Sermon preached by Rev. Margie Quinn on Sunday, February 16, 2026
I wonder if any of you have had what I'm going to call a "let me stay" experience. I remember growing up at summer camp, and when my parents would come and pick me up, I remember some of the girls and boys hiding in their cabins or around camp because they didn't want to go home yet. They wanted to stay. I remember seeing Wicked on Broadway in middle school, and I remember that last scene with Glinda in the bubble, and trying so hard to will the curtains not to close because I wanted to bask in that final scene, stay in it for as long as I could. Or like when you're dancing at a wedding and the DJ says, "Last song," and you're like, "No, we're just getting going." These are those "let me stay" moments—lingering for as long as we can when we're watching a sunset. We don't want that little dot to dip below the horizon, holding a baby in our arms. We don't want to put him in the crib just yet. I'm sure you've had those "let me stay" moments. And I think that's what Peter is asking today. I can really relate to him with this. He's sort of saying, "Let me stay." And I think this is why.
So, we're in Matthew 17 today, but right before this passage, Jesus is trying to show his disciples that he's got to go to Jerusalem, that he will experience great suffering, that he will be killed. That is heartbreaking news for the men and women who have been following him around in his life and in his ministry. And Peter takes Jesus aside and rebukes him. Imagine having the audacity to rebuke Jesus, and he says, "God forbid it, Lord. This must never happen to you." That's what he says. And Jesus says, "Peter, you are not setting your mind on divine things, but on human things." And maybe to prove his point that Peter really needs to start setting his mind on divine things, Jesus takes Peter and James and John, and he takes them up to a high mountain. I've got to wonder what these guys were thinking about as they hiked up this mountain with Jesus. Maybe they were mapping out the next few days or weeks, trying to find a way, trying to find an alternative to the imminent suffering. Maybe trying to freeze time. Maybe trying to stop time and stay with Jesus just a little longer. I think that's how I would be.
Then they get up to this mountain, and this man, this Son of Man, reveals his divinity. He is transfigured before them, and we learn that his face shines like the sun, and all of a sudden his lowly clothes are dazzling white. It kind of makes me think of—I'm going to nerd out really quick—like Gandalf the White in Lord of the Rings, or Galadriel, which is even scarier than Gandalf the White, or the Ghost of Christmas Past, that little girl in The Muppet Christmas Carol. These characters where the light is emanating from behind them and it's a blinding light, and the people receiving this image are, quite frankly, terrified.
I bet that's how they felt. And not just that. So, we've got the Son of Man, this divine being dazzling in white, and then they see him talking to a couple guys. And these aren't just any guys. It's the prophet Moses and the prophet Elijah, who know a little bit about going up on high mountains and experiencing the glory and the awe of God. So Peter cries out, "Hey, it's good for us to be here. We could stay. We could pitch tents. We could roast s'mores on a campfire. We could be up here for just a little bit longer. I don't want to go back down to the chaos below just yet." Would you be like that? I know I would. It's safer up there, away from what Jesus says is to come. But while Peter is going on and on, kind of in the—God maybe trying to interrupt Peter on this tangent—a cloud overshadows them, and we hear this voice, and it's the same voice that we hear in Jesus's baptism. You remember that, when we hear a voice from the heavens that says, "This is my Son, my beloved, with whom I am"—keeping y'all awake today—"with whom I am well pleased." But that's not where it stops in this passage in Matthew. Did you catch this? God says, "This is my Son, my beloved, with whom I am well pleased. Listen to him. Listen to him."
And you know, like we hear in a lot of scenes in scripture, they hear the voice of God. They're terrified. They fall to the ground in fear. And Jesus, seeing them laying prostrate in fear—you know, he could have kept talking to this prophetic circle of people, Moses and Elijah. He might have wanted to stay in that moment with them. He could have stood far away in his dazzling white, being this majestic being of glory.
But in true fashion, in holding both his divinity and reminding them of his humanity, he comes over to them, and we learn that he touches them.
And I wonder if it was just a hand on a shoulder, or maybe he clasped his hand in theirs. And I don't know if you've ever experienced it, but sometimes in moments of deep fear, when someone gently touches me, I feel some of the fear diffuse.
Our Son of God, reminding us that he came as one of us and he lives among us. And then Jesus says this—and Jesus says this a lot—"Get up and don't be afraid."
Get up and don't be afraid. And this time when they look up, they don't see this light beam of a savior with two prophets next to him. Did you hear Rachel say they see Jesus and he's alone? It's just him again. It's just their friend and their mentor and their teacher and the one they've been following around. It's just him, right there with them.
And so in this story, the disciples actually listen to him, and they get up, and they follow him, and they follow him down the mountain where the scary things are.
The transfiguration—this moment—it seems to last for just a minute. It's not very long, it seems. I think we've all been there. There are these moments of epiphany. We're still in our season of Epiphany, church. There are these moments of epiphany. You and I have had these moments of being dazzled in awe, maybe quite literally on mountaintops or in ordinary moments in hospitals or classrooms—these epiphany moments that we have where we feel this flash of light or this experience of God's love, where time seems to stop and we want to stay there in that shining experience before we have to go back down to shadows or clouds. "Let us stay," we might think. You know, why would we want to walk toward the cross? Why would we want to go to Ash Wednesday this week and be reminded that we're dust and ashes and that's where we're headed?
Because—and these words are not my own; they are the words of theologian Patrick Wilson—the transfiguration offers the disciples, and it offers us, this interesting paradox: that while there is nothing we can do to save ourselves from suffering, there is also no way that we could shield ourselves from the light of God that sheds hope in the darkest moments. Somebody say amen. While there is nothing we can do to save ourselves from suffering, there is no way that we could shield ourselves from the light of God that sheds hope in the darkest moments.
I will never forget the story of a little girl in Walmart. She really wanted to buy a flashlight, and she's in Walmart with her mom. She finds an awesome pink flashlight. She really wants to use it as quickly as possible. So, they go and find the batteries and they open up the pack. Does anyone do this? Like, when I'm at the grocery, I start eating the blueberries before I've paid for them. But I do pay for them. So, they open up the battery pack and they put the batteries in the flashlight, and the little girl is so excited and she turns the flashlight on in Walmart. She doesn't see anything. It's already bright in there. She can't see anything. She says, "Mom, it's not working. Did you put the batteries in?" And the mom says, "Yeah, you have to understand that when you shine light where there is light, it's hard to see." And she says, "Mom, I want to go find some darkness." Are you picking up what I'm putting down? "Mom, I want to go find some darkness" in order to shine my light there.
The mountain—it was this way for God to prepare the disciples for the sacred journey ahead, to offer them something to hold on to so that when they descend into this crushing reality of the world below, they have the memory, they have the experience of the fullness and divinity and the light of God.
And I'm going to nerd out again and talk about Harry Potter, because some of you might be thinking this is like a Patronus charm. Who knows what that is? Okay, thank God we got a couple hands. The Dementors, who are these very dark creatures who inhabit the wizarding world, and they come to feed on human happiness and spread despair—they got a tough job—they come to Harry and his friends, the good guys and the good gals, wanting to spread despair. And Harry learns that the way to prevent them from doing that is to think of a very, very happy memory. One that fills up your whole being and just makes you emanate with joy. And that's what you need to cast the charm. And that's what you need to dispel the despair. That's your flashlight. Maybe the transfiguration is this memory that Peter and James and John will hold as they confront the harsh reality of what is to come. And we know what is to come. Death and loss and fear and a crucifixion. Perhaps God gives them—gives us—these transcendent moments as a way to endure what I'm going to call the world of the cross, because we are experiencing something like that.
Maybe it's a reminder that the world may try to crush our hope and maybe has the ability to do so. But we worship a God who shines that light in the darkness, and the darkness has not and does not overcome it.
It is so tempting to stay in place. It is so tempting to pitch a tent, to dwell in the safety of friends and dwell in the safety of a mountaintop moment. Peter and the guys, they just want to build a safe sanctuary away from the world, to be content in the moment. They don't want the curtains to close. They don't want the DJ to stop playing music. They don't want to be picked up from camp.
They want to save Jesus and they want to save themselves from the heartache that is to come.
But they can't. And we can't.
In the moment of transfiguration, though, God encourages us very, very explicitly to listen to Jesus. That's our homework in this passage. And the disciples' ears perk up when Jesus talks to them. This is the first instruction that we hear him give Peter and James and John. He says, "Get up and do not be afraid." And they are like, "Yes, sir," because the one who loves us, the greatest light there ever is, told us to listen to you. And your instructions are clear: Get up. Don't be afraid.
Sometimes the good news feels like bad news because we've got to get out of our beds. We can't remain in the comfort of our privilege. We can't remain in the safety of our economic stability. We can't remain in the ease of our lives or the correctness of our own opinions and no one else's.
Listening to Jesus means taking his homework seriously and putting the batteries in our pink flashlights and leaving Walmart and turning them on in the darkest places of this world.
So, three pieces of homework for you and for me: Listen to him. Get up. Do not be afraid. Amen. Amen.