Luke 9:30-36 - This is my Son

9:30,31

Moses and Elijah now appear with Jesus. This is highly symbolic. Moses represents the Law and Elijah the prophets. The Old Testament was often referred to as the “Law and the Prophets”. So this is indicating that Jesus and His mission is fully in line with all that God had said and done before. As an aside, it also indicates that Moses and Elijah are alive. It is fundamental to the gospel that death is not the end.

Luke is the only one to mention that they spoke about Jesus’ departure, the end of the verse making clear that this is referring to His death. Later in Luke’s account of the Emmaus road meeting Jesus will say that all the Law and the prophets foretold of His suffering. Interestingly the Greek word for “departure” is exodus. On the cross an even greater freedom from slavery was won than happened in Egypt all those years ago.

9:32,33

Peter and his companions had been sleeping, or at least drifting off. They seem to have had a habit of doing this, Gethsemane being another infamous occurrence. The appearance of Jesus in brilliant light and then of Moses and Elijah sharply made them fully awake. In typical fashion, Peter opened his big mouth and suggested they put up some tents to try and help them capture and preserve the moment. Luke makes it clear that Peter didn’t really know what he was talking about.

9:34-36

Now God the Father was going to speak to them directly. They could not see God, just as Moses was not allowed to see God directly, but the cloud make it obvious that something significant was happening. The message from God was clear, Jesus is His Son, chosen by the Father, and we should listen to Him. The same message goes out to all people today. We need to recognise Jesus as the Son of God and to listen to Him. It is not for us to sit on judgement on His words, deciding whether we agree with them or not, or whether they are still applicable. We need to listen to them, accept the, trust them and obey them. That is the consistent teaching of the gospels, and of Jesus Himself (Matt 7:24; Luke 6:27; John 5:24).

After the voice had spoken the cloud disappeared, as did Moses and Elijah. A dramatic event had taken place, but it had not happened so that a shrine could be made in its remembrance, nor that they should try and repeat the moment. No, the event had happened and the words had been spoken so that they could live a life worthy of their calling. The same applies to us all.