Listen Up

Last Wednesday, I had such a good time because I was preparing the handouts for our weekly Bible study. We are using the daily lectionary that is in our Lutheran Book of Worship. Those daily readings have us read through the Old Testament stories once in two years, and the entire New Testament twice. To be clear, you have to read the Psalms separately, and the convention is to read them all each month.

At any rate, I was preparing lists of the readings, which would be handier for you than lugging around an LBW. Instead of simply making a list of the readings for the week, I put together a crossword puzzle too, with a question for each of the 21 readings in the week. In order to make the puzzles though, I first had to read all 21 readings. On top of that, I did two weeks’ worth, so I did 42 readings in order to make the handouts for last Wednesday’s class.

This was very enjoyable, even fun. The process had me reading the Word for hours. I’m surprised people walking down the hallway to see Pamela, didn’t wonder why I was fairly glowing.

Well, I am sure that I wasn’t glowing. Still, it was great spending that much time with God in his Word. And it made me start thinking about retreats for us at St. Paul’s. More on that at another time. But for now, I do want to speak to you about people who actually have glowed because they had spent significant time in the presence of God.

Let us pray. Lord, you have spoken. And so, Holy Spirit, shine within us as we reflect upon your Word together. Open our minds and give us such understanding as brings you glory. Amen

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen

When Moses had gone up on Mount Sinai with two blank stone tablets to replace the ones he had shattered[1], he found himself alone except for the presence of the almighty God. Then the Lord descended in the cloud[2]. We note that he descended in “the” cloud, not “a” cloud. This is a certain, definite cloud, presumably the same one in which he preceded the company of Israel through the wilderness. I wonder what it must have been like for Moses, standing there on the mountain top with the cloud settling down and the Lord then standing there with him.

Even John fell twice at the feet of a mere angel in the Apocalypse[3]. Moses could not have thought this was simply a heavenly messenger from God; he knew it to be God himself who called him up on the mountain to replace the tablets. This was the One God who stood before in all the glory of his being. How Moses’ knees must have wanted to give way.

Yet he seems transfixed as the Lord passes before him, announcing his name, his person, and his character. Luther called these few words in Exodus 34:6-7 a “sermon on the name of the Lord.” At the conclusion of this sermon on the Lord’s name, Moses seems to comprehend it is the Lord before him, and quickly bows low to worship him[4]. In the presence of The Most High, it is not surprising that one would become acutely aware of his sin. And in Moses’ case, he being a father to Israel, a leader who cared for the people entrusted to him, Moses then interceded for the obstinate and sinful Israelites[5].

God promises to forgive, to be their God, and to abide in the midst of them. In doing so, he also warns them to be more careful to observe his commandments. He makes the commandments clearer, leading up to today’s Old Testament lesson. In the clarification, he provides further directives by which the covenant is to be kept.

Moses remains on the mountain with the Lord for forty days, the space of time that is about to unfold before us in Lent. So, at this point, I want to encourage you to find a way to be much in the Lord’s presence during these Lenten days. Read the Word and pray; pray in the Word, as I taught about two dozen of you Wednesday night at Bible study. By all means, come out to Bible studies during Lent. You may do so on Wednesday nights at 6:00 and Thursday mornings at 10:00. We will pray and study God’s word together in his presence.

You may also avail yourself of the daily video devotions, “Reading the Word with Luther,” on our website and Facebook page. Use our Lenten devotional booklet each day. But whatever you do, be sure to pray in the Word each day of Lent. We say too much about giving up things like chocolate or Facebook for Lent when we should really be giving up some time each day for prayer.

Moses gave up forty days and nights. How many hours each day would that be? Twelve? 16? I mean, he didn’t have to cook or eat—or even drink. Let’s just say 10 hours a day. He may have needed every minute of those 400 hours in order to carve into the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.

When he had finished his 40 days of chiseling with the Lord, Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the tablets. This time, as if to announce to the obstinate Israelites the enormity of his retreat, the face of Moses, unbeknownst to himself, shone. Aaron and all the people were afraid to come near him. But Moses called them near and announced the Lord’s covenant, and when he had concluded, placed a veil upon his face. Only when Moses went into the Tent of Meeting to talk with the Lord did he remove the veil.

In anticipation of our Gospel lesson, may I offer that Moses already knew something of what it was to shine in the presence of the glory who is God.

