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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.
No doubt in at least some cases with the best of motives, we might want what we think of as glory: for God’s Church, for the lives of those we care about, and for ourselves. We might want to have in worship here the seemingly‑glorious number of people worshipping at the Roman Catholic congregation down the street, or we might want here the seemingly‑glorious kind of facility Forest Home Baptist has out on the loop. We might want a seemingly‑glorious miraculous physical healing for a family‑member or friend, or we might want a seemingly‑glorious dramatic transformation of our own situation in our society, place of employment, friends, family, or body. We might want what we think of as glory, but such a desire might well come from a wrong idea of what true glory is and what it means for us. The Transfiguration of our Lord confronts us with “A Glorious God with Human Touch”.
Today, the last Sunday of the Epiphany season, we observe The Transfiguration of Our Lord, and the Gospel Reading reveals to us “A Glorious God with Human Touch”. In the last three weeks’ Gospel Readings, we heard parts of Jesus’s so‑called “Sermon on the Mount”, including His declaring that He came not to abolish the Old Testament Scriptures, the Law and the Prophets, but to fulfill them (Matthew 5:17). For today’s Gospel Reading, we have moved forward considerably in St. Matthew’s divinely‑inspired Gospel account. We are now six days after Jesus had elicited Peter’s confession that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God, and after Peter had rebuked Jesus for speaking of suffering, dying, and rising (both of which accounts we will hear later this summer [Matthew 16:13-20, 21-28]). After six days, Jesus took with Himself Peter, James, and John and led His inner‑circle of disciples by themselves up a high mountain, such as had been the setting for various significant events, including some involving Moses, as we heard in the Old Testament Reading (Exodus 24:8-18), and Elijah. There, on the high mountain, Jesus was transfigured: His face shone like the sun, and His clothes became white as light. As if that transfiguration were not enough, behold, there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus; behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them; and, behold, a voice from the cloud said, “This is My beloved Son, with Whom I am well pleased; listen to Him.”
When the disciples heard the voice from the cloud, they fell on their faces and were terrified. Now, the Gospel accounts of Saints Matthew, Mark, and Luke all tell of the transfiguration, but only St. Matthew’s transfiguration account tells of the Father’s being well‑pleased with the Son and of the disciples’ falling on their faces and being terrified. The disciples’ falling on their faces likely may well result from their terror as sinners in the presence of the Holy God, and perhaps their falling on their faces also results from their grieving over their sin and pleading for forgiveness. Peter, at least, had had his own idea of what true glory was and meant for him, and he was confronted with the glory of God, as might we have our own idea of what true glory is and mean for us and be confronted with the glory of God. We are, like they were, sinners who cannot stand in the presence of the Holy God. God calls us to fall on our faces and be terrified over our sin and to believe that He forgives our sin for Jesus’s sake.
Jesus is God in human flesh; His transfiguration makes that most clear. Moses’s face only reflected the glory of God (Exodus 34:29-30; 2 Corinthians 3), but the face of Jesus, the Son of Man, by virtue of His divine nature shines like the sun (see also Revelation 1:16). Jesus could have walked around shining like the sun all of the time, but Jesus humbled Himself, not always or fully using His divine nature (Philippians 2:6-7). Jesus humbled Himself for us, in order to fulfill the Law and the Prophets, as the testimony of Moses and Elijah confirmed. (Incidentally, Moses and Elijah are mentioned together in the last chapter of the last book of the Old Testament [Malach 4:4-6], and both were believed by some to have been taken to heaven bodily.) From the cloud God the Father personally confirms what Peter confessed, that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God, and the Father directs them to listen to Jesus, as Moses centuries earlier had directed the people to listen to the Prophet like himself, whom he prophesied the Lord would raise up (Deuteronomy 18:15).
The disciples and we are to listen to all Jesus said—about His own suffering, death, and resurrection, which He accomplished for us; and about our denying ourselves and taking up our crosses and following Him (Matthew 16:21-28), which He brings about in us. The disciples fell on their faces and were terrified, but, as St. Matthew uniquely tells us, Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Rise, and have no fear.” They presumably realized their sin, repented, believed, and were forgiven. When we, likewise, realize our sin, repent, and believe, then God, likewise, forgives us. He forgives our sin for Jesus’s sake. We can only access the glory of God through the inglorious Jesus hanging on the cross. For, we have “A Glorious God with Human Touch”.
By the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Saints Peter and John both later wrote about what they witnessed on the holy mountain, as we heard, for example, in today’s Epistle Reading (2 Peter 1:16-21, and see, for example, John 1:14). In that Epistle Reading, St. Peter seems to refer to the certainty of “the prophetic word”, likely the New Testament’s Gospel accounts of Jesus’s words and deeds. As he says, no writer of holy Scripture followed cleverly‑devised myths or produced such prophecy by his own will, but all writers of holy Scripture spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit, