surrendered the Son up to the desire of humanity.  

I believe that it was the wonder and weight of His love that in part caused the three disciples to fall, overpowered on the mountain. It was also the shock of an arrested Messiah that later caused the whole group of Jesus’ followers to fall and trip over each other running away from the reality of it all.  

The brutality of what would happen to God in the hands of people who desire power over the weak, over the nail that would dare to stand up among the rest that are bowed down. This nail was hammered and bludgeoned into death. A Messiah that healed the broken was too much for those who ruled over the people. The religious order did not like how Jesus defied their traditions, Rome did not like the Son of Man who claimed to be earth’s true and eternal King. It was at this convergence that the crowds shouted, “Crucify him!”.  

Truly all of us were collectively shouting this at God. God was the one who was seemingly on trial, but in reality, it was us. What would we do if we could do whatever we wanted to God? We seethed with anger at Him for being too blinding, too other, too holy. Without God’s help, we cannot love God rightly and appreciate Him as He is.  

Without us seeing His actual heart for us in the cross, we cannot see Him in the blinding light on the mountain. Our concepts of who God is blind us from His reality. He is unknowable and surrounded by divine radiance. We needed a Crucified God who suffered for us and with us to understand Him correctly. We needed Him to forgive us for how we hated Him; we still do. 

The Son was delivered up to us, and He returned our hate for His love. Now we can see Him through the light.