The Exodus Jesus Spoke About on the Mountain

Luke's account of the transfiguration has a detail the other Gospels leave out. Jesus takes Peter, John and James up a mountain to pray, and as he prays his face changes and his clothes become bright as lightning. Moses and Elijah appear with him in glory. Luke tells us what they were talking about: Jesus' departure, which he was about to bring to fulfillment at Jerusalem. The Greek word for departure is exodos.

This is not an accident of vocabulary. Moses, the man who led the first exodus, stands on a mountain talking with the one who will lead the greater one. The first brought a nation out of slavery through blood on the doorposts and a path through the sea. The second will bring a people out of sin and death through the blood of the cross and the empty tomb. Peter wants to build shelters and stay. The cloud comes, the voice speaks, and when it clears there is only Jesus.

The lesson is that Jesus understood his death not as a defeat but as a deliverance, planned and discussed with heaven. When you read Exodus this week, you are reading the rehearsal for his work. And when you are tempted, like Peter, to stay on the mountain, remember that the exodus happens on the road down.