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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. (Amen.)
As you heard, today is The Transfiguration of Our Lord, when we remember Jesus’s appearance, or figure, changing, or being transformed, before three of His disciples, giving arguably the clearest and greatest glimpse of the glory of God in the man Jesus, during what is called His “state of humiliation”, when Jesus as man did not always or fully use the Divine powers, or attributes, that were His, by virtue of His personal union with the Son of God. In today’s Gospel Reading, the Divinely‑inspired St. Matthew to some extent understates Jesus’s transfiguration itself: saying simply that He was transfigured and adding, or explaining, only that Jesus’s face shone like the sun and that His clothes became as white as light. But, with three uses of the Greek word translated into English as “behold”, St. Matthew directs our attention to what perhaps is more important: first to the appearance of Moses and Elijah talking with Jesus and then to a bright cloud’s overshadowing them—possibly a reference to the Holy Spirit (Luther, AE 37:299)—and finally to a voice from the cloud’s identifying Jesus and telling them to listen to Him.
Today’s liturgical context for the Gospel Reading also helps us know what is important. As you heard, the Collect of the Day referred to God’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”, and the Collect of the Day asked that God might “mercifully make us co‑heirs with the King in His glory and bring us to the fullness of our inheritance in heaven”. Today’s Old Testament Reading told how Moses and three close associates went up Mount Sinai, how they beheld God, how six days passed, and how the Lord called to Moses out of a cloud (Exodus 24:8-18). Today’s Psalm sang of the Lord’s setting His King on His holy hill and declaring that He is His Son (Psalm 2:6-12). Today’s Epistle Reading recounted St. Peter’s eye‑witnessing Jesus’s transfiguration and refers to “the prophetic word more fully confirmed” (2 Peter 1:16-21). Today’s Hymn of the Day referred to the “glory that the Church may share” and the glory that shall be ours above (Lutheran Service Book 413). And, similarly, today’s Proper Preface will refer to Jesus’s revealing “His glory to His disciples that they might be strengthened to proclaim His cross and resurrection and with all the faithful look forward to the glory of life everlasting”.
We do not have that glory now, obviously. We are more like St. Peter in today’s Gospel Reading, who interrupted Moses and Elijah’s talking with Jesus and then himself got cut off by God the Father. We are more like all three disciples, who, having heard God the Father’s voice, fell on their faces and were terrified. St. Matthew’s account of Jesus’s transfiguration that we heard read in today’s Gospel Reading uniquely connects the disciples’ hearing God the Father’s voice with their fear. How often are we dissatisfied with a pastor’s teaching and preaching, maybe even dissatisfied with the Words of Holy Scripture themselves, and so dissatisfied want some form of direct revelation, such as God the Father speaking to us directly? Instead, we should be more like the disciples and the people of Israel, who were afraid and trembled and wanted Moses to speak to them instead of God (Exodus 20:18-21; confer Deuteronomy 18:15‑19). As one author says, “holy always puts the terror in unholy” (Fickenscher, Getting Ready, 71), and unholy is what we all are by nature, deserving both death here and now and torment in hell for eternity, apart from the Holy Spirit’s leading us to be sorry for our sin, to trust God to forgive our sin, and at least to want to stop sinning. When we so repent, then God forgives us. God forgives our sinful nature and all our actual sin, our dissatisfaction with His Word, or whatever our actual sin might be. God forgives us for Jesus’s sake.
In wanting to make three tents, one for Jesus and one for Moses and one for Elijah, St. Peter to some extent put the three men on the same level, but, while Moses gave the law, and Elijah was zealous for the law, only Jesus could perfectly keep the law and redeem those who were under the law (Kretzmann, ad loc Mt 17:3-4, 93-94). And, out of God’s great love for even our fallen humanity, Jesus did exactly those things: He perfectly kept the law for us and died for our failure to keep the law. Jesus came down from the mountain speaking about being raised from the dead and then went to the cross, as we go from Epiphany to Lent and on to Easter. And what a contrast! From the transfiguration’s light of a relatively private epiphany, in which “an exalted Jesus, with garments glistening stands on a high mountain and is flanked by two religious giants”, to the crucifixion’s darkness of a public spectacle, in which “a humiliated Jesus, whose clothes have been torn from him and divided, is lifted upon a cross and [is] flanked by two common convicted criminals” (Davies and Allison, ad loc Matthew 17:1-8, pp.706-707, with reference to Matthew 27:32-54). But on the third day Jesus rose from the dead. Now, we who believe are comforted as we worship Him by seeking and receiving the forgiveness of sins for His sake (Apology of the Augsburg Confession IV:310, with reference to Matthew 17:5), hearing Him through His Means of Grace, and so receiving peace and joy.
St. Matthew’s account of Jesus’s transfiguration that we heard read in today’s Gospel Reading uniquely reports that, when the disciples had fallen on their faces and were terrified Jesus came and touched them, “speaking them up” and removing their fear. Likewise, when we have fallen in contrition and have the reverential fear of faith, Jesus comes to us on this holy hill and is present compassionately in order to forgive us with water in Holy Baptism, with a pastor’s touch in Holy Absolution, and with bread that is the Body of Christ given for you and wine that is the Blood of Christ shed for you in the Holy Supper. As in today’s Old Testament Reading, we have the blood of the covenant, the presence of God, and eating and drinking. God’s glory may be hidden under all of these humble means, but His glory is present nonetheless.
Whatever else you might say about the “Battle Hymn of the Republic”, there is a glory in Christ’s bosom that transfigures you and me. As we are baptized into Him, we are beloved of God the Father, and God the Father is well-pleased with us in Christ. As St. Paul writes to the Romans and to us, we are not conformed to this world but are transformed by the renewal of our minds, “that by testing we may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Romans 12:2 ESV). Unlike the disciples in today’s Gospel Reading, who had to wait until Jesus was raised from the dead before they should tell anyone what they had seen on the mountain, we do not have to wait. At any time, with words and deeds, we can tell our family and friends, classmates and coworkers, and even total strangers about the peace and joy that we have in the forgiveness of sins for Christ’s sake. We are content with faithful teaching and preaching of God’s Word, and we are ready to suffer whatever comes because of our faithful confession in words and deeds. As for Christ, so for us: our path is through suffering and death to glory. As St. Paul writes to the Corinthians and to us, our bodies are sown in dishonor but raised in glory (1 Corinthians 15:43). As St. John writes, when Jesus appears, we shall see Him as He is and shall be like Him (1 John 3:2). The saints’ vision of God glorifies them, purging out sin and so also purging out all of sin’s ill effects. And so, as Jesus Himself promises, those righteous in Him “will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father” (Matthew 13:43 ESV).
So, as we sang in today’s Psalm, we serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling, for we know that we are blessed as we take refuge in Him.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. (Amen.)
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +