Light in the Darkness!

[This is the worship service and message from worship with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio, on February 27, 2022.]

Luke 9:28-36

Years ago, Ann and I listened to a young person talk about an election campaign then happening. “It doesn’t matter who we vote for,” she told us. “Nothing will ever get better again.” I have to say that, at one level, I share that young person’s assessment of whether the election of any person significantly changes our world for the better. 

Only a spiritual renewal, one in which people respond to the Word of the Gospel, turn from sin, and follow Jesus Christ each day will cause us, as individuals and societies, to act differently toward one another. The fact that we human beings still haven’t figured out to live together in love under the reign of God is discouraging. Even for people who claim no belief in God. We all are born with God’s Law on our hearts, meaning that we know that sin, selfishness, and death aren’t the way God intended us to live. Ultimately, it was discouragement over the gap between God’s goodness and our evil to which that young person gave expression. 

And she isn’t alone, though some try, on their own, to make the best of it. Like people who say, “The world is going to hell. But I’m going to get what I can for me and my family.” Not, “The world is going to hell and I’m going to trust in Christ and share Him with whoever I can.” Not, “The world is bad, so I’m going to love my family and forgive those who sin against me.” Not, “I’m going to pray that God’s kingdom will come.” No, these people think, “Things are bad and I’m going to get as much good as I can, other people be hanged. Then I'll die." It’s statements and attitudes like these that can, if we’re honest, point us to the fact that it isn’t just the politicians preventing the world from getting better. It’s us too!

The first followers of Jesus Christ had observed many epiphanies--many manifestations of His deity--over the course of His ministry. We’ve seen many recounted by the gospel writers this Epiphany season. Because of Jesus’ epiphanies, the first disciples pinned their hopes for a better world on Jesus. 

For five hundred years, God’s people--the Jews--had suffered from discouragement. It had been that long since God had spoken through the prophets, through whom God had promised a Messiah, a Christ, an anointed King. Through those centuries, they endured injustice, foreign domination, the enslavement of a grace-less religion, and punishement for  their own sin, idolatry, and self-righteousnss. Many had given up hope that God would ever act. But now, with the advent of Jesus, the veil of despair began to lift. Was God’s kingdom close at hand, after all? Was Jesus the Messiah, the Christ, God’s anointed king, come to make things right?

Eight days before the events recounted in this morning’s Gospel lesson, one disciple, the apostle Peter, was moved by the Holy Spirit to claim Jesus as “God’s Messiah.” [Luke 9:20] Jesus told Peter and the other apostles, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.” [Luke 9:22] The disciples must have felt that the small embers of hope just being brought to flame by Jesus were being doused by His cold wet blanket. 

Popular thought said that the Messiah--the Christ--would conquer foreign foes and ensure an era of financial prosperity. (The very things we expect of politicians, by the way.) The Christ, they thought, would govern justly and everyone would live happily ever after. But Jesus understood that the people of His homeland--the people of the world, including you and me--are oppressed by much more than foreign threats or economic challenges, more than poverty or terrorism. All of those ills and many more come from a deeper human problem, the problem that Jesus came to conquer. That problem is sin, our inborn alienation from God, and death, the common enemy of every human being, that springs from sin. “The wages of sin is death,” the Bible tells us.

Jesus was telling Peter: “You’re right. I am the Messiah. And this is what the Messiah does. He bears the weight of Your sin and death on the cross, taking the punishment you deserve, so that as you daily you repent and believe in Me, you have eternal life in the kingdom of God.”  The kingdom of God exists for all eternity, starting here in the hearts and wills of people who follow Jesus. Being a member of this kingdom today won’t erase the sins or tragedies of this fallen world. It’s still poisoned by sin and death. But being a member of this kingdom today will give us the faith and courage to live the Christian life: to love God, to love neighbor, to serve others with no expectation of return payment, to call others to follow Jesus with no expectation that they will say yes, to pray in Jesus’ name for both those we love and for those who hate us. 

When the risen Jesus lives in us by faith, we can take a world going to hell in our arms and love it with the love of Christ. When you know that the story ends beyond the gates of death with eternal life with God, it changes how you do today! But when you’ve lived for five centuries with discouragement like Jesus’ people had and you’re told that your favorite myth about the Messiah is false, that He will conquer our enemies by death and not warfare before He rises from the dead, you need encouragement. 

And so, our lesson tells us that God the Father supplied it! Our lesson tells us that Jesus’ entire visage was changed, transfigured, and that the blazing light of His deity was on full display! What a sight it must have been for the discouraged eyes of Peter, John, and James! The holiness, grandeur, and light of God emanating from every pore of Jesus’ earthly body. Throughout His life up to this point, Jesus had concealed the grandeur of His deity and now, for just a moment, let these three apostles see Him for Who He really is, God the Son, so that later, they could encourage others weighed down by discouragement or a sense of defeat in the face of our sin and death. God was assuring the three disciples (and us) that despite the cross that awaited Jesus--that awaits everyone of us who confesses our sin and follows Jesus, that He’s still God and that the Messiah, after claiming His throne, will reign eternally over all who, by His grace, endure the discouragements of this world, by believing in Him.

Later, Peter wanted to build three booths or tabernacles, one each for Jesus and Moses and Elijah, who were talking with Jesus. Peter wanted to capture this moment and live up on that mountain while the dying, discouraged world went on down below. But God, who Peter was looking at in Jesus, is bigger than all the boxes we try to put Him in. And so God the Father tells Peter, John, and James: “This is my Son, whom I have chosen; listen to him.” (Luke 9:35) Here, God is telling us all: “Jesus is all you have been looking for. This is the one to whom Moses and Elijah were pointing in Old Testament times. This is your king, God in the flesh.” Jesus was and is the Messiah toward whom all of human history had been moving. And Jesus was and is the death of our discouragement and the Author of all lasting hope!

For people discouraged by life, the events of the first Transfiguration Sunday give hope. They must have helped Peter, John, and James and the disciples they led through the pain of Good Friday and Holy Saturday. “Yes,” they could have said, “Jesus has died, but we saw Him on the mountaintop. We know that He is God. But hold on. Hold on!”

Both Peter and John would speak of the Transfiguration years after it happened. “For we did not follow cleverly devised stories when we told you about the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in power, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty,” Peter would say in 1 Peter 1:16-18. “He received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory, saying, ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.’ We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with him on the sacred mountain.” And John says of Jesus at the beginning of his gospel, “We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14)

And when they saw the risen Jesus, the Holy Spirit would help them to put the pieces of the mystery together. They would understand that the sinless Messiah had to die so that when He rose, He could offer discouraged and otherwise hopeless sinners like you and me an everlasting kingdom filled with the righteousness and peace and presence and love of God. 

Take courage in the midst of this world’s darkness, hold on tightly to Jesus, and listen to Him. It’s in Him that encouragement, forgiveness, life, and hope are found. In Jesus alone. Amen

The Resurrected Life

[This message was shared with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio earlier today.]

Luke 20:27-40
In Romans 10:17, in the New Testament, the apostle Paul says that “faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.” Every Sunday in most churches at worship around the world, in this century as it’s been during the twenty centuries that came before, after God’s Word is proclaimed, pastors and priests, confident that this Word from God about Christ has the power to bring or deepen faith in Christ within those who hear it, invite worshipers to confess their faith.

In the Apostles’ Creed, we say that we believe “in the resurrection of the dead.”

In the Nicene Creed, we say that we “look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.”

And in the barely used Athanasian Creed, we say that at Jesus’ return to this word, “all people shall rise bodily to give an account of their own deeds.” (The only “deed” that will matter, of course, is whether we have believed in Jesus. As Jesus Himself puts it, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent [that is, to believe in Jesus] (John 6:29).”)

But for all this talk of the resurrection life with God that you find in the New Testament or in the Church, there are few passages of Scripture, except maybe in Daniel and Revelation and a few other scattered places, that talk about what that resurrected life with God will look like.

That’s undoubtedly as it should be.

For one thing, our call is to trust that anywhere Jesus is will be wonderful. Period.

Our call is to turn to Jesus and trust Him to take care of both the journey and the destination.

As Jesus told Nicodemus, “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness [This refers to when, in the Exodus, God instructed Moses to forge a bronze snake like the ones that were biting and killing the people, so that the people could, in looking on the bronze representation, acknowledge their sins and look to God for forgiveness and life.], “so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him." (John 3:14) Our call is to turn to Christ when His Word calls us to faith in Him and live, knowing that He’s got us in His hands even beyond death. “I am the resurrection and the life,” Jesus tells us. “The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die.” (John 11:25-26)

When you live in a world in which death seems to have the final word though--when you listen to the sin and death of the world more than you listen to the Word of Christ--belief in the resurrection of the dead can be hard. I have even heard church-goers say things like, “When you die, you die.”

The second-largest bloc of Jewish believers in Jesus’ day, the Sadducees, thought in just this way. Jesus encounters them in today’s gospel lesson, Luke 20:27-40. Like the Pharisees, who, unlike the Sadducees, believed in the resurrection of the dead, the Sadducees were concerned that Jesus’ popularity, demonstrated in the welcome He had received on what we now call Palm Sunday just a few days before our lesson takes place, would cause the Romans to come down hard on all of God’s people. The Pharisees and the Scribes have gone up against Jesus, hoping to discredit or even kill Him, just before our lesson begins. Now it's the Sadducees' turn. Take a look at the lesson, please.

Verse 27: “Some of the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to Jesus with a question. ‘Teacher,” they said [In Luke’s gospel, the only people who call Jesus teacher are enemies who use the term sarcastically or to butter Jesus up with fake respect.], ‘Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies and leaves a wife but no children, the man must marry the widow and raise up offspring for his brother. Now there were seven brothers. The first one married a woman and died childless. The second and then the third married her, and in the same way the seven died, leaving no children. Finally, the woman died too. Now then, at the resurrection whose wife will she be, since the seven were married to her?”

The Sadducees only accepted the first books of the Old Testament--Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, the Pentateuch, all thought to be from Moses--as God’s Word. So they loved to appeal to Moses whenever they were engaged in religious debate. And the Sadducees are right here: The law God gave to Moses, concerned with ensuring that every one of God’s ancient people received their inheritance in the promised land, said that if a husband died before he and his wife had a son who could be an heir, the next unmarried man in the deceased husband’s family was obligated to marry his sister-in-law. Their first son would become the heir of the dead man. But, trying to ridicule notions of a resurrected life beyond death, the Sadducees create an absurd scenario of a woman who has married seven brothers. Then they ask Jesus, in the resurrection Jesus talks about, whose wife will this poor woman be?

If the Sadducees with their tall tale here appear to have vivid imaginations, Jesus shows them they’re not vivid enough. They can’t imagine what the resurrected life God has in mind for His people will be like. Like most people in the history of the world, from the ancient Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians, the Mayans, Buddhists, and Hindus, right on through to modern people who bury their loved-ones with six-packs of beer and money, when the Sadducees imagined a resurrected life, they imagined it as being pretty much like this one.

Jesus’ response to them shows that, for the disciple of Jesus Christ, the resurrected life is in some ways beyond our imagining. (Which may be another reason why Jesus and the Scriptures spend so little time telling us what it will look like.)

Verse 34: “Jesus replied, ‘The people of this age marry and are given in marriage. But those who are considered worthy of taking part in the age to come and in the resurrection from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage, and they can no longer die; for they are like the angels. They are God’s children, since they are children of the resurrection.’”

Marriage won’t be a thing in the resurrected life, Jesus is saying. God instituted marriage in this world, in part so that mortal humans could live on in their offspring. In an eternity composed of people “considered worthy of taking part in the age to come” because they believed in Jesus Christ, there will be no chance that his new human race, made new and eternal by grace through faith in Jesus, will ever die out. Marriage, in that sense, will be unnecessary.

In the resurrection, the raptures of marital intimacy, sometimes plagued by difficulties, disagreements, and griefs, will be replaced in by the eternal ecstasies of immediate intimacy with God and His everlasting kingdom of perfection.

In the Old Testament, there are hints about life in the resurrection that Jesus brings.

• Job, the man who suffered much but kept trusting in God says centuries before Abraham and Sarah “I know that my redeemer [God] lives, and that in the end he will stand on the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see him with my own eyes--I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!” (Job 19:25-27) 
• Also in the Old Testament, Daniel 12 gives a vision of the resurrection of the dead. 

But, since the Sadducees only believed in those first five books of the Old Testament, Jesus decides to show them that the resurrection is real by referring to Moses.

Verse 37: “[Jesus says] But in the account of the burning bush, even Moses showed that the dead rise, for he calls the Lord ‘the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ [that’s Exodus 3:6] He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.”

The living God of the universe isn’t the God of dead people, but of people made alive by grace through faith in Him, the One revealed to us even today in Jesus.

The living God is the God of the resurrected life.

While those imperfect old saints--Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob--haven’t yet risen from the dead, they are alive in the presence of the God in Whom they believed.

They’re like Moses and Elijah, who could confer with Jesus on the mount of Transfiguration though centuries dead.

They’re like the thief on the cross who begged repentantly to be part of Jesus’ eternal kingdom and was told by Jesus, “Truly I tell you, today [not tomorrow or some day] you will be with me in paradise.” (Luke 23:43)

They’re asleep and dead to this world, but awake and alive to God, and one day bound to rise when Jesus closes down this tired old creation and brings the new one in its fullness.

The resurrected life we who daily persist in turning from our sin and trusting in Christ are going to one day enjoy will be, in the apostle Paul's phrase, “immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine” (Ephesians 3:20).

But even now, the resurrected life, the fully burgeoning and consummated Kingdom of God that Jesus gives to all who believe in Him has invaded our world and give our lives God’s hope, peace, and joy. Wherever the Word of Christ is heard and believed, wherever the sacraments are administered and received, that invasion takes place.

In His high priestly prayer, offered to God the Father on the night of His betrayal, Jesus says, “Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” (John 17:3) If you trust in Jesus, the resurrected life He died and rose to bring to sinners like you and me has already begun. The “resurrection of the body” is just around the corner!

For that, you can trust Jesus, the risen One. Amen

[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Transfiguration: Glory Through the Cross (AUDIO)

Here.

[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Transfiguration: Glory Through the Cross

[This message was shared during worship earlier today with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church, Centerville, Ohio.]

Luke 9:28-36
There’s an old Paul Simon song called Learn How to Fall. The bridge contains these lyrics: 

Oh, and it's the same old storyEver since the world beganEverybody's got the runs for gloryNobody stop to scrutinize the planNobody stop to scrutinize the plan

Artists, I believe, receive inspiration from the Holy Spirit even when they don’t know it. And I believe that in these words and in the entire song from which they come, Paul Simon, who isn’t a Christian, is saying more than even he realizes.

The truth to which Simon points is this: All we human beings who, though made in God’s image, have inherited the condition of sin from our ancient grandparents, Adam and Eve, want “glory.” We want, in our sinful hearts, “to be like God” (Genesis 3:5). (This is a distortion of the true glory God has in mind for us as the only ones God created in His image [Genesis 1:26].)

But, again like Adam and Eve who grabbed hold of the fruit that God told them would bring them death, things like glory or transformation or righteousness or joy or life or any truly good thing cannot be grasped by human effort. All of these things--glory, transformation, righteousness, joy, life, or any “good and perfect gift”--come to us as gifts from God. They are to be received, not achieved. 

Whatever this world has to offer will die. Whatever God has to offer is eternal. 

God operates by a different plan from the ones offered by the world, the devil or our sinful selves. Today’s gospel lesson, Luke 9:28-36, containing Luke’s account of Jesus’ transfiguration, will allow us, again in Simon’s phrasing, to “stop and scrutinize the plan,” God’s plan.

Shortly before the incident recounted in the lesson, the apostle Peter confessed his faith in Jesus as the Christ, the Messiah, God’s anointed King, the One come to make the fallen world right. Peter said that Jesus was, “The Christ of God” (Luke 9:20). 

This was the right answer, but Jesus might have had good reason to doubt whether Peter understood exactly what that meant. 

The Old Testament repeatedly promised the Christ. But popular culture in first-century Judea envisioned the Christ as a triumphant warrior king who would enter Jerusalem, throw out the Romans, the latest in a long string of foreign overlords to have conquered God’s people, and let the Jews conquer and be prosperous and comfortable. This popular version of the Christ bears little resemblance to the real one prophesied in the Old Testament by the prophet Isaiah.

This version of the Christ or Messiah would demand no transformation, no surrender, and no faith of His followers. They could be just as selfish and heedless of the Word and the will of God as they’d always been. All that mattered was that their names were on the church membership rolls of First Church of Self-Righteousness and Entitlement.

All of this may be why Jesus said what He said after Peter had confessed Jesus as the Christ: “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.” (Luke 9:22) And then: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.” (Luke 9:23) 

Life with God in His eternal kingdom is a free gift to all who repent and trust in Christ. But if we are to receive the gift God wants to give to us, we must stop grasping for the prizes offered by this dying world.

In today’s gospel lesson, Jesus shows us the path to glory that we all seek, even if that’s not the word we might use for it. So, please take a look at our lesson, starting at verse 28: “About eight days after Jesus said this [that is, eight days after the words of Jesus we just talked about], he took Peter, John and James with him and went up onto a mountain to pray. As he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became as bright as a flash of lightning.”

This is a remarkable moment. On top of a mountain, the kind of place where God had once interacted with Old Testament figures like Moses, the bringer of God’s law, and Elijah, Israel’s greatest prophet, Jesus prays. 

When Moses encountered God on a mountaintop, you’ll recall, his face reflected the glory of God into whose presence he had come. 

But it’s different for Jesus here. Jesus once said of Himself: “I am the light of the world.Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life (John 8:12).” 

You see, on the mount of Transfiguration, Jesus isn’t reflecting the glory of God. Jesus also tells us, “The one who looks at me is seeing the one who sent me” (John 12:45) and “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30). 

Jesus Himself is the source of the light. 

He glows in the radiance of Who He is: God the Son. 

“The Son is the radiance of God’s glory,” the preacher in Hebrews says, “and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word... (John 1:3).” 

This is what Jesus wanted His three closest and most intimate disciples to understand, that though the way to His kingdom went through a cross, through the surrender of self and the crucifixion of our old sinful natures, as God, the Author of life, Jesus could offer new and everlasting life to those who would faithfully follow Him no matter what. 

When we’re going through tough stuff in our lives, this can be our comfort and hope. Christ is God and He is the One Who can lead us to life beyond the pain and challenge and death.

Verse 30: “Two men, Moses and Elijah, appeared in glorious splendor, talking with Jesus. They spoke about his departure, which he was about to bring to fulfillment at Jerusalem.” 

Neither Moses nor Elijah had walked on the earth for centuries. But here they are, in Jesus’ reflected glory, talking with Jesus about his departure. 

In the Greek in which Luke wrote about this incident, the word translated as departure is exodos, exodus. The Exodus is the event in Old Testament history in which God delivered His people from slavery in Egypt, took them through the wilderness, and into the promised land. 

Jesus was about to accomplish a new exodus, this one not just for the descendants of Abraham and Sarah, but for all who trusted, believed (and believe now) in Him. Jesus was going to endure the wilderness of suffering and death, then rise from the dead, so that He could meet us in our wildernesses and lead us into the presence of God, today in this imperfect wilderness and beyond the gates of death in the eternal promised land.

Verse 32: “Peter and his companions were very sleepy [just like they would later be in the garden of Gethsemane on the night of Jesus' betrayal and arrest], but when they became fully awake, they saw his glory and the two men standing with him. As the men were leaving Jesus, Peter said to him, ‘Master, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.’ (He did not know what he was saying.)”

Peter makes at least two mistakes here. 

First, despite the evidence before him--Jesus allowing the three disciples to see Him in the full glory of His deity, Peter equates Moses and Elijah with Jesus. He wants to erect three shelters or tabernacles to honor Jesus and the two Old Testament figures, as though each were on equal footing. 

Second, like the grasping world, Peter wants to capture God’s holiness, rather than be captured by it. Peter has yet to learn that human beings cannot be saved from sin and death by the things they do, or strive for, or control, but solely by surrendering faith in Jesus the Christ. 

Peter didn’t know what he was saying, but God still loved him and Jesus would not give up on him, just as God loves you and me and, as long as we have breath, Jesus will not give up on enveloping us and the rest of the human race in His kingdom of grace and love.

Verse 34: “While [Peter] was speaking, a cloud appeared and covered them, and they were afraid as they entered the cloud. A voice came from the cloud, saying, ‘This is my Son, whom I have chosen; listen to him.’”

This is the same voice, that of God the Father, that told Jesus at His baptism: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased (Luke 3:22.)” At that time, the Father spoke to reassure the Son as He began His ministry. Now, at the Transfiguration, the Father speaks to encourage these three key leaders of Christ’s Church in the bleak days between Jesus’ death and resurrection, and later, in the remaining days of their lives. Even though Jesus would die, they would know that He was and is the Christ, and that they hadn’t been mistaken in following Him. 

Today, in the midst of both happiness and setbacks, we can live in that assurance, infinitely strengthened by the fact that after Jesus had taken the way of the cross, He rose from the dead, and that “the one who believes in [Jesus] will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in [Jesus] will never die (John 11:25-26).”

Verse 36: “When the voice had spoken, they found that Jesus was alone. The disciples kept this to themselves and did not tell anyone at that time what they had seen.” 

There was no Moses, no Elijah. Religion may be about building shelters--or tabernacles--to dead saints. But faith in Jesus is about following and listening to a living Savior, about turning from death and sin and self-will, turning instead to Christ, our King. 

That Paul Simon song I mentioned earlier also has these lines: 

You got to learn how to fall Before you learn to fly

We’re all anxious to fly, high above the death and anxiety, the sin and the striving of this world. We want the resurrected life, the life of victory. 

But before we can fly, we must fall. 

We must lay aside all our pretenses of a righteousness born of our own goodness and see Jesus for Who He is: the Savior Who alone, amid all the competing voices, is the One to Whom we need to listen. 

Not money or security. 

Not tradition or change for the sake of change. 

Not fashion or habit. 

Not Buddha or Allah. 

Not sex or drugs. (Or rock and roll.) 

But Jesus. 

Only Jesus. 

In another place, Jesus calls Himself the good shepherd and His followers His sheep, and then says, the good shepherd’s “sheep follow him because they know his voice. But they will never follow a stranger (John 10:4-5).” 

Amid the din of voices screaming at us on TV and radio and social media, commercials, and political ads, may we keep listening for Jesus, through the wilderness and the cross, to the promised land and God’s glorious kingdom. 

May we always return to the One Who loves us more than we can either ask or imagine. 

May we always listen to Jesus. Amen

[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church.]

Notes on Luke 9:28-36

Luke 9:28-36 is the gospel lesson for tomorrow, Transfiguration Sunday. If these help you with your thoughts in preparation for worship, that's great. (I don't claim to be a scholar, by the way.)

28 About eight days after Jesus said this, he took Peter, John and James with him and went up onto a mountain to pray.

Matthew and Mark say that it was “six days” after. Augustine and other church fathers said that this resulted from rendering the count differently. “Eight days” seems to carry a theological point.

Nonetheless, it signals that what follows should be read in light of three things: Peter’s confession of Jesus (9;18-20); Jesus foretelling His death (9:21-22); and Jesus’ discussion of cross-bearing by disciples (9:23-27). Death (or departure or exodus) and how it can be squared with messiahship and glory constitute the theme.

Peter, James, and John: the inner circle of the inner circle.

Jesus goes to the mountain to pray. In Luke, major new events in Jesus’ ministry always are introduced in prayer.

29 As he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became as bright as a flash of lightning.

Several commentators have pointed out that Luke, probably writing to Gentile Christians, did not use metamorphoo, because of its use in Hellenistic mystery religions.

While the three sleep, the full glory of Jesus’ radiance is seen in His communion with the Father (Hebrews 1:3; John 12:45).

30 Two men, Moses and Elijah, appeared in glorious splendor, talking with Jesus.

I believe that the "glorious splendor" that envelops Moses and Elijah comes from Jesus.

They’re talking with Jesus.

31 They spoke about his departure,[a] which he was about to bring to fulfillment at Jerusalem.

Of course, departure here in the Greek is exodos. The original exodus involved passing through the wilderness and the waters into the promised land. Jesus’ departure will be similar: cross and resurrection. This term is used, I believe, only four times in the New Testament: three times in the gospels and once, significantly, by Peter of his own death (2 Peter 1:15). Jesus’ departure is His baptism (Luke 12:50).

“he was going to bring to fulfillment”: Jesus, in His sovereignty as God, was going to accomplish His exodus at Jerusalem. No matter the pretensions of human beings, Jesus was always in control of His mission. It’s what He had His face set to do (Luke 9:51).

32 Peter and his companions were very sleepy, but when they became fully awake, they saw his glory and the two men standing with him.

It’s hard here not to think of the disciples asleep in the garden of Gethsemane. A lack of wakefulness always threatens their lives with God.

The three saw “his glory,” Jesus’ glory, “and the two men standing with him.”

33 As the men were leaving Jesus, Peter said to him, “Master, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.” (He did not know what he was saying.)

Peter turns to religion. He wants to capture the holiness, rather than be swept up into the holy. It sounds so pious. But God’s glory can’t be contained.

Nor are Moses and Elijah to be put on par with Jesus.

34 While he was speaking, a cloud appeared and covered them, and they were afraid as they entered the cloud.

The cloud (the nephele) brings the presence of God, as in the Old Testament. The three are afraid to enter this realm of God, though Peter had thought to capture it. This surfaces the difference between religion (Peter’s booth proposal) and faith (God sweeping us into His kingdom).


35 A voice came from the cloud, saying, “This is my Son, whom I have chosen; listen to him.”

This reminds the reader/hearer of Jesus’ baptism and the voice that only He heard at the time. The voice then effectively announced the start of Jesus’ public ministry. Now, the voice prefaces Jesus’ movement toward Jerusalem (9:51) and His identity as the Messiah Who suffers (Luke 9:18-22). This is a word of assurance to be recalled after Jesus’ death and resurrection.

36 When the voice had spoken, they found that Jesus was alone. The disciples kept this to themselves and did not tell anyone at that time what they had seen.

In Luke, there is no admonition from Jesus to not speak of the incident. At present, the three apostles have no bucket or category into which to place it; that won’t happen until Jesus’ death and resurrection show them what Jesus’ exodus entails.

Besides, there is such a thing as numinous awe, the overwhelming sense of being in the presence of God. Words fail. At the moment when Peter saw Jesus in His full glory, he blubbered the first thing that came into his head. It was both inadequate and heretical. He still didn’t understand Jesus’ deity. Silence was the appropriate response.

How little the three and the entire twelve understand is made clear in their argument over which one of them was the greatest in 9:46-48. No one who has come to understand Who Jesus is could possibly consider themselves “the greatest.” The transfiguration then, is like a time-released bomb that will detonate again and again in the lives of those who follow Jesus. His departure--cross and resurrection--were always part of the plan, for Him (9:22) and for those who follow Him (9:24). The path of glory goes through the cross, not around it.

[I'm pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church, Centerville, Ohio.]

Beginning (Understanding Revelation, Part 1)

[This was shared yesterday, the Second Sunday of Easter, during worship with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church, Centerville, Ohio.]

Revelation 1:4-18
Beginnings are important. For one thing, you don’t complete a journey unless you begin it. That’s true whether the journey is to Florida for spring break; to a new career; to deeper relationships with family members, friends, or even God. You have to start.

Today, we start a five-part series on the New Testament book of Revelation. Revelation can be strange for us. But digging into it and allowing its truths to permeate our everyday lives can help us to grow stronger in our faith, more confident in our relationship with Christ and in our witness for Him, more aware of God’s will for our lives, less afraid.

But today, I ask you to pay special attention to the beginning of Revelation. Not only does it just make sense to start this way, the beginning gives important themes that we will read and hear about throughout the book.

We call Revelation a book, one of the twenty-seven books in the New Testament, one of the sixty-six in the Bible. But Revelation really is a letter written to Christians to encourage their faith.

Traditionally, the Church has held that Revelation was written by the apostle John.

He did so during a time of sporadic persecution of the Church. In fact, John was being held prisoner for his faith when he received the revelation that he records in his letter.

The word we translate as revelation is, in the Greek in which the New Testament was written, apokalupsis, literally meaning lifting the veil. For the benefit of the seven churches to which Revelation is addressed, the truth from God about many things are unveiled. We benefit from God’s revelation to John as well, even though the imagery we run into can make us crazy.

Revelation is less about some apocalyptic future than it is about how to live our lives in the mundane everyday places of life, especially in light of others' indifference or opposition. So, it has applicability to every time in history.

That’s because this universe is still largely held captive to the one Jesus calls elsewhere, “the prince of this world,” the devil.

As has been true since Adam and Eve rebelled against God, sin--from Satan, from the world, from ourselves--is still fighting against God, even though through Jesus’ death and resurrection, God has already won eternal life for those who repent of sin and believe in Christ. Remember that the next time you watch the news on your TV or your computer: Jesus has already won!

Until we come to the ends of our earthly lives or until this world is brought to an end by God, we must be vigilant in our relationship with Christ.

Otherwise, we risk being eternally taken down by the sins that Revelation specifically addresses: despair, indifference, self-righteousness, lovelessness, the opposition of the world that makes faith inconvenient or hard, being heedless of God’s righteous commands, going along to get along.

Revelation comes to inspire us and put some spine in our faith so that no matter what, we will stand with our crucified and risen Savior.

Take a look at our second lesson for today, Revelation 1:4-18.

Verse 4: “John, To the seven churches in the province of Asia: Grace and peace to you from him who is, and who was, and who is to come, and from the seven spirits before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood, and has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father—to him be glory and power for ever and ever! Amen.”

Right away, John makes clear who his original addressees are--seven churches in an area of the world we now call Turkey.

And he also makes clear who this letter is really from. John is simply the conduit or the mailman delivering a message that comes from the triune God.

