Transfiguration 2005

The Transfiguration of Our Lord, February 6, 2005

The Invisible Is Available!

Sermon Theme: Jesus’ transfiguration shows us his power and heaven’s surrounding presence on our daily pilgrimage.

Text: 2 Peter 1:16–19 (20–21)

Other Lessons: Psalm 2:6–12; Exodus 24:12, 15–18; Matthew 17:1–9

Goal: That the hearers live according to Jesus’ transfiguration, assured of the hidden yet real presence of God.

Suggested Hymns:

                                                                     LW        TLH       LBW        CW

How Good, Lord, to Be Here                       89           135           89            95

Oh, Wondrous Type! Oh, Vision Fair          87         (343)          80            96

Christ, Whose Glory Fills the Skies             480          359          265          (79)

Jesus on the Mountain Peak                    HS98 818

Rev. Elliott M. Robertson, pastor, Martini Lutheran Church, Baltimore, Maryland

Liturgical Setting

Epiphany: God in flesh made manifest! Each Sunday of the season, characterized in the Gradual, builds to the crescendo of the transfiguration. (This week above all others during the season we “ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name.”) The Collect portrays this confirmation of Christ the Lord by the Lord, given with testimony of Moses and Elijah. The Old Testament Reading from Exodus portrays the Lord’s glory, the cloud, and his conversation with Moses. The Gospel from Matthew is, of course, the basis for all the Propers of the day, particularly the Epistle, in which Peter is making direct reference to the event on the Mount of Transfiguration. Thus Matthew’s reading informs the Petrine text for the hearers at worship.

Relevant Context

Many Bible passages relate to this key event in the life of Jesus. Of the three disciples who went with Jesus up the mountain, two—Peter and John—authored canonical Scriptures and refer to the event in their writings. The apostle John says, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (Jn 1:14 ESV). In 2 Ki 6:17 the servant of Elisha gets a glimpse of the heavenly realities surrounding him. And the writer of Hebrews says, “We are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses” (Heb 12:1 ESV).

Textual Notes

Peter in his later years speaks of his own departure (e[xodo") in v 15. Then he recalls the transfiguration, where, as Luke tells, Moses and Elijah spoke of Jesus’ departure (also e[xodo", Lk 9:31). Peter gains confidence looking at his own death by looking to Jesus’ transfiguration.

V 16: Peter goes to great lengths to show that the Christ he proclaims is not a mythologizing of history’s Jesus, but the witnessing of the incarnate Deity. Thus, any charges of cleverness and inventiveness are eclipsed by majestic truth (v 19) and by eyewitnesses (the “two or three” of ancient and biblical standard, cf. Mt 18:16; Deut 19:15). And the author himself is one of these who gazed upon him.

Jesus’ “power and coming” are here a unified concept (a single article is used for both nouns). The power of the incarnate, transfigured, crucified, risen, proclaimed, and returning Lord are all united in what Peter and his brethren told. It is not that the kaiv, here, is epexegetical; rather, the article unifies two differentiated concepts.

V 18: “Sacred mountain” is descriptive, not an appellative, giving the mind to think of other mounts also made sacred by God’s action, e.g., Sinai, the Sermon Mount, lowly Calvary, and heavenly Zion, to name very few. There is a host of sermon material in simply comparing the sacred mounts and what God accomplished upon them.

Sermon Outline

Introduction: When the sky becomes dark gray and clouds over for rain, does the sun still shine? When you go to sleep, does the rest of the world cease to exist? When you think of Peter, James, and John on the Transfiguration Mount, and of yourself not on the Transfiguration Mount, does that mean that God won’t share with you the same glory he shared with them?

1. Our pilgrimage seems too often glory-less.

a. This life is difficult, and the world is not our friend.

(1) The courts of our country, as well as entire church bodies, are losing their way.

(2) Violence, sexual sins, materialism, drugs, and a culture of dishonesty run rampant around us.

(3) But Jesus says, “Be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world.”

b. Our own flesh fails us.

(1) Living our faith is a struggle, and we can slip backwards into old sins or fall headlong into new ones, with all of their consequences.

(2) We cannot trust ourselves to do what is best. “The arm of flesh will fail you, You dare not trust your own” (LW 305:3).

(3) Yet St. Paul writes, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom 8:1 ESV).

c. The devil is constantly tempting.

(1) He has plenty of practice and is proficient at the art of temptation.

(2) He is more persistent than we are.

(3) Yet James says, “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” (James 4:7 ESV).

2. When weary in our pilgrimage, we may long for the glory that Peter, James, and John saw.

a. We may wish we had lived in Jesus’ day and could walk with him.

