The Transfiguration of Our Lord - 02-01-2009

The Church Season of Epiphany,
The Transfiguration of Our Lord
One Year Series
Our Savior Lutheran Church, Midland, MI (February 1, 2009)

“A Glimpse of Glory”

Readings:
Psalm 2
Ex 34:29-35
2 Peter 1:16-21
Matthew 17:1-9

Sermon Form: Deductive
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Grace, mercy and peace be to you from the Father
and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen

The text for today is as recorded in the Gospel Lesson from the 17th chapter of St. Matthew, especially the following verses.

Matthew 17:1-9 (NIV)

1 After six days Jesus took with him Peter, James and John the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. 2 There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light. 3 Just then there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus. 4 Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here. If you wish, I will put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.” 5 While he was still speaking, a bright cloud enveloped them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!” 6 When the disciples heard this, they fell facedown to the ground, terrified. 7 But Jesus came and touched them. “Get up,” he said. “Don’t be afraid.” 8 When they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus. 9 As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus instructed them, “Don’t tell anyone what you have seen, until the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.”

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit

Dazzling white shining like the sun. Have you ever noticed how something bright and shiny attracts the eyes? Think about it. Probably the most common time we see a bright flash of light is when we’re taking photographs. Photographs capture special moments in time, people, places, or events, which we really want to remember at some future moment. The pictures we take record the major events in our lives, pictures of newborn babies, babies beginning to walk, a baby who maybe the third or fourth generation of a family. We capture the moment when our children head off to kindergarten, and we take their picture with classmates, as they grow up, sports, musicals, band, graduation, college, and marriage. We take pictures of our friends, our vacations, our homes, and our flower gardens. Some moments are so sweet, so glorious, that we don’t ever want them to end, so we freeze them in time. Then someday in the future we can go back and look at those photos, and see how glorious all these events were. And so it is with Simon Peter, he just wanted to capture the moment. But in capturing the moment of Christ’s Transfiguration, Peter had already forgotten what Jesus just told him. Less than one week before this very moment, Jesus had told Peter and all the disciples that, “the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again.”(Mk 9:31) But the walk up the mountain must have cleared Peter’s memory, because when He saw Jesus Transfigured, He didn’t want it to end, Peter was captivated by a:

A Glimpse of Glory

On the Mount of Transfiguration, God used a brilliant light to draw the disciples’ attention to Him in a new way it was a glimpse of His glory. There on the mountain, God showed Jesus in a light different from anything the disciples has ever seen before. Their friend was not just a carpenter, not just a teacher, not just a rabbi. He was much, much more than all of those things. It was pretty obvious too, because “a bright cloud enveloped them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!”(v. 5)

On that day God used the light that reflected from Jesus’ garment to proclaim the Deity of Christ to the disciples. The disciples had followed Jesus around the countryside listening to Him preach, teach, and bring and encourage faith to the most common of people, the most unlikely people of the world.

And Peter’s reaction to the Transfiguration was rather odd. Christ had told Peter of all things that had to happen. Peter looked at the transfigured Christ, but he really didn’t see Him. The Peter who had recently said to Jesus, “You are the Christ.”(Mk. 8:29) was blinded by the “white” clothes of Christ. Peter’s reaction is also odd because it must have rung in the disciples minds, that long ago Moses’ “face shone because of his speaking with (God)”(Ex 34:29) Maybe that is what popped into Peter’s mind, the fearful reaction of Aaron and the sons of Israel which was a glimpse of the glory of God in the shining face of Moses.

So there stood Peter, James and John, before Christ whose clothes became impossibly white. And if that wasn’t enough, Elijah and Moses arrived to speak with Jesus. But wait, there’s more, “a bright cloud enveloped them.”(v. 5) And almost immediately the whole event was over, the dazzlingly white clothes were gone, Elijah and Moses gone too. In a flash it was all over, it was but a glimpse but their eyes still burning with the blue spots from the bright light and the voice ringing in their ears, it was there and then it was over.

Then Peter does something that we are also compelled to do. He doesn’t have a camera, but he has the next best thing. He’ll build three shelters, as if to place a roadside monument for future generations to look at the chiseled words, ‘On this spot Jesus was here wearing a very bright white suit, He talked to Moses and Elijah, and God said a few words too.” Nope, Peter didn’t have a camera but out of fear he came up with the next best thing, he wants to build a roadside monument to God.

We too file away pictures of great events, not only past ones, but we dream of future ones too. We think of events fondly. How many times do we say, “God I wish it was like the good old days.” And so there we stand next to Peter, we try to file Gods eternal grace for us into our own precious moments in time. There we are with Peter making roadside monuments to the past. Whether it be worshipping the past, trying to capture the present, or longing for a future change, it’s all the same. Because in every monument we build to us, we are glimpsing at our own glory and so w are breaking the first commandment, “You shall have no other gods before me.”(Ex 20:3)

But then again, maybe Peter, James, and John were just plain scared. They had been startled by an extraordinary light a glimpse of the glory of God. We can only wonder it they knew what it all meant. And quite frankly, it would be some time before they would witness the answer to that question. The Light of Christ had shined in to their darkened world, and obviously that present Light gave them more of a future than they could ever have imagined or understood.

On the other hand, the disciples have us at a serious disadvantage. They were there and we were not. They saw the light, they felt the fear, they suffered the confusion, and they heard the voice of God. To have been there must have been extremely spectacular and awe-inspiring. What we wouldn’t give to travel in a time machine to see what they saw and hear what they heard on that mountain. How could you experience such a great event and not be changed or transformed. Then we look at our lives as it flashes by and we recall in a glimpse all the glory of our lives and then somehow we are saddened or depressed because all this must come to an end.

Yet in contrast, the glimpse of the glory that is Christ’s, is not for just a moment, but it is forever. So then, why do we need this story of Christ’s transfiguration? We need this story because it reminds us of the record of the brilliant Light that has come into the darkness of our world. It is a glimpse, but not the final glimpse.

That same glimpse of the Light of glory shines upon us in our baptism as we are marked by the sign of His cross. That glimpse of Glory is received by us in Holy Communion as we partake of the true body and blood of Jesus Christ, given and shed for our sins. From the cloud on the Mount of Transfiguration God said, “This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!”(v. 7) On the Cross Jesus said, “It is finished.”(Jn 19:30) In His Words and His actions your sins were forgiven, and you are transfigured. God the Father said, “Listen to Him!” as He takes away your sin. Hear and be comforted that He gives you the eternal promise that the brightness of His light, of His healing, of His peace is not just given to you for a glimpse, but it is freely given to you to gaze upon, forever. Amen.

The Grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God

and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

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