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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Some in our Pilgrim congregation are following a schedule of daily Bible reading that began the book of Exodus on February 1st. So, in Adult Bible Class last Sunday we were speaking a little about the book of Exodus (okay, we were speaking a lot about the book of Exodus—pretty much the whole class). This past Tuesday, the schedule included Exodus chapter 14, the chapter that records Israel’s exodus from Egypt, the event that gives the book its name. That exodus event is said to be “the heart of the Old Testament ‘gospel’” (Hummel), and the event gives a specific, rich meaning to the word “exodus”. That meaning carries over to the New Testament, where we find the word “exodus” used, strikingly, only three times. One of those three uses of the word “exodus” comes in referring to Joseph’s prophecy about the Old Testament exodus (Hebrews 11:22). Another of those three uses of the word “exodus” is in today’s Third Reading, where the divinely‑inspired St. Luke alone tells us that Moses and Elijah appeared in glory with Jesus and were speaking of His “exodus”. (The English Standard Version, read moments ago, translates the Greek word exodon there with “departure”, but “departure” is only one part of it.) So, as we consider St. Luke’s account on this day we mark The Transfiguration of Our Lord, we are “Speaking of the Exodus”, both our Lord’s and our own.
Every year on the Last Sunday after Epiphany we mark The Transfiguration of Our Lord, and over the course of our three-year cycle of appointed readings we hear the accounts of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. (St. Peter also writes about the Transfiguration in a portion of his second letter, which is included in the readings for Transfiguration in the first year of the three‑year cycle [2 Peter 1:16-21]. And, the cycle last year included the Old Testament account of Elijah’s unusual departure from this world, just as the cycle this year included the Old Testament account of Moses’s unusual departure from this world, read as our First Reading [Deuteronomy 34:1-12].) The basic details of the Transfiguration are reported by all three Gospel accounts: Jesus takes Peter, John, and James up an unidentified mountain; His appearance actually changes and His clothes brighten; Moses and Elijah are present; Peter speaks about building tents; a cloud overshadows them; and a voice comes out of the cloud, identifying Jesus as His Son. St. Luke’s Gospel account that we heard this morning includes quite a number of unique details: the Transfiguration’s occurring about eight days after Jesus said the preceding things, Jesus’s going up the mountain to pray and the Transfiguration’s occurring while He was praying, Moses and Elijah’s also appearing in glory, their speaking of His “exodus”, the disciples having been heavy with sleep but being fully awake when they saw Jesus’s glory and the two men who stood with Him, the timing of Peter’s speaking about building tents, their being afraid as they entered the cloud, and the voice identifying Jesus as His “chosen” Son. All those unique details—but this day we are primarily “Speaking of the Exodus”.
Jesus, Moses, and Elijah’s speaking of the exodus at Jesus’s Transfiguration is not a change of topics. The Transfiguration comes about eight days after Peter had confessed Jesus to be “The Christ of God” (Luke 9:18-20); after Jesus had told them that that Christ would suffer, be rejected, be killed, and be raised (Luke 9:21-22); and after Jesus called all to deny themselves, to take up their cross daily, and to follow Him, for, Jesus said, whoever loses his life for His sake will save it (Luke 9:23-27). After those sayings, Jesus was transfigured, and Jesus, Moses, and Elijah were speaking of Hisexodus, but the disciples may have slept through the conversation.
As the men were parting from Jesus, Peter tries to get Jesus’s permission for John and James to join him in making three tents: one for Jesus, one for Moses, and one for Elijah. St. Luke tells us that Peter did not know what he was saying, but, even if only subconsciously, he surely seems to be trying to prolong their glorious, mountaintop experience. Only St. Matthew tells us of Peter’s earlier rebuking Jesus when Jesus first spoke of His death and resurrection, but Peter’s tent‑idea may similarly be an attempt to prevent Jesus’s death and resurrection, not to mention preventing Peter’s own self-denial, cross, and loss of life.
How like Peter are you and I? We are similarly called to deny ourselves, to take up our cross daily, and to follow Jesus, even to the point of losing our lives. Would we not rather prolong whatever glorious, mountaintop experiences we have? Maybe we fight to stay asleep and prolong a pleasant dream. Maybe we try to go back to sleep and stay under the covers instead of getting up and facing a cold, damp, dark day. Maybe we have other ways to escape or to live in denial about the realities of our calling as Christians and our failures to live up to that calling. Before conversion we are completely sinful and deserve temporal and eternal death, and even after we are converted, even as redeemed Christians, it sometimes seems as if our lives are little different. We sin in countless ways, perhaps including trying, like Peter, to get to eternal glory without going the way of the cross.
As Peter was speaking about making tents, a cloud came and overshadowed them, and a voice came out of the cloud, both identifying Jesus as God’s chosen Son and telling them to listen to Him. The Transfiguration, the appearance of Moses and Elijah speaking about the exodus, the voice out of the cloud—they all were not for Jesus’s benefit but for the disciples’ benefit and for our benefit. Jesus’s death and resurrection, as well as our own, are what God has appointed. He calls us to repent of all thoughts, words, and deeds to the contrary, even as He calls us to repent of all our sin. When we so repent, then He forgives our sin, whatever it is.
