Listen to the sermon with the player below, or, download the audio.
+ + + 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.
Germany’s Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock this past Thursday morning, after Russia’s overnight invasion of Ukraine, said well that “We woke up in a different world” (L.A. Times). In the days since, we here in the United States have watched sympathetically from afar the destruction and death there, and we have wondered whether Russia’s war with Ukraine will become a war between Russia and NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which includes our country. We may already feel the economic impact of the war and the sanctions intended to stop it, and we may already fear that Russia’s war with Ukraine soon will lead to World War III, eventually involve nuclear weapons, and ultimately maybe even be the means that brings about the end of the world.
To all that we may be thinking and feeling about what is going on in the world, in our congregation, and in our own families and individual lives, God speaks His Word of the Gospel Reading appointed for today, the Transfiguration of Our Lord, an observance positioned by Lutheran Reformers as it is, at the end of Epiphany, with its focus on the glory of the Lord, just before the beginning of Lent, with its focus on the suffering of the Lord, and effectively bridging the two seasons. And, as we this morning consider God’s Word of the Gospel Reading appointed for today, we realize that as our Lord went so also we go “Through Suffering to Glory”.
Today’s Gospel Reading makes clear that the Transfiguration of Our Lord is closely connected to what Jesus said to His disciples about eight days earlier, after Peter confessed Jesus to be the Christ of God (Luke 9:18-20). Then, Jesus said that He must suffer many things, be rejected by the Jewish leaders, be killed, and on the third day be raised (Luke 9:22); then Jesus said that those who wished to come after Him were to deny themselves and take up their crosses daily and follow Him or risk His being ashamed of them when He comes in His glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels (Luke 9:23-26); and then Jesus said that there were some standing there who would not taste death until they saw the Kingdom of God (Luke 9:27). For Peter and John and James, the immediately following Transfiguration of Our Lord may have been their “seeing” the Kingdom of God, and, for us, the Divinely-inspired St. Luke’s record of the Transfiguration of Our Lord similarly can be our “seeing” the Kingdom of God.
St. Luke’s Gospel account does not report either Peter’s rebuking Jesus for prophesying of His Passion or Jesus’s rebuking Peter for that rebuke (Matthew 16:21-23; Mark 8:31-33). And, St. Luke’s Gospel account to some extent explains away Peter’s later request to make three tents by saying that Peter did not know what he was saying (confer Mark 9:6). So, we have to read into St. Luke’s account at least any conscious resistance on Peter’s part to either Jesus’s or Peter’s own suffering. We may be more inclined to read into St. Luke’s account at least conscious resistance on Peter’s part to Peter’s own suffering because we know ourselves and how we resist our own suffering. We sinfully may prefer that Jesus had not gone through suffering but had gone directly to glory. We sinfully may prefer that we ourselves could stay on top of a mountain rather than to come down from the mountain and take up our cross and follow Him “Through Suffering to Glory”. We sinfully may take for granted and be ungrateful for all of the blessings we have in this state, including relative peace and safety for some 156 years.
People have made headlines in the last few days calling for greater U-S involvement in Ukraine before, they say, “it is too late”. Of course, for those whose property already has been destroyed and for those who already have been killed, it already is “too late”. Yet, as we will be reminded again by a Gospel Reading in three weeks (Luke 13:1-9), other peoples’ destruction and death can remind us to repent and so avoid the death here and now and torment in hell for eternity that we deserve on account of our sinful nature and all of our sin. For, when we repent, then God forgives our sinful nature and all of our sin. God forgives our aversion to suffering, our ingratitude for His blessings, and all of our sin, for the sake of His Son, Jesus Christ.
Jesus is the Son of God in human flesh, and so the glory of God could shine forth through His human nature at His Transfiguration. Jesus is the prophet like Moses, Whom God promised through Moses, to Whom the people were to listen (Deuteronomy 18:15). As great as God’s servant Moses was, God’s Son Jesus is greater, and Jesus was the One Whom God chose to accomplish a greater “exodus” by delivering His people from their sins. Out of God’s great love and mercy, Jesus was first beaten and bloodied and then destroyed and killed on the cross, for you and for me. As God said through prophets like Elijah, it was necessary that the Christ suffer first and then enter into His glory (Luke 24:26). And, as God wills, we who follow Him also suffer first and then enter His glory.
As all those delivered through Moses in the exodus from Egypt were baptized in the Red sea and sustained on their way by eating the same spiritual food and drinking the same spiritual drink, namely Christ (1 Corinthians 10:1-4; confer Stephenson, CLD XII:134), so all those delivered through Jesus in the exodus from sin are baptized at the font and eat the same food and drink the same drink, namely Christ. Those made God’s children in Holy Baptism and absolved by His called and ordained servants partake of the Sacrament of the Altar, bread that is the Body of Christ given for us and wine that is the Blood of Christ shed for us, and so we receive the forgiveness of sins and so also life and salvation. As we prayed in today’s Collect, we are mercifully made co-heirs with the King in His glory and brought to the fullness of our inheritance in heaven.
In today’s Gospel Reading, the Divinely-inspired St. Luke uniquely reports that, at the Transfiguration of Our Lord, Moses and Elijah appeared in glory. Think of all the suffering that both Moses and Elijah went through during their respective lives and how God took them “Through Suffering to Glory”! Think of all the suffering that you and I may have gone through in the past, or that you and I may be going through now, or that you and I may go through in the future and how God will take us “Through Suffering to Glory”! God rules over all for the benefit of His Church (Ephesians 1:22), and that “all” includes whatever is going on in the world, in our congregation, and in our own families and individual lives. God strengthens us through His Word and Sacraments and ultimately brings our suffering to an end, delivering us from our sinful nature and taking us into the Promised Land of Heaven, where, as the author of Hebrews goes on to say, we will experience full and complete rest.
Some two-thousand years ago Jesus told His disciples not to be alarmed when they would hear of wars and rumors of wars, for nation would rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, but such would be only the beginning of birth pains (Matthew 24:6-8; Mark 13:7-8). Even today, in a “different world” and closer to the end, we still do not need to be alarmed. With daily repentance and faith we live in God’s forgiveness of sins. Our and others’ repentance, even on a national or an international scale, may or may not prevent destruction and death here and now, but our repentance most certainly will prevent our destruction and death in the life to come. God will bring us “Through Suffering to Glory”. In the words of today’s Proper Preface, all the faithful look forward to the glory of life everlasting. And, until then, in the words of today’s Psalm antiphon (Psalm 99:9), we exalt the Lord our God and worship at His holy mountain.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +