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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.)
In our Church Year, today’s Transfiguration of Our Lord ends the Epiphany Season of God’s manifesting Himself in the flesh of the boy or the man Jesus. The Sundays of the Epiphany season are “bookended”, as it were, by voices from heaven, beginning with the statement at the Baptism of Our Lord, “You are My beloved Son, with You I am well pleased” (Luke 3:22), and ending with the statement at the Transfiguration of Our Lord, “This is My Son, My Chosen One; listen to Him!” While we might think of the Transfiguration of Our Lord as the greatest glimpse of the glory of God in the man Jesus, the season of epiphanies does not gradually build from a small‑scale to a large‑scale revelation. Quite the contrary! Apparently Mary alone witnessed the magi’s worshiping the child Jesus as God on Epiphany Day (Matthew 2:11), and only Peter and John and James saw Jesus’s altered appearance at His Transfiguration. Like the magi on Epiphany Day, Moses and Elijah serve a role at Jesus’s Transfiguration. The Divinely‑inspired St. Luke uniquely tells us that the two men were speaking with Jesus of His “departure”, the English Standard Version that was read put it, translating the Greek word “exodus”. Elsewhere in the New Testament the same Greek word refers, as we might expect, to the Israelites’ “Exodus” from Egypt (Hebrews 11:22), and, in another place, the same Greek word refers to Peter’s death or “departure” (2 Peter 1:15). The Exodus from Egypt is said to have been the greatest redemptive event in Old Testament history (Just, ad loc Luke 9:28-36, pp.403‑404), but the Exodus that Jesus “accomplishes” or “fulfills” arguably is the greatest redemptive event ever, and Jesus’s Exodus includes our Exodus.
About eight days before the Transfiguration, Jesus had elicited Peter’s confession that Jesus was the Christ of God; Jesus had told His disciples that He must suffer many things, be rejected, be killed, and on the third day be raised; and Jesus said that those who would come after Him must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow Him (Luke 9:18-27). And, St. Luke makes clear that all those sayings are closely connected with the Transfiguration that followed. That Peter and Jesus said those things, that Moses and Elijah—often taken as representing, respectively, the Old Testament’s “Law” and its “Prophets”—spoke with the transfigured Jesus about His exodus, and that the Father’s voice from heaven said to listen to Jesus, as to the long‑promised prophet greater than Moses (Deuteronomy 18:15)—all those things arguably reinforce the Divine necessity of Jesus’s death for the redemption and ultimate glory of the whole world.
Of course, those of us in the world have our own ideas about such things as what God should or should not do, about redemption, and about glory. As we heard St. Luke uniquely report, as Moses and Elijah were parting from Jesus, Peter suggested that Jesus let Peter and John and James make three tents, one for Jesus, one for Moses, and one for Elijah, with Peter’s seemingly wishing indefinitely to prolong the glory, and maybe permanently to postpone the suffering, though St. Luke tells us that Peter did not know what he said. Certainly we also like both to extend glorious moments and to avoid inglorious ones. We also have heard our Lord speak of His and our paths going through suffering to glory, but we still try to come up with some other way to go, as Eve tried to do in the Garden of Eden. Plunged into sin already then, we continue to suffer sin’s consequences, being hostile to God by nature, and deserving nothing but temporal and eternal punishment. Except, out of God’s great love, mercy, and grace for the sake of His Son Jesus Christ, God calls and so enables us to turn in sorrow from our sin and to trust Him to forgive our sin, and, when we do so repent, then God forgives us. God forgives us who would wrongly prolong temporary glory and avoid suffering because Jesus faithfully endured suffering en route to eternal glory.
As we confessed in the Athanasian Creed, the Godhead of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit is one, and the glory of the three Blessed Persons is equal (Lutheran Service Book 319, ¶6). When an angel of the Lord appeared to the shepherds out in the field on the night of Jesus’s birth, the glory of the Lord shone around them (Luke 2:8-9). The glory indicates that Jesus is Divine, true God in human flesh. The Holy Spirit had come upon Mary, and the power of the Most High had overshadowed her, so that the Child born was called holy, the Son of God (Luke 1:35). Jesus is God’s Son, His Chosen One, St. Luke uniquely reports the Father’s voice’s saying, the One Who would accomplish His Exodus so that we can have our Exodus. As we heard in today’s Epistle Reading (Hebrews 3:1-6), Jesus has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses, and, for that matter, more glory than Elijah, too. Yet, during what we call Jesus’s “state of humiliation”, Jesus, as man, did not always or fully use His Divine powers, so that Jesus could suffer, be rejected, and be killed for the sins of the whole world, including your sins and my sins. Jesus died for us, in our place, and then, in what we call His “state of exaltation”, He was raised from the dead. Now, He, as man, fully and always uses His Divine powers, especially proclaiming Himself to be the Son of God and Redeemer of the world, governing and protecting His Church on earth, and finally leading His Church to glory in heaven.
We in Jesus’s Church on earth listen to Jesus as His Word is read and preached to groups such as this one. And, we listen to Him as His Gospel is applied to individuals with water in Holy Baptism, with a pastor’s touch in Holy Absolution, and with bread that is the Body of Christ given for us and wine that is the Blood of Christ shed for us in Holy Communion. True God in human flesh, Jesus is able to be really, physically present in the bread and wine with the same Body and Blood born of Mary, transfigured on the mountain, crucified on the cross, and risen from the grave. And, as Jesus Himself says, unless you eat His flesh and drink His blood, you have no life in you (John 6:53). He gives it for our good! Truly, in all of these ways, God forgives us our sins and so saves us and gives us eternal life.
Today’s Gospel Reading told us that Peter and John and James kept silent and told no one in those days anything of what they had seen. We might wonder when they did tell. Certainly at least Peter’s second preserved epistle recounts Peter’s being an eyewitness of Jesus’s receiving honor and glory from God the Father on the holy mountain (2 Peter 1:16-18). We have no command to keep silent. Rather, this day Dawn and Mae will publicly confess their faith in the Triune God, for example, and vow to remain true to God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, even to death. The rest of us who already are members of the congregation have made the same confession and vow. Jesus’s path was one through suffering to glory, but not glory for Him alone. The Collect of the Day prayed that God would mercifully make us co-heirs with the King in His glory, and the Hymn of the Day referred to the glory that shown from Jesus as a “wondrous type” and “vision fair / Of glory that the Church may share” (LSB 413:1; confer Keseman, CPR 35:1, pp.52-53). We will still wrongly try to prolong temporary earthly glory and to avoid suffering, not to mention that we will sin in other ways, but, by God’s love, mercy, and grace for the sake of His Son Jesus Christ, God ultimately brings us who repent and believe to that eternal glory.
Jesus’s Exodus in a very real sense is our Exodus: by His death He redeems us from sin, death, and the power of the devil. This week we come down from the mountain of the Transfiguration of Our Lord and the Season of Epiphany to Ash Wednesday and the Season of Lent, preparing us to celebrate another Easter in some 40 days. Through suffering to glory in the Church Year, and, thanks be to God, through suffering to glory for our eternal life.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +