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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Any number of things may terrify us, but this morning I ask you what, if anything, would have terrified you if you had been with Peter, James, and John on the mountain as Jesus was transfigured? Would Jesus’s face’s shining like the sun have terrified you? How about His clothes’ becoming white as light? The appearance of Moses and Elijah? The bright cloud that overshadowed them? Apparently none of those things terrified Peter, James, and John, for, as the Divinely‑inspired St. Matthew uniquely tells us, only after they heard the Heavenly Father’s voice from the cloud, telling them that Jesus is His Son and to listen to Him, did the disciples fall on their faces and become terrified. But immediately, Jesus came and, having touched them, cast out their fear. As we this morning reflect on today’s Gospel Reading, we do so under the theme “The Transfigured Jesus casts out our fear”.
Today’s Gospel Reading begins by saying that after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James, and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. The events of Jesus’s Transfiguration are closely connected with the immediately preceding events: Jesus’s eliciting Peter’s confession of Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the living God; Jesus’s beginning to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things, be killed, and on the third day be raised; Peter’s rebuking Jesus and Jesus’s in turn rebuking Peter; and finally Jesus’s calling all who would come after Him to deny themselves and take up their crosses and follow Him (Matthew 16:13‑28).
Six days after all those events, Jesus was transfigured before them, revealing His divine nature as true God from within His human nature as true man. Then, Moses and Elijah, two significant Old Testament figures, who both previously had talked with God on mountaintops, in this case, today’s Collect says, confirmed the mysteries of the faith by their testimony. Perhaps trying to prolong the glory of the moment and/or to avoid the suffering Jesus had described, Peter apparently tried to stay there on the mountain, but the Heavenly Father’s voice’s speaking from the bright cloud of His glorious presence, cut Peter off, and the disciples fell on their faces and were terrified.
In most of the cases in the Old Testament, people were supposed to be terrified of getting too close to the glorious presence of the Lord. Today’s Old Testament Reading’s account of Moses and others going various ways up Mount Sinai and eating and drinking in His presence is one of the exceptions (Exodus 24:8-18). Usually the people could hear God speaking to Moses from the cloud of His presence, but they were not to go up the mountain or even to touch the foot of it upon threat of death (Exodus 20:9-13). The mountain itself was too holy, because the holy God was present there! Generally sinners cannot be in the presence of the holy and almighty God, Who can smite them with a thought! Not only the disciples but also we ourselves should fear the threat that the Holy God represents and reverently submit ourselves to Him. (See Balz, TDNT 9:201.)
Are we appropriately terrified of and reverential to God? How do we regard this holy space and God’s holy Word and Sacraments? How do we regard God’s holy Name? How do we regard God in Himself? At times even we who believe may be too casual with God or indifferent to His presence. On account of our sinful nature, we are hostile to God, and, on account of such and other actual sins, we deserve to be cast out of His holy presence and put to death, if not for repentance and faith in Jesus Christ, which He brings about in us.
Today’s Introit, excerpted from Psalm 99 (vv.1-5; antiphon v.9), reminds us of the Lord our God’s holiness and how we should tremble and quake before Him, but it also calls us to exalt Him, to worship at His holy mountain, and to praise Him Who loves justice, established equity, and executed justice and righteousness. So, we offer Him the highest worship of the Gospel, namely seeking and receiving from Him the forgiveness of sins, grace, and righteousness (Apology of the Augsburg Confession IV:310). When we, enabled by God with repentance and faith, so seek forgiveness, grace, and righteousness, then God graciously forgives our sin—our sin of disregard for this holy space, His Word and Sacraments, His Name, and Himself, or whatever our sin might be—God graciously forgives all our sin, for the sake of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
The God-man Jesus did not stay transfigured, but, as He prophesied, He went to the cross for us: for our salvation. The contrast between His Transfiguration and His Crucifixion could hardly be more striking! In the case of the Transfiguration, the glory and light of a private epiphany, of an exalted Jesus, with glistening garments, standing on a high mountain, flanked by two religious giants from the past, sharply contrasts with, in the case of the Crucifixion, the suffering and darkness of a public spectacle, of a humiliated Jesus, without any garments, lifted upon a cross, flanked by two convicted criminals; Jesus takes others to the Transfiguration and is taken by others to the Crucifixion, but in connection with both He is confessed as the Son of God (confer Matthew 27:32-54; adapted from Davies and Allison, ad loc Mt 17:1-8, II:706-707). The once‑Transfigured and once‑Crucified Jesus casts out our fear! After the Transfiguration and at His Resurrection (for example, Matthew 28:10), as He also did on other occasions (for example, Matthew 14:27), Jesus says not to be afraid! Jesus frees us from our terror of God’s just judgment over our sin in order to have the right regard for Him, His Name, and His space and Word and Sacraments—through which Word and Sacraments He forgives and so frees us.
You may know of the “No Fear” brand of tee‑shirts and energy drinks that were popular a decade or two ago, often associated with extreme sports (Wikipedia). In the case of the “no fear” that we have in Jesus Christ it is not a tee-shirt that we put on but His righteousness that He puts on us in Holy Baptism, and it is not an energy drink that we buy for ourselves to consume but His Body in bread and His Blood in wine that He gives us in the Sacrament of the Altar. As Jesus took the initiative taking the three disciples with Him, leading them up a high mountain by themselves, and coming to them when they were terrified, so the initiative in our salvation is all God’s. His Word brings about our repentance and faith. His Word is all important! The Heavenly Father’s voice from the bright cloud of His glorious presence is almost like the line from “The Wizard of Oz”: pay no attention to what you see but listen to Him and so have your fear cast out. What is most important is not what is seen—not the water of Holy Baptism, the touch of the pastor in individual Holy Absolution, or the bread and wine in Holy Communion—but what is most important is the Word, which makes these things far more than they appear to be. Today’s Collect says the voice from the bright cloud foreshowed our adoption by grace, which for most of us took place at the Baptismal Font. And, in today’s Epistle Reading (2 Peter 1:16-21), St. Peter, himself carried along by the Holy Spirit, can be said to give at least some of the theological significance of the Transfiguration, referring to the more‑sure prophetic Word of Holy Scripture—Holy Scripture read, preached, and applied to us individually in the Sacraments—through which Word God shines and brings light to the darkness and terror of our souls. By the Word we know that in Christ we are elected to salvation (Formula of Concord Solid Declaration XI:65, 67; confer Pieper, II:418).
The Transfigured Jesus came and, having touched the disciples, enabled them to rise and have no fear; only then did they dare lift up their eyes and see no one but Jesus only (Balz, TDNT 9:212). With the right kind of terror‑fear of God and reverence‑fear for God (and for all that is His), we do not let fear of other things terrify us; with the sure and certain hope of lasting glory in the future, which we have in Christ, we gladly accept whatever temporary suffering He permits us to face now (Balz, TDNT 9:213). We tell others about the Transfigured Jesus Who also was crucified and resurrected for them (Wolfmueller, 49). As they and we are being transformed now (Romans 12:2), we know we also will be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet, for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed (1 Corinthians 15:51-52). Until then, with daily repentance and faith, we live in the forgiveness of sins, applying the “no fear” of today’s Gospel Reading to the any number of other things that may terrify us, for, through His Word in all its forms, “The Transfigured Jesus casts out our fear”
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +