Here.
[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
Showing posts with label Psalm 2. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Psalm 2. Show all posts
Monday, March 19, 2018
Sunday, March 18, 2018
Jesus: High Priest and King
[This was shared today during worship with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
Hebrews 5:1-10
The name of Melchizedek isn’t often mentioned among Christians. And there’s no mystery about that. Melchizedek makes only one actual appearance in the Bible, in Genesis 14:18-20.
After Israel’s patriarch Abraham, then called Abram, alongside allies, fought and won a battle, we’re told: “Then Melchizedek king of Salem [Salem means “peace.” The city bearing that name later became the site of Israel’s capital, Jerusalem. Melchizedek] brought out bread and wine. He was priest of God Most High, and he blessed Abram, saying, ‘Blessed be Abram by God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth. And praise be to God Most High, who delivered your enemies into your hand.’ Then Abram gave him a tenth of everything.”
Think about this. Before God had begun to fulfill His first covenant (or first testament) by making Abraham and Sarah the parents of Isaac, the foundation on which God would build His people Israel, there already was, at Jerusalem, a king and priest of God.
Now, this is interesting. Among the descendants of Abraham, there were priests and then there were kings. While Israel’s kings were called to be submissive and trusting toward God and to honor the priests, except in the case of pretenders later in ancient Israel’s history, Israel never had people who were priests and kings.
Such a combination of eternal and earthly power could only be handled by someone who, because of their humble trust in God, would resist the temptation to be an autocrat, a dictator, or self-glorifying conqueror. Melchizedek apparently was the kind of person who could resist those temptations.
When Abraham met Melchizedek, he clearly understood himself to be in the presence of someone who was a priest of the very God Who had called him from the comforts of his home in Ur, willing to wander to the new home that God promised to show to him.
That’s why he humbly received bread and wine from this priest and king and, in response to God’s grace, gave Melchizedek a tithe, ten percent “of everything” he owned.
This is the last known appearance by Melchizedek on the earth.
So, what happened to his royal house?
What happened to his priesthood?
And what difference does it make for you and me?
Our second lesson for this morning, Hebrews 5:1-10, provides some answers.
Hebrews, you'll remember, is a book of unknown authorship. We do know that it’s a sermon by a Jewish-Christian to a congregation of Jewish-Christians who are being tempted, under pressure of Roman persecution, to renounce Christ.
The preacher of Hebrews encourages his fellow Jewish-Christians to not desert the hope they have in Christ. Christ, he says, is the culmination of all of God’s promises of forgiveness and new life given to their ancestors and through them, to the world.
Let’s take a look at what he has to say today.
Verse 1 (He's talking about priesthood.): “Every high priest is selected from among the people and is appointed to represent the people in matters related to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. He is able to deal gently with those who are ignorant and are going astray, since he himself is subject to weakness. This is why he has to offer sacrifices for his own sins, as well as for the sins of the people. And no one takes this honor on himself, but he receives it when called by God, just as Aaron [the brother of Moses] was.”
The high priest of Israel, who had been at the temple in Jerusalem before the temple was destroyed and the priesthood decimated in 70 AD, several decades before this sermon was given, acted as a mediator between God and God’s people.
The high priest was called to make sacrifices for their sins and to gently counsel people with God’s Word. He was able to do this because, as a human being himself, he understood the pressures, joys, and temptations that we human beings face.
But the high priest could only do this because he acknowledged his own sins before God and offered sacrifices for them.
The preacher in Hebrews says that anyone who would presume to take the office of high priest would not be qualified for it; it had to be conferred on them by God.
I think that even today, there’s a principle for us: Anyone who wants to have a position of authority or power in the Church--be it pastor, bishop, church council president, congregational officer, church council officer--ought to be viewed with a certain amount of skepticism. When the people of the Church, after a season of prayer, felt led to ask an often reluctant but faithful person to respond to God’s call, that’s the person God is likely calling.
One of the things I love about this congregation is that we don’t ask any elected person to serve in positions of responsibility unless there has been prayer and a discernment of their call from God. We don’t use the spaghetti method to recruit candidates for church council, for example: We don’t just throw up a name and see which one sticks. Like the high priests, those who hold responsibility in today’s Church need to be believers who live in daily repentance and renewal, who have no notion that they’re anything other than sinners made saints by God’s grace through their faith in Christ. We are blessed to have elected leaders like that at Living Water. And it’s my observation that we take the same care in selecting people for appointment to positions in the congregation.
The preacher goes on to say that Jesus Christ’s claim to be our great High Priest, King, and Lord is not contingent on His taking the reins of ultimate power by force. Jesus too was called by His Father in heaven. Verses 5 and 6: “In the same way, Christ did not take on himself the glory of becoming a high priest. But God said to him, ‘You are my Son; today I have become your Father.’ [This is from Psalm 2. More on that in a second. And he says in another place, ‘You are a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek.’”
Here, the preacher of Hebrews cites two different psalms. There are different kinds of psalms. Psalm 35, for example, is an imprecatory psalm in which the psalmist asks God to go after his tormentors. In Psalm 51, David confesses his sin and asks God to give him a clean heart. In our lesson from Hebrews, two psalms, Psalm 2 and Psalm 110, are cited. These are both royal psalms. They were written to celebrate the anointing of God's king in Israel. royal pslams. A king of Israel was referred to as the Anointed One, in the Hebrew, Meshiah, Messiah and in the Greek in which the New Testament was written, Christos, Christ.
So, what’s the point? Jesus isn’t a successor to the priesthood of the Levites in the temple, who were descendants of Aaron. Instead, Jesus is, like Melchizedek, anointed directly by God the Father. And like Melchizedek
Jesus is also a king, the King of kings.
God has made Jesus both our High Priest, able to understand our weaknesses because He’s withstood every test and temptation that we have in life, and our King, Who has conquered death, darkness, and the devil to give all who let Him be their Priest and King, life with God that never ends.
And how has Jesus achieved this for us? Verse 7: “During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with fervent cries and tears to the one who could save him from death [Remember Jesus in Gethsemane, Who prayed in submission to the Father’s will that He become the perfect sacrifice for our sins even as He asked if there might be a way for Him to avoid the cup of wrath for human evil that He was about to drink full-up on the cross?], and he was heard because of his reverent submission. [He was heard even though the Father didn’t take away the cross. He was heard because God gave Christ the strength to endure the cross for us, the greatest act of love in the history of the universe. And He was heard too because, having faithfully endured the cross, the Father raised Him on the third day, allowing Christ to exert an eternal priesthood and an eternal kingship for you and me.] Son though [Jesus] was, he learned obedience from what he suffered and, once made perfect [The word in the original Greek doesn’t mean perfect, but complete. Jesus uses a form of the same word when, with His dying breath on the cross, He says, “It is fulfilled,” more literally, ‘It is completion. Having completed His mission], [Jesus] became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him and was designated by God to be high priest in the order of Melchizedek.”
All of this Jesus did for you and me so that, even now, at this very moment, sitting at the right hand of the Father, He is able to be our understanding priest and the King Who has conquered our darkness and death by giving His life for us.
What does Jesus ask of us in return?
What can we do?
What should we do?
"The work of God is this,” Jesus tells us, “to believe in the one he has sent." (John 6:29)
Everything you and I might be tempted to put our trust in in this world--kings and presidents, money, security, and possessions, health and success, the power of every bit of it will give out at the grave.
Jesus, our High Priest and King of kings, Who comes to us amid the battles of our lives with bread and wine, His body and blood, has conquered this dying world and its futile ambitions for us.
He and those who trust in Him and His high priesthood of love are all that will survive and thrive for all eternity.
May we always be counted among those who trust in Christ alone.