Moses and Elijah themselves had called people to repent of their sin and to believe God’s promises of salvation. Yet, neither man really completed his work or saw the fulfillment of those promises, both turned their work over to other men—Joshua and Elisha—who, even by their names, still pointed to God’s promised salvation: Joshua means “Yahweh delivered” and Elisha “My God is my salvation”. At the Transfiguration, however, Moses and Elijah saw the Savior with their own eyes: they saw Jesus, so-named because He saves people from their sins. Jesus fulfilled all Moses and Elijah’s prophecies about Him, and, in a sense, Jesus completed their work (really, God’s work). Jesus is the God-man: the same body and soul born of the Virgin Mary, united to the beloved and chosen Son of God in the one Person of Jesus Christ. So, for example, from the moment of His human nature’s conception on, His human nature always possesses the attributes of the divine nature, even if during Jesus’s state of humiliation He only used the divine attributes on occasion. On those occasions when He used the divine attributes, He did so to give evidence of His divinity, as most‑clearly at the Transfiguration, permitting the divine glory to shine out through His body and clothes, even if somewhat subdued so the eyes of the disciples could take it in.
Such intricacies of the incarnation are not just topics for theologians in an ivory tower overseas, but such intricacies of the incarnation have incredibly important practical implications for you and for me. Because the human and divine natures are united in the one person of Jesus, His sacrifice of one human life perfectly and completely atones for the sins of the whole world. Each nature, according to its own attributes, acts in communication with the other as the one person Jesus works—to redeem us, for example. Jesus, Moses, and Elijah were speaking of His “exodus”, which He was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. And, shortly after His Transfiguration, Jesus set His face to go to Jerusalem (Luke 9:51). There, He truly accomplished His “exodus”: He died and rose again to redeem you and me from our sins. As God through Moses freed the Israelites from their slavery to the Egyptians and led them to the promised land of Canaan, so Jesus frees us from our slavery to sin and leads us to the promised land of eternal life.
There are quite a number of other parallels between Moses on Mount Sinai and Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration; we could speak a lot more about that today than I am. At a minimum, however, we can see, as today’s Second Reading said, that Jesus is greater than Moses, and the Church of Jews and Gentiles is likewise greater than the Old Testament people of Israel. Water and food from heaven played roles in the Old Testament exodus, as water and food from heaven play roles in the New Testament exodus, too. St. Paul says the people then were baptized into Moses and ate the same spiritual food. In Holy Baptism, at the Font, we are baptized into Christ, and, in Holy Communion, from this altar and its rail, we eat the same spiritual food—bread that is Christ’s body, and wine that is Christ’s blood. From here, we depart in peace to return again seeking God’s forgiveness, and He again blesses us with that forgiveness, as He blesses our going out and our coming in forever.
Our prayers this day include the Bojkaj and Odem families, grieving the loss of teenage and infant daughters. And, we pray for the family and friends of Brewer McClendon. To be sure, Christians grieve, but they do not grieve as those who have no hope (1 Thessalonians 4:13). Instead, we listen to God’s chosen Son, and so we patiently endure afflictions and acknowledge them as our Father’s will. We suffer the loss of many things—friends and loved ones, jobs, our own health, and eventually our own lives—and then, like our Lord, we enter into glory. He travelled the way of the cross to glory, and we do likewise. Lent leads to Easter, and death leads to life. Death is not something we dread but something for which we pray. For example, when we pray “Deliver us from evil” in the Lord’s Prayer, we ask God to “grant us a blessed end, and graciously take us from this vale of tears to Himself in heaven.” Do not complain when He grants anyone that prayer! In discussing Jesus’s Transfiguration, St. Peter wrote about his own coming “exodus” (the New Testament’s third use of that Greek word). St. Peter knew, as we do well to remember, and as the stenciling on our reredos reminds us, that we are merely pilgrims here, our home is above.
Today we have been “Speaking of the Exodus”: not only of the book of Exodus some have been reading daily (all are welcome to follow that daily Bible reading schedule—Leviticus begins on Friday!)—we have been speaking of not only the book of Exodus’s central exodus event that gives the book its name, not even only of our Lord’s exodus that He accomplished at Jerusalem, but also of each of our own exodus that God will accomplish for us as He did for St. Peter. Peter, John, and James may have alone seen first‑hand the proof that Jesus was the Son of God and witnessed the confirmation of His divine mission by the appearance of Moses and Elijah and the voice from the cloud, but Jesus used that proven divinity in communication with His humanity to accomplish that mission for all of us, that we might live every day with sorrow over our sin and faith that God forgives our sin. So we live every day in repentance, praying for our own exodus, we we did in the final words of the Office Hymn:
O Father, with th’eternal Son / And Holy Spirit ever one,
We pray You, bring us by Your grace / To see Your glory face to face.
(Lutheran Worship, 87:5)
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +