Transfiguration: Really Seeing Jesus

[This was shared during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, earlier today.]

Matthew 17:1-9
I grew up in the city and because of that, believe it or not, I didn't see a sight that many of you may have seen many times in your life, until I was twenty-nine. It happened in Benzie County, Michigan, a place so small in population and size that it didn't even get its first traffic light until the late-80s. It's a place of real beauty with lakes and sand dunes that set next to Lake Michigan. Some people would say it's remote. Ann, Philip, and I spent a year there when I did my seminary internship. I'll never forget going to bed on the night we arrived, looking out the window, and seeing a shooting star flash across the sky. I'd had to get away from it all in order to see it, my first shooting star!

Maybe that was why Jesus took Peter, James, and John to the top of a mountain, as we’re told about in today’s Gospel lesson. Jesus may have wanted to give these three key followers, the ones He had chosen to be the leaders of His Church, the chance to get away from it all so that they could catch a clear vision of Who He is.

The account of what the three disciples saw that day also shows you and me Who Jesus can be for us.

And, what Peter, James, and John saw was spectacular! While standing on top of a mountain, Jesus was “transfigured...and His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white.” Then, two Old Testament figures showed up. One was Moses, the one to whom God had given the Ten Commandments and who had been Israel’s leader out of Egypt, through the wilderness, about 1500 years before the birth of Jesus. The other was Elijah, a prophet whose ministry began about 870 years before Jesus was born and came to an end when God sent a chariot to taxi him to heaven.

The two of them represent the two great strains of Old Testament tradition: the law and the prophets. It was the Law and the Prophets that, hundreds of years before Jesus was born, pointed to His coming. Now, in a moment of fulfillment, Jesus stood talking with Moses and Elijah, underscoring that Jesus is the center of history and the bringer of all our best hopes.

Peter and the others were understandably impressed by this sight! Peter was so impressed, in fact, that he spoke up, foot firmly in mouth as always, and said, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for You, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” That word translated as dwellings could mean everything from huts to temples. I think it’s safe to bet that Peter was thinking in grander terms at that moment. He wanted to build three religious shrines.

It didn’t take long for his suggestion to be vetoed. A bright cloud came down from heaven and from it, a voice--the Voice, the same Voice that had confirmed that Jesus was the Son of God when Jesus was baptized at the Jordan River--said, “This is My Son, the Beloved; with Him I am well pleased; listen to Him!”

This command to listen to Jesus would have hit Peter like a punch to the gut. Just six days before, Peter had confessed his belief that Jesus was the Son, or the very reflection, of God, on earth to be our Savior and King. Jesus applauded Peter's answer. But then He told Peter and the others that He was to be crucified in Jerusalem and rise again on the third day after His death.

The very mention of Jesus being crucified had been repulsive to Peter. "This will never happen to You, Lord," Peter tried to tell Jesus. But Jesus, angered by this well-intentioned attempt to thwart Him in His mission of dying and rising for us, turned to Peter and said, "Get behind Me, Satan."

"Listen," Jesus was telling Peter, "to what I'm saying; not what you want Me to say!" This past week, our son Philip sent along a quote from a theologian he'd run across. It addresses preachers of God's Word: "You are required to believe, to preach, and to teach what the Bible says is true, not what you want the Bible to say is true." Jesus was emphatic that He would be our Savior in the way God chose, not the way we might prefer.

Now, on the mount of Transfiguration, after hearing the Voice from heaven command that he listen to Jesus, Peter may well have remembered the rebuke Jesus had issued to him six days earlier. Whatever was in his mind, Peter did the thing that made the most sense at that moment: He shut up and, along with the other two disciples, fell to the ground, understandably terrified.

Jesus went to them, touched them, and told them, “Get up. Don’t be afraid.” As the three lifted themselves off the ground and tentatively looked up, they discovered that, Moses, Elijah, the cloud, and the dazzling brightness were all gone. Only Jesus remained.

