Look at Him

6 August 2025  Luke 9:28-36

“And a voice came out of the cloud, saying, ‘This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to Him.’” Luke 9:35

When Peter saw the Transfigured Jesus talking with Moses and Elijah, he almost got it right.

He was thinking of the Feast of Tabernacles, what the Jews still call Sukkot, the festival when all Israelites remember the time they spent in the wilderness alone with God, when God was making them into the people who would bear the promise of the Promised Land. Jews still refer to that time, and the festival of Sukkot, as “The Time of Our Happiness.” Every year during Sukkot Jews build little tents in their back yards, called Sukkas, to remind them of this precious time.

Peter wanted to build Jesus, Moses and Elijah their own tents, their own Sukkas. He almost had it right.

But God wasn’t thinking about Sukkot. He wasn’t thinking about another forty years in the wilderness, waiting for his people to be ready. He had done that already. The Promised Land was not for the generation that fled Egypt with Moses. They had to stay in the wilderness for forty years, and die there. The Promised Land wasn’t even for Moses. He died in Moab, on Mt. Nebo, and only ever saw the Promised Land from there. The Promised Land was for the next generation, the children who were born in the wilderness, and had spent their whole lives with God there, who had no memory of Egypt, and had never yearned to go back there, as their parents had.

God wasn’t thinking about that on the Mountain of Transfiguration. He was thinking about another feature of the Exodus, about speaking directly to his leaders as He had spoken to Moses. God spoke to Moses in a cloud; it was a cloud that descended on Peter, James and John, and God spoke directly to them: “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to Him” (Luke 9:35). It wasn’t a message for the next generation to tell their children. It was for Peter, James, and John to tell their own children, to tell everyone, in fact. We have been living into that message ever since.

“This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to Him.”

Now.

God isn’t thinking about waiting another generation for people to be ready to hear His voice. He wants us to pay attention now, and He wants us to start with the stuff we are looking at that is bad for us. Pornography is a national and international blight, and is more widespread than ever – Pornhub alone reports more than 2 billion visits per month. Two-thirds of American men and nearly half of American women view online porn every year. And as for general internet consumption, well, they call it “doomscrolling” for a reason. The internet is a cascade of off-ramps that interrupt sustained thinking about anything, and the inevitable result is diminished intelligence. The evidence for that is already clear. God says, “Stop looking at that. Look at Me instead. Pay attention to Me.”

“This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to Him.”

“Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation” (II Corinthians 6:2). God isn’t thinking about waiting for another generation to grow up. Pay attention now.