Knowing what lay before him, and for that matter the trauma that was imminent for his disciples, Jesus takes the required number of witnesses up a high mountain. We do not know what mountain it is, only that it is high and that Jesus, Peter, James, and John are alone together in its heights. Jesus has taken along one more than the required and sufficient number of witnesses to what is about to transpire.[6]

The disciples were about to witness who Jesus is, God incarnate, in the flesh. They would see him in all his divine glory, transfigured—not a mere reflection of God’s glory as Moses was after 40 days on the mountain. His bodily form now displayed his divine nature. Peter later testified that they “were eyewitnesses of his majesty.”[7] John wrote, “We beheld his glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father.”[8]

Note that this was not a lingering display of glory. Yet, like Moses, the glory of Christ needed to be veiled, just in a different way than using a piece of cloth. When they were coming down the mountain, Jesus instructed them to tell no one about the transfiguration until he had risen from the dead.

The Transfiguration was witnessed by the three so that after Jesus had died and risen from the dead, people would hear their testimony. After his crucifixion, death, and burial, the other disciples would need to hear the testimony of the three. After his resurrection appearances, when it would be so hard to believe what they saw, they would need to hear the word of witness. Then, after Christ Jesus’ ascension, they would perhaps especially need to hear the comforting word of hope.

It is not for us to see the shining evidence. Instead, we are to hear the word of the witnesses. We are to believe in who Christ is based upon hearing the Word, not examining the evidence. We are to believe that Jesus Christ is the only begotten Son of the Father, shining now in all of God’s glory—not because we have seen him, but because we believe what we have heard. Jesus did not want us to believe because we are eye witnesses but because we have the eyes of faith.

The Father’s voice in the cloud says that we are to listen to him. We need no further evidence than his Word. A translation that shows the present imperative nature of the verb akouete would be, “Him be hearing!”[9] We are to be listening to Jesus in every present moment.

A couple of weeks ago on the Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany, we heard the same thing in the Old Testament lesson: “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen.”[10]

For those who have faith, who hear and believe, there are two rewards: one in heaven and one on earth. In heaven, we will be blessed to see forever what Peter, James, and John saw but briefly. Like John, believers will behold the heavenly city, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God.[11] The holy city will have no need of light like the sun or the moon because the glory of God provides an eternal light, and the Lamb of God is the city’s lamp.[12]

Already, Jesus shines with the glory of God, and he will so shine forever. Do you believe in him? Then you will walk in the light of his glory[13] with all those whose names are recorded in the Lamb’s book of life.[14] Moses spent 40 days inscribing the tablets with the commandments of God. The ages since have been spent writing the names of the faithful in Christ’s book of life.

Our New Testament lesson speaks to the other reward given to believers. We are given hope. Ours is no veiled hope either, but a bold hope. For we do not hope in the law or our ability to keep the law or do good works or be good, moral folks. That sort of glory fades with our next word, our next action, our next thought. Our hope is in the unfading glory of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The gospel in the Old Testament is not obscured or veiled to us. In his preface to the German translation of the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Old Testament, Luther wrote of the five books of Moses, “Here you will find the swaddling cloths and crib in which Christ lies and where the angels guide the shepherds…dear is the treasure of Christ that lies within.”[15] Luther saw the treasure of the good news of Jesus Christ throughout the Old Testament.

The law and the prophets, as the Transfiguration shows us with Moses and Elijah, cannot veil Christ. Indeed, it is in their midst that we may clearly see Christ Jesus. And when we are no longer bound the law and prophets, the Beloved remains. Therefore, when we read the Books of Moses, and the prophets, and the writings, we should be listening up, expecting to hear the gospel, to see Christ transfigured before us throughout the Old Testament. He alone is our hope, not the law nor our ability to keep it.

We see then, that the transfiguration is part of the foundation of faith, one of the tenets of salvation. The transfiguration establishes Jesus as the Son of God, “not by word alone or by inference from deeds (miracles) but by withdrawing the veil from his divine glory.”[16] We are therefore able to confess that we believe in God the Son, as well as the Father and the Holy Spirit. This, and nothing less, is saving faith.

Through this faith in the divine Christ we are gifted with everything that we confess in the Third Article of the Creed, including our hope of “the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.”

You, the church, have been given, as it were, ears to see our transfigured Lord—by listening up and believing.

[1] Exodus 34:1-2

[2] Exodus 34:5

[3] Revelation 19:10; 22:8

[4] Exodus 34:8

[5] Exodus 34:9

[6] John 8:17

[7] 2 Peter 1:16

[8] John 1:14

[9] R. C. H. Lenski, The Interpretation of St. Mark’s Gospel (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Publishing House, 1961), 367.

[10] Deuteronomy 18:15; echoed in Acts 3:22

[11] Revelation 21:10

[12] Revelation 21:23

[13] Revelation 21:24

[14] Revelation 21:27

[15] Stephan Füssel. The Luther Bible of 1534. Köln: Taschen, 2003, 40

[16] R. C. H. Lenski, The Interpretation of St. Mark’s Gospel (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Publishing House, 1961), 369.