The same was true for those disciples as is true for us: When life frightens us or jolts us or throws us or hurts us, the only reliable helper guaranteed to be there is the compassionate God we know through Jesus Christ!

So, what was the point of this incredible incident? There were many points, I suppose. But I want to zero in on just a few this morning.

Point number one clearly was that Jesus is God the Son, in the flesh, come to earth with the full approval of God the Father. On the Mount of Transfiguration, He was revealed in the same way God was revealed on Mount Sinai to Moses and the elders of ancient Israel nearly fifteen centuries earlier.

Point number two is seen in God’s implicit rejection of Peter’s proposal to build three shrines. Several years ago, Ann’s mom took her and her family to the Mediterranean. Among their stops were Rome and the Vatican. I was interested in Ann’s impressions of the Vatican, with its grand basilica and priceless works of art. Ann, you know was an Art major who formerly worked for the art museum and the Arts Council in Columbus and is a talented artist herself. I shouldn’t have been surprised by her reaction, but I was. Like almost every person I’ve ever known to go the Vatican, my wife said that she was totally turned off by all the money spent on a religious shrine and wondered whether God was really glorified by it all.

It’s a good question. God isn’t necessarily glorified by buildings, icons, symbols, rituals, stained glass windows, or much-recited words. The Bible says that we followers of Jesus are temples of God's Holy Spirit, bought and paid for with the blood of Jesus Christ shed on the cross. In other places, it says that we’re to be living stones built on the cornerstone of Jesus Christ. Too often, our religious stuff may be nothing more than monuments to our own egos, designed to impress the world, not glorify God. But the God we know through Jesus Christ doesn’t build His kingdom with brick and mortar. He builds it in the lives of those who turn from sin and follow Jesus. That, I’m sure, is one reason that God cut Peter off when he offered to start building those three dwellings.

A third point that I think the disciples were to take from their experience on the mountaintop is maybe the most important one. It can be seen in that simple, moving moment when Jesus approached the frightened disciples, touched them, and told them to get up and not be afraid. The God we meet in Jesus Christ wants us to let Him into our lives. He wants us to welcome Him into all that we say and do and are each day. Jesus can do wonderful things when we do that.

The late E. Stanley Jones was a missionary, evangelist, and author. In one of his books, he tells the story of a man known to be, “the biggest grouch in Trenton.” One day, this man called someone he knew in another town and said, “All Trenton’s different---everybody’s different this morning since that meeting in the high school last night where we heard [the evangelist]. Of course, only I may be different, but all Trenton seems different.”

When we let God into our lives, everything is different. We have a different relationship with God and so, we can build different relationships with those around us. We can face life with hope and openness. We live in the confidence that our sins, which would otherwise earn us eternal separation from God, have been forgiven and that God will help us resist temptation in this world and that in eternity, living directly in the presence of God, sin will have no more power to mar our characters or our lives. We can be like the backwoods Christian I’ve mentioned before who said, “I ain’t what I want to be and I ain’t what I’m gonna be. But I thank God, I ain’t what I was!” “If anyone is in Christ,” the New Testament tells us, “there is a new creation; everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new.” God wants us to let Him into our lives so that we can be made new.

But I think there’s another reason God wants us to let Him into our lives. A pastor was driving along a country road, came to a corner, and saw an elderly woman walking along with a heavy load in her arms. He stopped beside her, rolled down his window, explained that he was the pastor of a neighboring church, and offered the woman a ride. She recognized him and said that she would love a ride. She climbed into the front seat and closed the door. As they pulled away, the pastor asked her, “Why don’t you put that load in the back seat?” “Oh, it’s kind enough of you to give me a ride. I can still carry this, though,” she said. They rode in silence for a time and then the pastor said, “Thank you for giving me an inspiration for my next Sunday message.” “How did I do that?” the woman wondered. “Well, I think our relationship with God is a lot like you and that heavy package you’re still holding in your arms. We trust God to get us through life, but not to help carry the burdens.”

