Transfiguration Sunday 2026

Text: “This is My beloved Son. Listen to Him.”

The Transfiguration is one of those moments in the Gospel where very little explanation is needed.

Jesus takes Peter, James, and John up the mountain. And there, for a brief moment, they are allowed to see what is normally hidden. Jesus shines with divine glory. Moses and Elijah appear, bearing witness. The Law and the Prophets stand with Him and point to Him. The One who walks the dusty roads of Galilee is revealed as the eternal Son of God.

Nothing new is added to Jesus. Nothing is changed. What changes is what the disciples are permitted to see.

And then—almost immediately—Peter speaks.

That is where the problem begins.

Peter responds to what he sees with words that sound faithful enough.

“Lord, it is good that we are here.”

And then he offers to build three tents—one for Jesus, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.

At first glance, it sounds like devotion. Peter recognizes the moment as holy. He wants to honor Jesus. He wants to respond, to do something, to be useful.

But Peter is not merely speaking out of excitement. He is interrupting.

The mountain is not a place for Peter’s initiative. It is a place where God is revealing His Son. And more than that, it is a moment that points forward—to what must come next. Peter has already heard Jesus speak about suffering, rejection, and death. And like before, he does not want to hear it.

Peter is willing to confess Christ.

He is not willing to listen when Christ speaks about the cross.

That is his folly.

He wants glory without loss.

He wants revelation without consequence.

He wants to follow Jesus—so long as following does not require dying.

Peter speaks because listening would mean surrendering control over what faithfulness will cost him. If Jesus goes to the cross, then discipleship will not stop with Jesus. And Peter is not ready for that.

So he interrupts.

He fills the silence.

He builds tents.

And in doing so, he resists the very Word he needs to hear.

Peter does not get to finish.

Before the tents are imagined into existence, before Peter’s plan can settle into something reasonable and respectable, God interrupts him.

A cloud overshadows them. The same cloud that marked God’s presence in the wilderness now descends on the mountain. And from the cloud the Father speaks:

“This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased. Listen to Him.”

That word is not spoken for atmosphere. It is spoken as correction.

Peter does not need a project.

He does not need permission to act.

He does not need reassurance about how sincere he is.

He needs to stop speaking and start listening.

Because Peter is not merely talking too much. He is resisting the Word that contradicts him. He is willing to listen to glory. He is unwilling to listen to the cross. And so the Father reclaims the moment and redirects attention where it belongs.

“This is My Son.”

Not Moses.

Not Elijah.

Not Peter’s understanding of what faithfulness should look like.

“This is My Son…listen to Him.”

When the cloud lifts, Moses and Elijah are gone. The Law and the Prophets have done their work. They fade from view. And Jesus remains—alone.

The vision does not stay. The glory does not linger. There are no tents to maintain the moment. There is only Christ, standing before them, unchanged in purpose.

And then He leads them down the mountain.

Not away from glory, but toward its true meaning. Not toward preservation, but toward obedience. Not toward a triumph Peter can admire, but toward a cross Peter does not yet want to carry.

Peter’s mistake is not ancient. It is familiar.

We do the same thing whenever we are willing to confess Christ but not willing to listen when He speaks about the cross. We listen gladly as long as Jesus confirms what we already want. We listen until His Word begins to unsettle us, contradict us, or threaten what we value most. And then—like Peter—we interrupt.

We do not usually interrupt with defiance. We interrupt with good intentions. With activity. With plans. With very reasonable goals.

We want a Christ who helps us succeed, not one who crucifies our plans. We want obedience that we can afford. We want discipleship without death.

And so when Jesus speaks about repentance, about loss, about suffering, about following Him where we would rather not go, we stop listening. Not because we do not understand what He is saying. But because we do.

To listen would mean surrendering control over what faithfulness will cost us. It would mean giving up the right to decide which words of Christ apply and which ones we can quietly set aside. It would mean accepting that following Jesus does not come with guarantees of comfort, clarity, or success.

That is not misunderstanding.

That is resistance.

And that resistance shows up close to home.

It becomes especially clear when we think about what we want from Jesus for our children.

Very often, what we want is not a crucified Christ, but a useful one.

We want Jesus to motivate our children to behave.

We want Him to inspire them to be kind, responsible, and hardworking.

We want Him to help them become people we will be proud of.

We want Him to spare us the problems we associate with “other children.”

And so we are tempted to treat Jesus as a means to an end—an influence, a model, a source of values—rather than as the Lord who calls sinners to repentance and life through His death.

What we want for our children is success in the world.

What Jesus offers is a life lived in the world, but not of it.

Those are not the same thing.

To listen to Christ would mean teaching our children that they are not first of all achievers, but sinners who need forgiveness. It would mean teaching them that faithfulness may cost them approval, comfort, or advantage. It would mean forming them not simply to fit in, but to stand under the cross.

And we resist that—not because we do not love our children, but because we do not want that kind of discipleship for ourselves.

We do not want a Christ who dismantles our definitions of success.

We do not want a Christ who tells us that losing our life is the way to save it.

We do not want a Christ who insists that the cross comes before the crown.

So, like Peter, we speak instead of listening.

We aim for outcomes.

We build tents.

And in doing so, we reveal how deeply uninterested we still are in hearing about the cross.

And yet—here is the mercy of the Gospel.

That Gospel is not distant. It is not theoretical. It is not waiting for you to grow into it.

It has already been delivered to you.

Before you ever learned to listen, Christ acted. Before you were ready to follow, He claimed you. Before you had anything to offer but resistance, He gave you His name.

You were baptized.

And in that baptism, you were not merely forgiven. You were made a disciple. You were joined to Christ’s death and resurrection. You were placed under the very cross Peter did not want to hear about—and given life through it.

Discipleship is not something you achieve by finally listening well enough. It is not a skill you develop. It is not a matter of being persuaded to give up control.

It is something Christ has already done to you.

In Baptism, He put your sinful flesh to death—the flesh that does not want to hear about sin, the flesh that resists grace, the flesh that interrupts Christ when the cross is mentioned. He drowned the old self that refuses repentance. He crucified the nature that wants a Christ without suffering. And He raised a new self that lives by promise—not a life you manage, but a life you receive; not a life you prove, but a life you are given.

That is the Gospel given to you now.

So when the Father says, “Listen to Him,” He is not inviting you into self-improvement. He is calling you back to what Christ has already done to you and for you. Listen—not so that you may become a disciple, but because you already are one.

And now—only now—can we speak rightly about our children.

If Christ has made you His disciple by killing and raising you, then what you want for your children cannot be something less. Not merely that they behave. Not merely that they succeed. Not merely that they become people who make you proud.

What you want is that they, too, be placed under Christ’s cross and promise.

That they learn to hear the Word that names sin honestly and speaks forgiveness just as freely. That they learn not only how to live in the world, but how to belong to Christ in it. That they are formed not by ambition or fear, but by repentance and grace.

That kind of discipleship will not always look impressive. It will not guarantee ease or success as the world defines it. But it will give them something far better: a life anchored not in themselves, but in Christ who gave Himself for them.

And that is what a Lutheran school is for. Not to preserve moments. Not to produce outcomes we can control. But to place children, day after day, where Christ speaks—where the same Lord who shone with glory on the mountain, and would not turn aside from the cross, gives Himself again in Word and promise.

“This is My beloved Son. Listen to Him.”

That word is spoken first to you.

Spoken to sinners who resist the cross.

Spoken to disciples who would rather speak than listen.

Spoken to those whom Christ has already claimed in Baptism, forgiven by His death, and raised by His life.

And because that word is for you, it is also for your children.

Not as a burden they must carry.

Not as a standard they must meet.

But as a promise that will carry them—through repentance and forgiveness, through suffering and joy, through this world and into the life to come.

So we do not build tents.

We do not try to hold the moment.

We listen.

And we follow.