(1) Be careful what you wish! As a clergyman, I worry that I may have taken the side of the Pharisees had I lived back then.

(2) Why should we wish for another time and place when God has brought us to this time and place to serve him?

b. We may seek glorious signs, trying thereby to prove to ourselves that God is interested in us personally.

(1) An entire industry of fraud (New Age, various unscrupulous evangelists) has been built up around the miraculous, fueled by the inner spiritual desire to be important to God.

(2) We may also wonder what God is doing when others get that for which they prayed and we do not.

(3) It is part of our sinful nature that we lose the importance of God’s blessing in our lives. After one blessing, we hear ourselves say, “Yes, God, but what have you done for me lately?”

(4) It is the sending of a Savior, not the performing of glorious signs, that is God’s specific pleasure toward us. The transfiguration pointed people to their Savior. We are glad for the Scriptures, which do the same for us. God is personally interested in us. As with the transfiguration, it is the Savior, not the sign, that is the ultimate.

3. As Christians, we have an unshakable witness! The invisible is available! The power and heavenly glory shown at the transfiguration is available to us, but it comes in veiled form.

a. At the Lord’s altar we dine with him who is unseen, yet whose Real Presence we celebrate.

(1) Did you ever stop, when in prayer after Communion, to think about the path—in all of life or in the prior week—that brought you to this altar? What a powerful, life-changing God we have!

(2) The Lord promised you his very body and blood and sealed its covenant with blood as your guarantee. What an unfailing God we have!

(3) His Supper brings a foretaste of the heavenly feast for which we long and reminds us that the earthly economies are passing away. What a steadfast God of hope we have!

b. In Holy Baptism we have been personally endowed with all that God has for us.

(1) We are named and listed in God’s family Book of Life and given his name.

(2) We are marked with the blood of Christ, that we and the world may know whose we are.

(3) We are set upon a road of discipleship (Mt 28:18–20) of following Jesus in life, death, and resurrection (Rom 6:4–8).

c. In the transfiguration, the prophetic Word was “made more certain”; the cross has made it “most certain.” Here God’s Word, the Bible, is the unerring witness.

(1) The Lord of glory became flesh for us—a humiliating transfiguration.

(2) The Son, the bright Morning Star, suffered for us—a horrible disfiguration.

(3) The Beloved, to whom we should listen, died, sacrificing himself for us—a blessed configuration of God’s justice and mercy.

(4) The crucified one rose—a thrilling prefiguration of our own resurrection to life.

Transition: The nadir of the cross and the apex of the transfiguration are all part of the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ (v 16) and of his illuminating rise in our hearts (v 19b). Thus,

The Invisible Is Available! Jesus’ Transfiguration Shows Us His Power and Heaven’s Surrounding Presence on our Daily Pilgrimage.

4. What we can’t see, in the transfiguration we nevertheless know we most surely have.

a. We have all of heaven’s greatness available as we share with our neighbors.

(1) We help in crisis, rolling up our sleeves and sacrificing our time to be with them.

(2) We share Jesus’ Gospel of the cross directly, promise to pray for them, or invite them to church.

(3) We support and become part of endeavors that take the Gospel to the ends of the earth.

b. We have the most certain hope for ourselves when the devil, the world, and our sinful flesh have unleashed their worst.

(1) The beauty of a full forgiveness, a clean slate, a new start.

(2) The surety of a Teacher and Lord who is leading us through life each day.

(3) The victory of knowing that death is not the final word or the gate to great and eternal punishment for us believers; rather, it is the portal to our actual realization of the same glory once witnessed at the sacred Mount of Transfiguration.

c. We have the assurance that we, and all who come after us in faith, are part of that communion of saints that Moses, Elijah, and our own spiritual forefathers have enjoyed.

(1) As God could keep Moses and Elijah, so he will keep us.

       (a) This is unlike the Eastern and New Age ideas of afterlife.

       (b) Our baptized personhood is kept intact.

(2)  As God revealed the physical reality of the heavenly (v 17) to the witnesses, Peter, James, and John, so he has reserved that same reality for us, and it is beautiful.

(3)  As we wait for final glory, we look to Jesus Christ himself and give thanks that the faithful witnesses (v 18) have spoken through the Bible to us.

Conclusion: Next time life seems to be an uphill battle and you’re getting too little help from your family, much less the world around you, don’t put God in their category. When friends you can see turn out to disappoint, then look with the eyes of faith. In his crucifixion Jesus has done everything to make you right with God. In his transfiguration he reminds you of the power and nearness of heaven to apply all that he did on the cross to your life and of the final victory that is yours in heaven.