I could almost write a book about all the times I thought for sure my life was going to go bust. But each time that happens, I’ve learned the importance of letting the God we know through Jesus into my areas of deepest concern. When we do that, our burdens become lighter and He shows us what to do, if we only let Him.

The God Who came to this world and touched the frightened disciples on the mountain, Who went to a cross and rose from a grave, wants to come to you this morning and each day of your life. He wants to help you carry your burdens. He wants to be your chief counselor, the One you turn to even when the whole world seems to have turned away. This week, why not make this your prayer at the beginning of each day?:

Lord Jesus, all day long, show me when I’m wrong. Affirm me when I’m right. Help me to make good decisions. Make me an agent of Your love. Today, I choose to let You into every moment of my life.

And then, like the disciples becalmed by Jesus on the mountain, face your day with confidence!

Listening to Jesus

[This was shared during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, earlier today.]

Luke 9:28-36
Transfiguration Sunday
One of my favorite preachers, Gerald Mann, tells a joke about a televangelist who went skiing. He had never been skiing before, but he was full of himself and, stupidly, simply strapped on some skis, climbed onto a ski lift, and headed up a mountain.

He passed the green and blue stations, spots where inexperienced and intermediate skiers, respectively, were to have gotten off the lift. Instead, he rode all the way up to the black station, confident that despite his inexperience, he would do well.

When he reached the top of the mountain, he jumped off the chair and down the hill he went, end over end through the first turn. He flew over a cliff into a gorge.

About ten feet down, he grabbed a tree branch. There he held on tightly, suspended over certain death. He yelled out, “Is anybody up there?”

It just so happened that a minister who the televangelist constantly criticized in his broadcasts had seen the whole thing. The minister stayed out of the televangelist’s line of vision and called down to him, “Yes, there’s someone up here. It’s I, the Lord your God. The time of your testing is at hand. If you really believe as you’re claiming to believe all the time, let go and I will catch you.”

There was a pause from below. And then the televangelist asked, “Is anybody else up there?”

That’s not a true story, of course. But there is a lot of truth in it. As Mann writes after telling it in his book, When the Bad Times Are Over for Good, “We would all like to really let go and trust God…But we’d like something more than a disembodied voice.”

Interestingly, there is a disembodied voice in our Gospel lesson today. It comes from a cloud that has descended to a mountain. And this voice, which we can take to be God the Father, tells us that God is more than a disembodied voice. We all would like to trust that. But can we? And if so, how?

Throughout this Epiphany season, which began on January 6, we’ve said that the Gospel lessons on these Sundays have all presented epiphanies, manifestations of Who Jesus is and what He can be for us when, by faith, we let Him be.

In Epiphany, our picture of Jesus has been unscrambled and we have seen that He is more than a man, more than a great moral teacher, more even than King of the Jews or Savior of the world.

But you and I have the benefit of hindsight. We live on the other side of Good Friday and Easter. We know that, though the world tried to kill Him off on Good Friday, Jesus rose from the dead on Easter, guaranteeing the truth of His promise that, “Those who believe in me, though they die, will live.”

The three disciples who Jesus took with Him to the top of the mountain in our Gospel lesson probably had no clear idea of why they had followed Jesus in the first place or why they were now on this mountain with Him.

Peter, the one quickest to speak of the twelve apostles, had, just a few verses before today’s Gospel lesson, made a confession about Jesus. When Jesus asked the twelve, “Who do you say I am?” Peter said simply, “The Messiah [that means, the Christ, God’s anointed king]…The Messiah of God.”

But those may have been simply disembodied words for Peter, which is probably why Jesus responded to his confession by telling Peter and the other apostles: “The Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.”

These words of Jesus would not have computed in the minds of the twelve apostles. The Messiah to suffer in the holy city of Jerusalem? The Messiah rejected by the very religious leaders who should have hailed him as king? The Messiah killed? Those thoughts would have been so mind-numbingly confusing to them that they would hardly have taken notice of the most incredible claim of all, that after being murdered, the Messiah would rise again.

But on this Saint Valentine’s Day, it’s important to remember that love is more than words, especially the love God has for us. And so, God gives the three disciples closest to Jesus more than words. He will show them how the Messiah can be both God of all and servant of all, crucified like a criminal yet the King Who brings life.

In our lesson, while Jesus prays, He blazes with the very fire of heaven. Peter, James, and John couldn’t have helped but remember reading from the book of Exodus about the time when God had called Moses to Mount Sinai and covered the mountain with a cloud. After seven days, God had called Moses out of the cloud and, we’re told, “the appearance of the glory of the Lord was like a devouring fire…”

At the Transfiguration, in the presence of Peter, James, and John, 1300 years after Moses had encountered God on Sinai, Jesus was soon joined by Moses, who had died about 1240BC, and Elijah, whom God had taken to heaven in about 840BC. They discussed Jesus’ departure—literally Jesus’ exodus*—His impending death and resurrection.

Thinking that he could bottle up the glory of this moment, Peter suggests that three booths should be built, one each for Moses, Elijah, and Jesus.

At that suggestion, the cloud of heaven’s presence overshadowed and terrified Peter, James, and John, and the voice from cloud said, “This is My Son, the Chosen; listen to Him!”

God is more than a disembodied voice. God is embodied in carpenter from Nazareth Who, sinless, willingly sacrificed Himself on a cross so that all who disavow their sin and entrust their lives to Him, receive the power to live this life whatever the circumstances and a new life that goes beyond the grave in an eternal kingdom with God.

But these free gifts do not come to us without a price. They cost Jesus suffering and death on a cross. And they call us to die to sin, to die to all our human desires for importance or power, and to simply draw our life from the crucified and risen Savior. The voice from heaven told the disciples and that voice tells us today, “Do you want to know Who God is? Do you want to know God as more than a disembodied voice? Get to know Jesus. This is God the Son. Listen to Him. Listen only to Him.”

And what will we hear when we listen to Jesus’ life, teaching, death, and resurrection?

We will hear, first of all, that God loves us and seeks relationship with us. In one of Jesus’ most famous parables, He tells the story of a father who leaves all dignity behind in order to run to a son who had become lost in sin. He kisses his boy, puts new clothes on him, and rings on his fingers and throws a party. Just so, Jesus says, God throws a party in heaven every time one of us realizes our sin and our need of God and turn to Him for forgiveness and life.

When we listen to Jesus we also hear that God’s expectations of us as human beings has not changed. God still hates the sin while loving the sinner. Jesus affirms that to build our lives on anyone or anything other than God is sin. Neither our families nor our countries, neither material acquisitions nor influence are strong enough foundations to sustain our lives; only the God we know in Jesus Christ is!

You know, I wish that we had the same attitude and understanding of God's commands, as succinctly stated in the Ten Commandments, that the ancient Jews had. We have the same feeling toward God's law as we're likely to have toward the skunk who crashes the party. We think they mean God is a spoilsport.

But the ancient Israelites understood that God's commands are gifts. "Within the parameters of this commands," God says, "there is life and happiness and relationship. Transgress them and you walk away from relationships with others, with your true selves, and from Me."

Jesus said that He came into the world not to overthrow the law, but to fulfill it.** But God's laws still function as a mirror for us all, showing us our need of God and, as was true of the son in Jesus' parable, to run go back to the Lord Who runs to His children.

But we also hear this when we pay attention to Jesus: We can be forgiven. We can be made new.

True story: He had been going his own way for a long time. He had joined a small startup company with a newly minted Masters of Business Administration degree and, as the business had grown, so had his prosperity and prestige. He had become a big shot and he knew it. Later, he revealed that there had been some fudging along the way, little deals that might have gotten him in trouble were it not for the fact that he counted prosecuting attorneys, police chiefs, and even a state attorney general among his friends.

But it was all good, he told himself if ever he had second thoughts about his ethics. He had everything he wanted: the nice house, the new cars, the sumptuous vacations, the beautiful wife, the 2.1 perfectly coifed and orthodontistized children. All went well.

Then near-tragedy struck. A twin brother to whom he was close nearly died. He watched his brother’s family through the long months of hospitalization and realized that, in spite of their lower middle class lifestyles, they had something he didn’t have. They didn’t have the answers. They didn’t have an unimpeachable promise of a trouble-free life. But they had a lifeline to the God of the nail-scarred hands. They had Jesus Christ. And even though he knew it meant dying to the power of all of the things for which he had lived and striven all his life, this man grabbed hold of Jesus. Today, he and his wife strive to ensure that in everything they do, they strive to honor God.

Being a Christian isn’t about being perfect. (If you want confirmation of that, look at me. At the top of my blog, in my personal profile space, I say that, "I am an imperfect sinner." A few weeks ago, a guy wrote to me and said, "Mark, I bet if you worked at you could be a perfect sinner.") Being a Christian isn't about being perfect.

It’s about listening to Jesus.

It’s about hearing that God wants nothing more than having a relationship with Him.

It’s about dying to sin and making what God wants for us more important than what we want for us.

It means knowing that even when we fail to love God and love others as we love ourselves, we can be forgiven.

God isn’t a disembodied voice. God has come to us body and blood in the person of Jesus Christ with a simple message: Turn from sin, follow me and learn to live as I made you to live, as My child, as My son, as My daughter, now and forever. Amen

*The exodus, recounted in the Old Testament book that bears that name, is the central event of Israel's history: God's miraculous deliverance of ancient Israel from slavery in Egypt. Jesus' death and resurrection play a similar role in the New Testament. It is through Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection that He is able to lead all who follow Him out of slavery to sin and death. Whereas, the Old Testament exodus is foreshadowing, through His chosen people, of "coming attractions," Jesus' exodus is of cosmic significance. Jesus' exodus has brought the inevitable establishment of a new heaven and a new earth which His followers only experience dimly at best today, but will come in fullness when Jesus returns at the end of history.

**Jesus also says that He came to fulfill the word given by the prophets, an interesting and important point when considering that the two ancient Hebrews who met Him on the mount of Transfiguration were Moses, the one to whom God first gave the moral law, and Elijah, the greatest of the ancient prophets.

Second Pass at This Sunday's Bible Lessons (February 3, 2008)

[This is the second pass at this Sunday's Bible lessons. For more on what these posts are about, see the first pass for the week here.]

This Sunday's Bible Lessons:
Exodus 24:12-18
Psalm 2 or Psalm 99
2 Peter 1:16-21
Matthew 17:1-9

General Comments (continued):
9. Psalm 2: Churches are given two choices for the Psalm this week. We'll be using Psalm 2. It appears to be a coronation psalm, used as a hymn of praise as a new Israelite king was enthroned.

10. In it, God is pictured as laughing at the presumption of those who would conspire against His anointed king or His people. This has nothing to do with the intrinsic power of the king and everything to do with the power of God Himself.

11. The last verse of the psalm is interesting in light of its use on this special Sunday. "Happy are those who take refuge in Him," that is, in God, it says. On the mount of Transfiguration, Peter appears to want to take refuge in three booths memorializing a moment when the glory of God appeared to him. But Jesus says that the disciples who were with him and he himself must go to the valley below. We're called to take refuge in God in the midst of the everyday places and challenges of life.

12. 2 Peter 1:16-21: Here, Peter exhorts first century churches and us to pay heed to the eyewitness accounts of those who were with Jesus and saw His ministry personally. In declaring that Jesus died and rose, they weren't palming off "cleverly devised myths," but were recounting what they saw.

Peter then goes on to tell about how he saw the glory of God in the person of the transfigured Jesus.

Verse-by-Verse Comments: Matthew 17:1-9:
1Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves.
(1) Like Moses, who took only Joshua with him to the top of Mount Sinai to receive the tablets on which the Ten Commandments were inscribed, Jesus takes only Peter, James, and John with Him to the mount of Transfiguration.

These three were, in spite of their faults, the inner-inner circle of Jesus' early followers. Jesus spent the most time with their three, no doubt because they would be the leaders of the early Church. Next, Jesus spent time with the twelve, who included these three.

The twelve are part of that group called apostles. (Paul would be added to their number after Jesus' resurrection and ascension.) The word apostle, apostolos in the original Greek of the New Testament, means sent one. The twelve were to go into the world, sharing the good news of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection and establishing congregations.

The group with whom Jesus spent the next largest block of time was the disciples. The word disciple, mathetes in the Greek, means student or follower. Rabbis, or teachers, were often itinerant and as they went about teaching, their disciples followed them, both spiritually and physically. The total number of disciples Jesus had is unknown. But the New Testament claims that more than five-hundred people saw the risen Jesus and that only those who had followed Jesus--however imperfectly--saw Him after the resurrection.

The group with whom Jesus spent the least amount of time was "the crowds."

(2) This event took place "six days" after Jesus told His disciples that He would be going to Jerusalem, be rejected by the priests and the people, suffer death on a cross, and then, rise from the dead. Peter, at least, was repulsed by this idea, upbraiding Jesus for even suggesting that successfully displace the Romans and the puppet king Herod, to take control of Judea. But Jesus would have none of the disciples' selfish dreams. He had come to die for the sins of the world and not even those how were counted among His followers would stand in His way.

2And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white.
(1) This event is recounted in such understated terms that one could almost miss it. To be transfigured is to have one's appearance change. Jesus' appearance was apparently transformed so that the glory of God shone from Him.

In Exodus 19:21, God warned Moses to warn the people against looking at God directly when He revealed Himself. The powerful light of His visage would be so great that if they looked at Him, they would die. Even the reflected light of God was seen in Moses' face after his encounters with God.

In the Gospel lesson though, the disciples are both terrified and privileged by the chance to see glory of God shining from Jesus. It's not a secondhand, mediated light like the ancient Israelites had seen in Moses' face. This is the real deal. In the Transfiguration, Jesus was giving His three main disciples that He was God.

3Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him.
(1) How Peter, James, and John knew that they were seeing Moses and Elijah is unexplained. Maybe they had name badges like you see at conferences: "Hello, My Name is...Moses."

(2) But the significance of their appearing with Jesus at this moment is unmistakably clear. Moses was the lawgiver and Elijah was Israel's greatest prophet. They represent the two great strands of God's self-disclosure as recorded in the Old Testament, the law and the prophets. Throughout his gospel, Matthew is at pains to show how Jesus was not a departure from Old Testament faith, but the fulfillment of it.

4Then Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” 5While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!”
(1) In his account of the Transfiguration, Luke says that Peter suggests the erection of booths results from not knowing what he was saying. Matthew conveys the same point by telling us that God interrupted Peter.

(2) So, what was wrong with Peter's suggestion?

Well intentioned though it may have been, it was born of the human desire to bottle up God, to put God's glory in a box and then pull it out at times of our choosing.

BUT GOD IS A DEVOURING FIRE! He breaks out in the times and places of His choosing.

There is no way that Peter, James, and John, as they set out with Jesus, could have anticipated this blazing outbreak of God and His glory. Moments like these are reserved by God as means by which He can reassure His followers of His presence, His love, and His power.

Now, we can be assured that any time we call on the Name of the Lord, God will be present. But moments like those on the Mount of Transfiguration are rare, putting it in the category of a miracle. If miracles happened every day, we wouldn't call them miracles. We'd call them the stuff that happens every day.

Miraculous self-disclosure by God cannot be boxed in a booth. But such events can give us strength, comfort, and encouragement when we step down from the mountaintops to live each day.

Peter's proposed booths would have domesticated God, turned Him into the creature of human beings. But God cannot be tamed. He will not be domesticated.

Nor can you bottle up miracles, no matter what the armies of false preachers and teachers may tell us to the contrary!

(3) The words spoken by God the Father here are the same spoken by the voice from heaven when Jesus was baptized in Matthew 3:17.

6When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear.
(1) The person whose first reaction to coming into the presence of God's majesty and glory isn't fear is clueless. God's perfection and power should humble us. Recognition of God's glory should also cause us to recognize our own sinfulness and need of forgiveness.

(2) Falling to the ground was more than an involuntary response born of fear. It was also a spontaneous expression of worship.

7But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Get up and do not be afraid.”
(1) The God we meet in Jesus Christ doesn't want us to remain quaking in fear. He wants to be our God, for sure. But He also wants to be our Savior and our Friend. God wants to bring us forgiveness and new life. He wants a relationship with His children.

8And when they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone.
(1) The moment had passed. The point was made. The revelation of Who Jesus was--God as well as man--had happened. Now, it was time to go down from the mountaintop so that Jesus could fulfill His mission of death and resurrection for the sinners of the world.

After we've been consoled and empowered by the presence of God during our times of worship, Bible reading, prayer, receiving the Sacrament, or time in Christian fellowship, it's time for us to live our lives, carrying Christ's Good News with us wherever we go.

(2) After the Father says, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!," He leaves the disciples to look to and to follow Jesus. THIS IS WHAT WE ARE LEFT TO DO AS WELL. We don't need signs. We only need Jesus. (I say this because it's the truth, but believe you me, I sometimes hanker for signs as much as anyone else! After thirty-two years of being a Christian, I'm still just beginning to learn how to follow Jesus.)

9As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus ordered them, “Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.”
(1) Why does Jesus tell the three disciples with Him to keep their mouths shut about what they had seen until after His resurrection? I know that I would have been busting a gut to say something.

Maybe this is the reason: Until after Jesus' death and resurrection, the Transfiguration would be a disconnected and meaningless event, a sign that seemed to point to nothing but itself. You can't really make sense of it until you know Jesus Who suffered and died on a cross.

• Without the cross, you may think that following Christ is all glorious mountaintop experiences.
  
• Without the cross, you may forget how great the gap sin has created between God and us.
  
• Without the cross, you may think that you don't need to repent or daily turn to God for the strength to resist sin.
• Without the cross, those who heard Peter, James, and John tell about the Transfiguration might have thought that God's glory only consisted of blazing brightness.

The cross tells us that God also has His glory when, having become one of us, He dies in payment for our sin. That demonstrates the greatness of God's love and that, folks, is glorious!

First Pass at This Sunday's Bible Lessons (February 3, 2008)

[Each week, I take one or more "passes" at the Bible lessons for the succeeding Sunday. They give background information on the texts as a way of helping the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, the congregation I serve as pastor, to prepare for worship. Since we use the appointed lessons of the Revised Common Lectionary, a version of which is used by most Christians in the world, hopefully these passes will also help others.]

This Sunday's Bible Lessons:
Exodus 24:12-18
Psalm 2 or Psalm 99
2 Peter 1:16-21
Matthew 17:1-9

General Comments:
1. This Sunday brings us to the celebration of the Transfiguration of Our Lord. This event, recounted slightly differently by the Gospel writers Matthew, Mark, and Luke, is important. Like all the Gospel lessons for this Epiphany season, the Transfiguration, when Jesus' appearance blazed with the glorious light of heaven before His three closest followers, is a manifestation of Jesus' deity.