Amen
[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
Hebrews 5:1-10
The name of Melchizedek isn’t often mentioned among Christians. And there’s no mystery about that. Melchizedek makes only one actual appearance in the Bible, in Genesis 14:18-20.
After Israel’s patriarch Abraham, then called Abram, alongside allies, fought and won a battle, we’re told: “Then Melchizedek king of Salem [Salem means “peace.” The city bearing that name later became the site of Israel’s capital, Jerusalem. Melchizedek] brought out bread and wine. He was priest of God Most High, and he blessed Abram, saying, ‘Blessed be Abram by God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth. And praise be to God Most High, who delivered your enemies into your hand.’ Then Abram gave him a tenth of everything.”
[Portrayed here is a the scene from Genesis 14:18-20. Melchizedek brings bread and wine to Abraham.]
Think about this. Before God had begun to fulfill His first covenant (or first testament) by making Abraham and Sarah the parents of Isaac, the foundation on which God would build His people Israel, there already was, at Jerusalem, a king and priest of God.
Now, this is interesting. Among the descendants of Abraham, there were priests and then there were kings. While Israel’s kings were called to be submissive and trusting toward God and to honor the priests, except in the case of pretenders later in ancient Israel’s history, Israel never had people who were priests and kings.
Such a combination of eternal and earthly power could only be handled by someone who, because of their humble trust in God, would resist the temptation to be an autocrat, a dictator, or self-glorifying conqueror. Melchizedek apparently was the kind of person who could resist those temptations.
When Abraham met Melchizedek, he clearly understood himself to be in the presence of someone who was a priest of the very God Who had called him from the comforts of his home in Ur, willing to wander to the new home that God promised to show to him.
That’s why he humbly received bread and wine from this priest and king and, in response to God’s grace, gave Melchizedek a tithe, ten percent “of everything” he owned.
This is the last known appearance by Melchizedek on the earth.
So, what happened to his royal house?
What happened to his priesthood?
And what difference does it make for you and me?
Our second lesson for this morning, Hebrews 5:1-10, provides some answers.
Hebrews, you'll remember, is a book of unknown authorship. We do know that it’s a sermon by a Jewish-Christian to a congregation of Jewish-Christians who are being tempted, under pressure of Roman persecution, to renounce Christ.
The preacher of Hebrews encourages his fellow Jewish-Christians to not desert the hope they have in Christ. Christ, he says, is the culmination of all of God’s promises of forgiveness and new life given to their ancestors and through them, to the world.
Let’s take a look at what he has to say today.
Verse 1 (He's talking about priesthood.): “Every high priest is selected from among the people and is appointed to represent the people in matters related to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. He is able to deal gently with those who are ignorant and are going astray, since he himself is subject to weakness. This is why he has to offer sacrifices for his own sins, as well as for the sins of the people. And no one takes this honor on himself, but he receives it when called by God, just as Aaron [the brother of Moses] was.”
The high priest of Israel, who had been at the temple in Jerusalem before the temple was destroyed and the priesthood decimated in 70 AD, several decades before this sermon was given, acted as a mediator between God and God’s people.
The high priest was called to make sacrifices for their sins and to gently counsel people with God’s Word. He was able to do this because, as a human being himself, he understood the pressures, joys, and temptations that we human beings face.
But the high priest could only do this because he acknowledged his own sins before God and offered sacrifices for them.
The preacher in Hebrews says that anyone who would presume to take the office of high priest would not be qualified for it; it had to be conferred on them by God.
I think that even today, there’s a principle for us: Anyone who wants to have a position of authority or power in the Church--be it pastor, bishop, church council president, congregational officer, church council officer--ought to be viewed with a certain amount of skepticism. When the people of the Church, after a season of prayer, felt led to ask an often reluctant but faithful person to respond to God’s call, that’s the person God is likely calling.
