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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.
Today’s Gospel Reading from St. Matthew’s Divinely‑inspired Gospel account reports the events of the Transfiguration of Our Lord, but the Gospel Reading does not explicitly state the Transfiguration’s purpose or rationale. The liturgical context for today’s Gospel Reading, however, suggests a few things. Today’s Collect highlighted the Transfiguration’s confirming the mysteries of the faith by the testimony of Moses and Elijah and in the voice that came from the bright cloud wonderfully foreshowing our adoption by grace. The Old Testament Reading (Exodus 24:8-18) highlighted Moses and the other leaders’ seeing the God of Israel, their eating and drinking in His presence, and the Lord’s calling to Moses out of the cloud of His glorious presence. Today’s Psalm (Psalm 2:6-12; antiphon v.6) highlighted God’s setting His King on Zion His holy hill and His decree regarding His Son. Today’s Epistle Reading (2 Peter 1:16-21), Peter’s first‑hand witness of the events, said that at the Transfiguration Jesus received honor and glory from God the Father. Today’s Hymn of the Day (Lutheran Service Book 413) that we just sang called the Transfiguration a wondrous type and vision fair of glory that the Church may share, by which Christ deigns to manifest what glory shall be theirs above who joy in God with perfect love. And, today’s Proper Preface will suggest the revelation of Jesus’s glory strengthened His disciples to proclaim His cross and resurrection and with all the faithful look forward to the glory of life everlasting. Those are a lot of different suggestions!
The closely‑connected context in St. Matthew’s Gospel account also can be taken as suggesting a purpose or rationale for the Transfiguration. Six days earlier Peter had confessed Jesus to be the Christ, the Son of the living God, and Jesus had said that He would build His Church on the ministry of that confession (Treatise on the Power and Primacy of the Pope 25). But, when Jesus began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the Jewish leaders and be killed and on the third day be raised, Peter rebuked Jesus, which prompted Jesus both to rebuke Peter and to tell all of His disciples to deny themselves and take up their crosses and follow Him, for, Jesus went on to say, when the Son of Man comes with His angels in the glory of His Father, He will repay each person according to what each person has done. (Matthew 16:13-28.) For his part, Peter seemed to be having a problem with the relationship between what he understood to be suffering and what he understood to be glory. To some extent, the events of the Transfiguration try to clear that up for him, as his apparent desire to prolong the glory by building tents or tabernacles for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah is cut short by God the Father’s expressed desire for Peter and the others to listen to Jesus, especially since not listening to Him brings judgment (Deuteronomy 18:19).
We also may have problems with suffering and glory, along with our sinful nature and all of our other sin. To be sure, nothing is inherently wrong with seeking the glory of God, wanting to see His face, and the like. However, problems arise when we reject what God says about suffering and think, speak, and act as if we know better than God about what is glorious and how to bring it about. For example, we might consider another church’s building, budget, music, or attendance to be more glorious than ours, despite the pure preaching of the Gospel and the right administration of the Sacraments here. As St. Matthew uniquely reports about Peter, James, and John after hearing the Father’s voice, we should fall on our face and be terrified; we should worship the Father, confessing our sin in regards to suffering and glory and all of our other sin and seeking His forgiveness for the sake of His Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord (Apology of the Augsburg Confession IV:310).
The man Jesus is God in human flesh, the Son of God begotten from eternity. When He humbled Himself to live and die for us, He did not always or fully use the divine abilities that were His, although the Transfiguration is perhaps His clearest revelation of His glory that otherwise was hidden. So, the Divinely‑inspired St. John could say that he had seen the glory of the only Son from the Father (John 1:14). Yet, as St. John presents the glory of God, that glory is especially found in Jesus’s being lifted up on the cross and drawing all people to Himself (John 12:20-32). Jesus’s going to Jerusalem, suffering many things, being killed, and being raised were Divinely necessary for us! Out of His great love for us, Jesus died on the cross in our place, the death that we otherwise would have deserved. When we turn in sorrow from our sin, not fear but trust God to forgive our sin for Jesus’s sake, and want to do better than to keep on sinning, then God forgives us our sin, our sin in regards to suffering and glory and all of our other sin, whatever our sin might be. God forgives our sins through His Word in all of its forms, especially its Sacramental forms.
The Transfiguration of Our Lord at the end of the Epiphany Season recalls the Baptism of Our Lord at the beginning of the Epiphany Season, as both feature God the Father’s voice, speaking about Jesus as His Son. Jesus’s Baptism set apart the water of Francis’s baptism and of the baptisms of everyone who is so baptized, adopted by grace and made co-heirs with the King in His glory. As Jesus came and, having touched the disciples, with His words drove out their sin and fear, so we come individually to be touched and hear Holy Absolution, which forgives our sin on earth and in heaven. And, as Moses and the other leaders saw the God of Israel and in His presence ate and drank, presumably of the sacrifices made in connection with the old covenant, so in the Sacrament of the Altar we eat bread that is the Body of Christ given for us, and we drink wine that is the Blood of Christ shed for us, for the forgiveness of sins, for life, and for salvation. It is good for us to be here (confer LSB 414)! We have peace, comfort, and joy here. For, in all of these humble ways, we are connected with and by faith see the glory of God.
At the Transfiguration of Our Lord, Moses and Elijah are usually taken to be present to represent the whole of the Old Testament Scriptures, Moses the law, the Old Testament’s first five books that the Holy Spirit inspired through him, and Elijah the prophets, although he himself is not thought to have written any of the Old Testament books (confer Gundry, ad loc Matthew 17:3, p.343). Perhaps overlooked in that usual exposition of Moses and Elijah’s presence at Jesus’s Transfiguration is that at least Moses specifically asked to see the glory of the Lord, but, since the Lord would not show Moses His face, He put Moses in a cleft of the rock and had His glory pass by Moses, so Moses saw the Lord’s back (Exodus 33:18-23). The Lord similarly passed by Elijah, not in a great and strong wind, an earthquake, or a fire, but in a low whisper (1 Kings 19:11-13). Jesus Himself said that many prophets and righteous people longed to see what the disciples saw and did not see it (Matthew 13:17). Of course, Moses and Elijah did eventually see the Lord Jesus’s glorious face, and so also will we.
We might prefer to stay in the Divine Service than to go home. We might prefer to stay in the season of Epiphany than to begin Lent. But, like Jesus, Who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God, so we lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely, and we run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus (Hebrews 12:1-2). Among other things in his Transfiguration account, St. Matthew uniquely reports both Jesus’s transfigured face’s shining like the sun and the disciples’ falling on their face. This morning we have considered various purposes or rationales for Jesus’s Transfiguration, and perhaps there are more than one. The Transfiguration does serve us well by reminding us that things are not always as they seem, that suffering is the path to glory, and that, in the end, we who repent and believe not only will see Jesus’s glory (John 17:24), but we also ourselves will shine like the sun in the Kingdom of our Father (Matthew 13:43; confer 1 Corinthians 15:43).
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +