Matthew 17:1-9; 2 Peter 1:16-21; Exodus 34:29-35
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
“I believe that God has made me and all creatures; that He has given me my body and soul, eyes, ears, and all my members, my reason and all my senses, and still takes care of them.” So, we learn to confess from the Small Catechism. What we confess is not only that God has given us our eyes and ears, our reason, and all our senses, but that He has designed them to perceive Him and His creation precisely the way He wants us to perceive them. God created us to perceive Him and to receive Him, and God created us in His image to reflect Him. But Adam and Eve used their God-created hearing to listen to a different voice and a different word than His. And they used their God-created eyes to see and to desire what God had forbidden them. And they used their God-created reason to second-guess the God who created them and who gave them the ability to reason, imagining themselves gods made in their own image. By all rights and righteousness God could have destroyed them. But He didn’t. Instead, He did the unthinkable; He set about a plan to redeem and to restore His rebellious, fallen creation by taking all their sinful uncleanness upon Himself and by subjecting Himself to the destruction they deserved by sending His Son to become the man Jesus who, though innocent, obedient, righteous, and holy, would suffer and die for the guilty and the damned.
Until the Christ came, however, God gave men His Law as a guardian through the prophet Moses. Moses came as close to God’s glory as a sinful man could get without being consumed. Still, Moses did not see God’s face, nor did he behold God’s full unveiled glory. Nevertheless, whenever Moses came before God’s presence his face would glow because of the encounter. Moses’ glowing face terrified the people who could not bear the truth that God was holy and righteous and that they were accountable to Him and could not hide their sin and guilt from Him. Therefore, after he had spoken the word of the LORD to the people, Moses would veil his face and cover the damning truth of God’s righteousness that made them so uncomfortable in their sin and guilt.
Then came the baptism of Jesus. The Son of God stood in Jordan’s waters as a man. God the Father spoke from heaven proclaiming the man Jesus to be His only begotten Son with whom He was well pleased. And the Holy Spirit of God descended upon Jesus and remained with Him. We cannot overstate the importance and the fullness of meaning that God the Father is fully pleased with His Son Jesus as a man. This was the first time since the creation of Adam that God could say that He was fully pleased with a man. And, in Jesus, our God and Creator is fully pleased with you and all humankind.
If Holy Baptism was the official beginning of Jesus’ ministry, then the Transfiguration of our Lord was the beginning of the end of it. This time it was Jesus who ascended the mountain, taking with Him three of His closest disciples, Peter, James, and John. On the mountaintop Jesus was transfigured, his appearance changed. Like Moses, Jesus’ face began to shine. However, unlike with Moses, the light of Jesus’ face was not borrowed or transferred from another, but this light came from within Jesus, and it was light as bright as the sun in the heavens. Indeed, the light that shone from Jesus’ face was the uncreated Light, the Light that shone in the darkness before God created the sun, moon, and stars. Jesus was and is and ever shall be the Light of the world, the Light no darkness can overcome, and the Light that is the Life of men. And His clothing also shone with the uncreated Light. Again, this light was not borrowed or transferred, but it was the Light of the Son of God Jesus Christ that was present always, though veiled, under the humanity of Jesus. And then Moses and Elijah appeared as witnesses to Jesus, representing the Law and the Prophets, the Old Testament scriptures for us, which all point to Jesus. While we are to listen to God’s word and obey it, Jesus is the Word of God incarnate and the fulfillment of all the Scripture. Peter, James, and John were granted this momentary glimpse of the glory of God in the person of Jesus before He made His descent to Jerusalem to lay down His life unto death for the forgiveness of men’s sin and guilt and for the life of the world. This revelation of God’s glory in Jesus was meant to strengthen them for what was to come that, even when it would appear that Jesus was humiliated, defeated, and dead they would not lose hope, remembering the glory that was hidden and veiled under Jesus’ human nature.
Their eyes were created by God to receive Him. Their ears were created to hear God’s Word. But sinful men do not see or hear rightly, their reason is clouded and corrupted, and we are easily deceived by lying words and enslaved desires. Peter manifested his fallenness in a selfish desire to preserve that glorious moment, offering to construct three tabernacles to enshrine the moment that they might stay on the mountain forever in glory. This was the same Peter, you will remember, who, after making the great confession that Jesus is “the Christ, the Son of the living God,” was rebuked by Jesus for attempting to prevent Him from fulfilling the mission of the Christ, to suffer and die in Jerusalem and to be raised again on the third day. Once again Peter is overcome by a theology of glory and rejects his own need of forgiveness through the suffering and death of Jesus the Christ. We are tempted the same still today when we desire glory in the wrong things and before, or in place of, the cross. The LORD cares little for the things that men count as glorious: large church buildings with gyms, cafes, and family life centers, large quantities of people regardless of the quality of their faith, overflowing offering plates and faith and trust in dollars and trust funds. Thus, while Peter was still babbling on about building tents and tabernacles, the glory of LORD tabernacled over the mountain and all who were on it in a great cloud and God the Father spoke once again concerning Jesus, “This is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased; listen to Him.”
Like the Israelites before Moses’ glowing face, the disciples were terrified, and they fell on their faces. Like every man or woman visited by an angel of the LORD, the disciples were sore afraid. As the preacher to the Hebrews has said, “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” But then, Jesus reached out and touched them and said, “Rise, and have no fear.” It was an absolution. Even for this sin, so like the sin of Adam and Eve, even at this late time, Jesus would descend the mountain of glory and make His way to Jerusalem that He might ascend the mountain of calvary to suffer and die. Upon Jesus’ absolution Peter, James, and John lifted up their heads and beheld no one but Jesus only. Moses and Elijah had vanished. The cloud of glory was no more to be seen. And Jesus was the same humble, approachable man they had seen and heard and touched and known the past three years. They beheld Jesus’ humanity and humility once again and His glory veiled once again until it will be revealed for all to see on the Last Day, the day of Jesus’ return in glory and power as King and Judge.
God created us to receive Him, and God created us in His image to reflect Him, yet we are continually tempted by other voices, desires, and pleasures. In the Transfiguration of our Lord, God the Father redirects our ears, eyes, and our attention to His Son Jesus with whom He is well and fully pleased. As we listen to His Word, the Holy Scriptures, so are we given to see and to hear, to believe, and to know that Jesus is the Word of God made flesh dwelling amongst us and the fullness of God’s glory, that we may approach Him, receive Him, trust in Him, and call upon Him for every need and in praise and thanksgiving to God. The LORD knows that we are scandalized by suffering, weakness, and lowliness, and that we are scandalized by the cross that Jesus had to bear and by the crosses that we must bear as well. Thus, the LORD provided the disciples a glimpse of His glory veiled in the humanity and the humility of Jesus before He entered His Passion in Jerusalem that they might be reminded and renewed and strengthened in faith. So, we remember and observe the Transfiguration of our Lord at the end of Epiphanytide before we begin our Lenten descent into penitential reflection on Ash Wednesday in preparation for our annual remembrance and reflection upon our Lord’s Passion during Holy Week and the resurrection glory of Easter Sunday. Therefore, today we begin the first step of our descent with Jesus down from the mountaintop of Transfiguration glory as the veil covers the Lord’s glory for a time longer and we say farewell to Alleluia, firmly trusting that the Lord is with us still, veiled in Word and Sacrament, as we make our way through the valley of the shadow of death with Him. “Alleluia cannot always / Be our song while here below; / Alleluia, our transgressions / Make us for a while forgo; / For the solemn time is coming / When our tears for sin must flow.
In the + Name of Jesus. Amen.
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