He speaks on the authority of the Father, the one “who is, and who was, and who is to come,” Yahweh, I AM, Whose name in Hebrew can mean, “I was who I was,” “I am who I am,” and “I will be who I will be.”

John also speaks on behalf of God the Holy Spirit. His term “seven spirits” partly references the seven churches he addresses, but it's another title for the Holy Spirit, the number seven denoting completeness, as when God created the universe, then rested on the seventh day.

And John speaks too for Jesus: the One “who loves us...freed us from our sins...and made us to be” God’s kingdom, priests, and ambassadors.

There’s no doubt then, about Who this revelation is really from. It’s not like when you get a text message from someone who assumes you know who they are and you wonder who’s this coming from. John makes it clear this revelation is from God!

How do we know that Revelation is really from God?

Well, the Bible isn’t like the book of Mormon or the Quran, lengthy tomes penned by single individuals accountable to no one. The book of Christian faith, the Bible, is the record of multiple authors and whole groups of people based on their encounters with God. And the book of Revelation can be relied on as a Word from God because it fits in with the whole witness of God experienced by millions of people over thousands of years.

We see the consistency of Revelation's understanding of God with the rest of the Bible in verse 7, where two passages of the Old Testament, Daniel 7:13 and Zechariah 12:10, with their references to Jesus written hundreds of years before Jesus’ birth, are cited.

After establishing Who this revelation is from, John, tells us how it came to him.

Verse 10: “On the Lord’s Day I was in the Spirit,and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet…”

It was the Lord’s Day, Sunday, the day that always marks Jesus’ resurrection from the dead, and John was swept up with inspiration from the Holy Spirit. (Sunday is always the day to celebrate Jesus' resurrection, including the Sundays in Lent, even if Garrison Keillor says that "if you're Lutheran and from the Midwest, it's always Lent.")

John heard a loud voice, “like a trumpet.” This seems to be God’s MO. In Exodus 19:18-19, just before God gave the ten commandments, a trumpet announced His presence. One day, a trumpet will sound when Jesus returns to this world. God got John’s attention!

This clarion voice tells John to write the revelation he receives and send it to seven churches. Then, verse 12: “I turned around to see the voice that was speaking to me. And when I turned I saw seven golden lampstands, and among the lampstands was someone like a son of man, dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet and with a golden sash around his chest. The hair on his head was white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire. His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, and coming out of his mouth was a sharp, double-edged sword.His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance.”

This voice had been heard before!

It was this voice that said, “Let there be light, and there was light.”

It was this voice that said, “This is My Son, the beloved; with Him I am well pleased.”

It was this voice that once promised that “his sheep follow him because they know his voice.”

This voice said, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die.”

John knew the voice because he belonged to Jesus Christ, the great Shepherd of the sheep.

John describes the appearance of this “son of man,” a term Jesus often used about Himself during His earthly life. He is pure. He glows like a furnace. His face was like the shining sun.”

In Exodus, the people of God feared to look upon God’s perfect radiance and when Moses returned to them after encountering God, his face glowed with the fires of heaven. This light displays both God’s holiness and our imperfection. God’s fire also purges those willing to follow Him of sin. His fire also rages against unrepentant sin, which is why Hebrews 12:29 describes God as “a consuming fire.”

In Jesus, John sees God.

No surprise there because John had once heard Jesus say, “I and the Father are one.”

Extending from the mouth of “the son of man” is “a sharp, double-edged sword,” the Word of God.

Hebrews 4:12 tells us: “...the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword,it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.”

This Word judges our sin and, for those who repent and believe in Christ, it separates us from our sin, which can be a painful process, and it cuts us into the kingdom of God, a blessing of eternal healing.

John is looking at the fiery holiness of God he had once seen in Jesus of Nazareth. What would you do in this moment? Here's what John did, verse 17: “When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. Then he [Jesus] placed his right hand on me and said: ‘Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. I am the Living One; I was dead, and now look, I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades.’”

Beginnings are important.

Here at the beginning of Revelation, John shows us that the message he shares in this letter is from God.

He shows us that we should have a holy fear of God, but that we never need be afraid of His good will for those who love Him.

And He underscores that just as Jesus had the first word at creation, the alpha word, He will have the omega word, the last word.

He was dead, but is alive, and now holds the keys to set free from death, darkness, sin, and despair for all eternity those who turn from sin and trust in Him each and every day.

We can trust in Jesus no matter what. This, really, is what all of Revelation is about. But we will let John unfold things more fully for us in the weeks to come. Amen