One of the things I love about this congregation is that we don’t ask any elected person to serve in positions of responsibility unless there has been prayer and a discernment of their call from God. We don’t use the spaghetti method to recruit candidates for church council, for example: We don’t just throw up a name and see which one sticks. Like the high priests, those who hold responsibility in today’s Church need to be believers who live in daily repentance and renewal, who have no notion that they’re anything other than sinners made saints by God’s grace through their faith in Christ. We are blessed to have elected leaders like that at Living Water. And it’s my observation that we take the same care in selecting people for appointment to positions in the congregation.
The preacher goes on to say that Jesus Christ’s claim to be our great High Priest, King, and Lord is not contingent on His taking the reins of ultimate power by force. Jesus too was called by His Father in heaven. Verses 5 and 6: “In the same way, Christ did not take on himself the glory of becoming a high priest. But God said to him, ‘You are my Son; today I have become your Father.’ [This is from Psalm 2. More on that in a second. And he says in another place, ‘You are a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek.’”
Here, the preacher of Hebrews cites two different psalms. There are different kinds of psalms. Psalm 35, for example, is an imprecatory psalm in which the psalmist asks God to go after his tormentors. In Psalm 51, David confesses his sin and asks God to give him a clean heart. In our lesson from Hebrews, two psalms, Psalm 2 and Psalm 110, are cited. These are both royal psalms. They were written to celebrate the anointing of God's king in Israel. royal pslams. A king of Israel was referred to as the Anointed One, in the Hebrew, Meshiah, Messiah and in the Greek in which the New Testament was written, Christos, Christ.
So, what’s the point? Jesus isn’t a successor to the priesthood of the Levites in the temple, who were descendants of Aaron. Instead, Jesus is, like Melchizedek, anointed directly by God the Father. And like Melchizedek
Jesus is also a king, the King of kings.
God has made Jesus both our High Priest, able to understand our weaknesses because He’s withstood every test and temptation that we have in life, and our King, Who has conquered death, darkness, and the devil to give all who let Him be their Priest and King, life with God that never ends.
And how has Jesus achieved this for us? Verse 7: “During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with fervent cries and tears to the one who could save him from death [Remember Jesus in Gethsemane, Who prayed in submission to the Father’s will that He become the perfect sacrifice for our sins even as He asked if there might be a way for Him to avoid the cup of wrath for human evil that He was about to drink full-up on the cross?], and he was heard because of his reverent submission. [He was heard even though the Father didn’t take away the cross. He was heard because God gave Christ the strength to endure the cross for us, the greatest act of love in the history of the universe. And He was heard too because, having faithfully endured the cross, the Father raised Him on the third day, allowing Christ to exert an eternal priesthood and an eternal kingship for you and me.] Son though [Jesus] was, he learned obedience from what he suffered and, once made perfect [The word in the original Greek doesn’t mean perfect, but complete. Jesus uses a form of the same word when, with His dying breath on the cross, He says, “It is fulfilled,” more literally, ‘It is completion. Having completed His mission], [Jesus] became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him and was designated by God to be high priest in the order of Melchizedek.”
[A portrayal of Jesus, high priest and King of Kings.]
All of this Jesus did for you and me so that, even now, at this very moment, sitting at the right hand of the Father, He is able to be our understanding priest and the King Who has conquered our darkness and death by giving His life for us.
What does Jesus ask of us in return?
What can we do?
What should we do?
"The work of God is this,” Jesus tells us, “to believe in the one he has sent." (John 6:29)
Everything you and I might be tempted to put our trust in in this world--kings and presidents, money, security, and possessions, health and success, the power of every bit of it will give out at the grave.
Jesus, our High Priest and King of kings, Who comes to us amid the battles of our lives with bread and wine, His body and blood, has conquered this dying world and its futile ambitions for us.
He and those who trust in Him and His high priesthood of love are all that will survive and thrive for all eternity.
May we always be counted among those who trust in Christ alone.
Amen
[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
Friday, February 01, 2008
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.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
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.]
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.]
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