“This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. Listen to Him!” Matthew 17:5.

The first sentence is the same statement, also spoken from the cloud, spoken at Jesus’ baptism.

God the Father expressed His pleasure in the Son before the Son ever began His earthly ministry, before He died on the cross. His pleasure came from an eternity past of oneness, of relationship, of sonship.

Fathers delight in their sons and daughters. From the first announcement of pregnancy, to the birth, to every stage of development, to their adulthood, to their own families. None of it is performance based. All of it is sheer joy from the relationship.

God the Father proclaims His pleasure. Twice.

But here there is added the directive: “Listen to Him!” Now there is something more. Now God commands a response. Now, this is not just information. This is not just an invitation to marvel. Now, there is an imperative.

“Listen to Him!”

Listen (akouō, literally, with acuity). Be sharply attentive.

Listen. Be healed. Be changed. Be transformed. Be informed. Be enlightened.

Listen. Be not a hearer only, but a doer. Listen. Obey. Respond. Do it.

Other itinerant preachers and rabbis were on the scene. Jesus’ voice was among many others aspiring to be prophetic and authoritative.

Since then the competition for attention only continues to soar. In this electronic, internet age, an exploding cacophony of voices press their messages.

But there is nothing new under the sun. The Apostle John thought the whole world could not contain all the books that could have been written about Jesus’ three-year ministry. Yet he wrote what amounts to a small pamphlet. A long blog post. It opens, “In the beginning was the Word … .” A single Word. John listened. John focused.

Listen to Him! To Him! Choose His voice out of the myriad of talking heads. Tune in. Select Him. Listening to His voice quiets the din. His Word alone brings peace.

Never stop. Solomon despaired of mastering the overwhelming abundance of literature available to him in his time. He fell in among the distractions of pleasure and self-indulgence that choked out the word that he had heard, and made it unfruitful. Solomon lost his focus. He stopped listening. It cost the kingdom.

Listening requires focus.

The hotel lounge where we stayed this weekend featured 16 giant TV screens, abutted side to side and top to bottom, forming a huge wall of professionally produced color media. They were consolidated four by four, to broadcast four oversized sports channels. Visually. But the audio coming from the sound system was of only one of them.

TVs can broadcast a picture in picture, a band of information across the bottom of the screen, side bars, multi-panels, and split screens. But only one sound signal is broadcast. Only one audio signal can be understood at a time.

My grandmother used to talk about “listening” the TV when most would have said “watching.” This was probably a holdover expression from her pre-TV, radio days. But she had it right.

Webpages are littered, cluttered, with multiple images. The user might well have in earphones channeling a playlist, to aid focus.

With ear phones I can wire in, and enter a cocoon even in a crowded place, especially in a crowded place. Visually, it sends a message: “Leave me alone. Don’t interrupt me. Don’t talk to me. I’m listening to something.” (Even if I’m not).

The eye can scan. It can move rapidly among multiple images to create a sensation of watching multiple points of focus at the same time.

The ear cannot.

The ear must concentrate on a single source.

Only one person can speak at a time to make sense of a conversation.

Listen to Him! Not watch Him. Not observe. That is too detached. To listen is to engage. To become personally involved. No mere innocent bystander. No interested observer. No passive watcher.

Listen!

Be engaged. Be focused. Pay attention.

Jesus said whoever listens to His words, and does them, is like the wise man who builds his house on the Rock, and thereby withstands all manner of inevitable storms.

Listen to Him! For my own sake! Be safe. Be secure. Storms will come. Be ready. By listening to Him, and doing what He says.

To listen is to do. To hear and disregard is not to listen, not to internalize, not to accept. To hear and not do is to evaluate and reject, or neglect, which is the same result.

Listen!

Peter, James and John were so awed by the transfiguration that they wanted to domesticate it. “Let us build three houses … .” … “While they were still speaking … .”

They were speaking, so they were not listening.

They were watching, but they were not understanding.

Listen! Stop talking! I must stop trying to domesticate Jesus into my own limited understanding, stop trying to constrain Him into my mortal, human paradigm. I must be changed, enlightened and expanded by Him, not the other way around.

LORD Jesus, thank You for speaking. May I be attentive to Your voice. May I take to heart, literally, everything You say. And may I be not a hearer only, but a doer of Your Word. Teach me to listen. To You.