Transfiguration

"He took with him Peter and John and James and went up on the mountain to pray.  As he was praying, the appearance of his face was altered, and his clothing became dazzling white.  And behold, two men were talking with him, Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory and spoke of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.  Now Peter and those who were him were heavy with sleep, but when they became fully awake they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him...Peter said to Jesus, 'Master it is good that we are here.  Let us make three tents, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah"--not knowing what he said.  As he was saying these things, a cloud came and overshadowed them, and they were afraid as they entered the cloud.  And a voice came...'This is my Son, my chosen One; listen to him!'  And when the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone.  And they kept silent and told no one in those days anything of what they had seen."
Luke 9:28-36

When dealing with the things of God we should always remember that He exists in glory, outside of time and space.  That doesn't mean He doesn't put His presence IN time and space--just that He, the eternal God (Deut. 33:27), is eternally existent outside of it as well.  On the contrary, humans are made of material, the Earth is made of material, and the universe is made of material.  We have days, seasons, times, generations, and when our bodies have worn themselves out, we die from time and space.  In and of ourselves, we can only live in and experience the material, and our minds, in and of themselves, can only think in material terms.  We are living in a material world, and we are material girls, or boys--(name that movie).

The first words of the Bible tell us that God was there before anything else was, and that the anything else came to be because God simply spoke, and it was there because He told it to be.  This means that before the days when he created matter and certainly before the days that he spun the earth and set the sun in place, He was there.  God doesn't exist as we do, being tied to the creation because of being PART of creation.  God, the uncreated One--the eternal One--can't be understood in creation's terms unless He speaks or reveals Himself in ways that the creation can understand.  This would have to be done in grace, because His absolute transcendence above the creation means that His dealing with creation is unnecessary to Himself and definitely not something He could gain from. 
 This line of thinking is where get such phrases as: 
--"The nations are like a drop from a bucket, and are accounted as dust on the scales" (Isaiah 40:15)--every country in the world, added up with each other would equal the weight of dust on God's scales, and a drop of water in God's bucket. 
--"(Elihu speaking to Job) If you are righteous, what do you give Him?  What does He (God) receive from your hand?...""(God speaking to Job)Who has first given to me, that I should repay him?  Whatever is under the whole of heaven is mine" (Job 35:7, 41:11)--God gains not whatsoever from any of my praise, worship, or good works; He's absolutely self-sufficient and my worship doesn't benefit Him, because any gift given by a creature was already God's anyways
--"Blessed be your glorious name, which is exalted above all blessing and praise" (Nehemiah 9:5)--again, God gains not from my worship; His name is glorified ABOVE my praise--my feeble worship doesn't gain Him, because everything worships Him anyways--remember Jesus' words 'if they (disciples) don't worship me, the rocks will cry out!'
--"God said to Moses 'I AM WHO I AM.'  And He said, 'Say this to the people of Israel, 'I AM has sent me'" (Exodus 3:14); "I tell you the truth, before Abraham was, I AM" (John 8:58)--outside of time, where there's a past, present, and future, God exists eternally as never-changing, and constant.  Even Jesus, who said these words IN time, is saying them as the eternal God who exists for eternity outside of it.

The Bible presents a transcendent God who is completely separate from and transcendent over His creation.  How offended He must be that we aren't more humble when we worship Him--especially when He's revealed to us in His Word how much higher and greater than us He is! (see Isaiah 55:8-9 and Psalm 50:21)  Furthermore, Isaiah 66:1 has God saying "Heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool".  The place where God is--the Above and Outside (if you will)--is where God, who is Spirit (John 4:23), sits on an eternally sprawling throne, and He uses the earth as a feeble footstool.  This place where God is, the Above and Outside, CAN'T be fathomed by the natural mind, because the natural mind only knows nature.  But this place is above and outside of nature. 

In this story that Luke (along with Matthew and Mark) tells gives us a glimpse into the glorious eternity that is "the Above and Outside". 
First, this exchange is enacted and preceded by Jesus' being in prayer.  He travels up the mountain with James, John, and Peter, for a time of prayer--a time of communion and conversation with God.  It's here that the supernatural is going to intersect with the natural.  We find out three things about the Above and Outside in this story:

1.  Above and outside, Moses is alive, and Elijah is alive.  If you're a Bible student (or...just a person with a brain) you know that Moses and Elijah haven't been around for a very long time.  Moses died before He entered the promised land, and Elijah was taken up into heaven before he died.  And neither one of them, at the time of Luke 9, lived in the natural below and inside that is earth.
This had to be astounding for James, John, and Peter, who no doubt we wetting their cloaks.  "How could this be?" they may have asked, as they were "heavy with sleep, but...they became fully awake" (9:32).  In all three accounts of this story (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), the disciples have already seen many miracles, including the two most miraculous of all: the feeding of thousands from a basket-full, and the calming of a sea-storm.  We can imagine that their faith in this man Jesus is beginning to round into the form of faith in a god--or faith in THE God.  This encounter with the Above and Outside would only push it further.  Not only can Jesus perform miracles that it seems only God could perform--Jesus is actually talking with Moses and Elijah, as though He's known them for a long time already.
And how did the three who would tell the Gospel-writers this story even KNOW it was Moses and Elijah in the first place?  They didn't have pictures or drawings of them--just the Scripture and oral tradition.  Nevertheless, they knew who this was. 
And knowing who this was,  Peter begins stammering over his words (like he so often does) and he offers Jesus to build "three tents, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah" (9:33).  Luke then tells us that Peter didn't know what He was saying!  He's flabbergasted, and has no words to describe what he's seeing--just that he wants to build something so that this experience might be prolonged. 
Why does he want to prolong it?  Because Jesus has just told them that He would be killed (9:21), after which he spoke of 'taking up your cross', letting the disciples knows He would die by on a Roman cross (9:23).  Jesus goes from that somber teaching to this glorious moment, and Peter doesn't want to leave.

2.  Above and outside, Jesus speaks with Elijah and Moses about his death and resurrection, "which he was about to accomplish in Jerusalem".  The greek phrase used in Luke to describe "his departure"  (9:31) is exodon.  Jesus spoke with Moses and Elijah about his exodus. 
Truly, we know about Moses' exodus.  It was THE Exodus!  He led Israel, the people of God, from slavery to freedom by crossing through the dried-up aisle Red Sea, escaping Egypt (see Exodus 14).
We also know of Elijah's exodus.  As he walked with Elisha, he was about to be taken up by God to heaven, and before he did, he rolled his cloak, struck the Jordan (not unlike Moses and his staff), and the water came up on two sides just like Moses and Israel at the Red Sea.  Elijah and Elisha walk to the other side, where Elijah is taken up (see 2 Kings 2:6-14).
But now they speak with Jesus about HIS exodus.  And they can, because His exodus will be much like both of theirs:
*Like Moses in that He will be forced to stand toe-to-toe with the enemy and not flinch, and by His 'departure' He will lead God's people from slavery into freedom which will eventually culminate in the Promised Land for forever, and He will be given all of the power to carry out all that the Lord has called him to, even if no one else understands or even wants him. 
*Like Elijah in that He's been a prophet who has spoken God's very words to the creation that hates His word, has also stood toe-to-toe with the enemy and been proven superior, and will eventually be taken up with God again.
Truly, if you're a Christian, you know that Christ's exodus is the absolute central focus of the faith--it isn't enough to just say "we love Jesus" or "we're all about Jesus" (which I say all the time)...we need it to be clear, we're all about Jesus' work on the cross and out of the grave.  It is in His exodus that we have freedom and the promised land.

3.  Above and outside, God glorifies Jesus, and commands the same from everyone else.  I've wondered why it is that Peter, James, and John were the ones who got to witness this and hear God the Father say "this is my Son, my Chosen One; listen to him!" (9:35).  But I believe it's because these were (arguably) the three most important Apostles of the early Church (other than Paul), and to proclaim Christ with the passion and conviction they eventually would (Peter as the messenger of Christ to Jews and Gentiles, James as the first apostle martyred for Christ, and John as the care-giver to Jesus' mother Mary and eventual writer--as an old man and longest-living apostle--of the New Testament's grandest words of Christ's glory, built on a lifetime of thinking about it and witnessing to the ministry of the early Church), these men would have needed to be absolutely sure of what it is they're preaching.  Since man is so fallible in his judgments and convictions, these men had to 'behold the glory of the Lord', so that the Word of Christ which would turn the world upside down would be preached from complete and sincere faith; see John 1:14 and 1 John 1:1-2.  (It should be remembered that Paul had a special revelation of Christ's Above and Outside glory as well).

It is a Christian's imperative to ask one's self the simple question: "Have I followed Jesus on his exodus?"  In a Church where everyone wishes they could see a sign such as what the three in Luke 9 saw, this shouldn't be the case--we are supposed to be those who have been led by Jesus on our exodus out of the slavery to the world and its effects.  Of course, in the state we're in right now, we are on the journey from the Red Sea to the promised land--which is still the exodus--but just like Israel, we've seen His power, and have no reason NOT to believe He's delivered us and led us out, to be "a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation' between here and the promised land.  The difference is that the present covenant is one characterized by changed hearts and a propensity to not worship idols the way Israel did after THEY were led out (see Jeremiah 31, Ezekiel 36-37, and Malachi 3).  Whereas 'proof of God's power and goodness' was never enough for Israel (just count how many times they complain to Moses between Exodus and Numbers), we, the people of God, bought by the blood of Christ for good works and pure hearts and consciences, should have no such qualms.  Of those times Israel complains to Moses, count how many times they say some variation of "Oh that we could go back to Egypt" (you'll be amazed how often they say it). Since our exodus hasn't been geographical, but spiritual and eternal, we are convicted as we wish we could go back there, to which Paul replies, "How could we who died to sin still live in it?" (Romans 6:2), further reminding us that in Christ, we are "a new creation--the old has passed away, behold, the new has come" (2 Cor. 5:17). 

The work of Christ, in THIS exodus, is not just to physically lead us out of slavery--the slavery he leads us from is the slavery to sin and Satan's lies.  "For all who sin are slaves to sin".  What makes 'the old' pass away and 'the new' come?  The fact that the Above and Outside has intersected with the material below and inside--and the point of intersection is at the life of the believer in Christ.  Oh for more grace from the eternal and dependent and glorious and majestic God who has dwelt fully in Christ His Son and Word to shine His light on us and implant the word of truth in our hearts more.