2. But the Transfiguration, which in Matthew's Gospel is recounted immediately after Jesus tells His disciples that He will die on a cross and which is ended with Jesus' insistence that He, Peter, James, and John must leave their mountaintop experience and go to the troublesome world below, is the perfect bridge between the seasons of Epiphany and Lent. Epiphany begins with magi bringing gifts for the Baby King, Jesus, and continues with celebrations of Jesus' Deity. Lent points us toward Good Friday. The Baby King, affirmed on a mountaintop by God the Father, came to earth to die for our sins. Jesus, in effect, tells the disciples--and us--that it's time to quit celebrating the revelation of Jesus as God and get on with addressing the why, what, and how of God becoming a man.

3. All the texts for this Sunday point to moments when the glory of God came to dwell among people on earth.

4. Exodus 24:12-18: Moses ascends the mountain to encounter God. There, God will give Moses stone tablets inscribed with the Ten Commandments.

But once on the mountaintop, Moses and his assistant (and eventual successor) Joshua, must wait for six days. God will not be rushed. Of course, God will listen to our prayers, even those we fire up from the shower, while driving in traffic, or doing our jobs. But, when the God of the universe has things to communicate to us, He wants our undivided attention. Far too often, as Ole Hallesby and others point out, we miss out on the blessings and guidance God wants to give to us because we fail to wait for God.

Waiting, when we have and make the time for it, allows us to "be still and know" that God really is God. It's incredibly comforting and encouraging when, in the midst of our super-busy days, we let God penetrate the clutter of our days so that He can reach us.

God made Moses take the time.

5. Moses' six-day wait also evokes memories of the first creation account in Genesis. There, we're told, God created for six days and then rested on the seventh.

6. Mountaintops, in the ancient near East, were often places where so-called theophanies took place. The word theophany refers to a God-appearing.

Mountaintops were also places on which ancient peoples built altars to worship. A scandal of Israel's life is that, after God had given His people the promised land, many of them built altars to false gods.

7. In v.14, because he and Joshua were going to the mountaintop, Moses delegates the responsibility of judging the disputes of the Israelites to Aaron and Hur.

I often received good-natured teasing from the people of my former congregation for delegating tasks to others. But it's a wise and venerable tradition. In Genesis 18, Moses' father-in-law, Jethro, after observing the time and effort Moses was investing in judging the disputes of the people, advised that if Moses didn't start delegating, he would wear himself out. When leaders delegate, they save themselves wear and tear and can address other issues.

Another advantage of delegating responsibility is that it increases the sense of ownership people have for their people, their church, their company, and their church.

Of course, those to whom we delegate responsibilities don't always discharge them well. Aaron, Moses' brother, had a sort of mixed record when Moses gave him responsibilities.

But this too, can be instructive to the leader, alerting her or him to the weaknesses of others, areas in which others may need more instruction or a little TLC, and giving the leader an understanding of the areas of giftedness and abilities of others, in turn informing the leader as to how best to employ the gifts and abilities of people.

8. The appearance of God to Moses on Mount Sinai was like a devouring fire. Too often, we Christians sentimentalize God. We read a phrase like, "God is love," taken from First John, and we turn God into some indulgent grandfather who, to paraphrase C.S. Lewis, doesn't care what we do so long as a good time is had by all.

That is not the picture of God we get from His self-disclosure in both the Old and New Testaments.

God's love isn't some syrupy banality. It's a tough commitment to what is best for us and implacable enmity to anything that isn't good for us.

And God isn't some mushy, befuddled old codger. God is a devouring fire!

To those willing to submit to Him and His authority over their lives, this fire will light our way. This fire will also purge sin from our lives, never a painless process. He will accept no rivals for absolute Lordship of our lives.

No wonder then that so often, when people have encountered God in His holiness, as happens also in the Gospel lesson for this Sunday, they quake in fear. When we see God in all His glory, we see pure goodness and it condemns us. But God has no desire to condemn us. It's why nearly as often as people quake in fear before God, He or His emissaries tell the fearful, "Do not be afraid."

The God of devouring fire is for us. Thank God!

[More on these lessons later, I hope.]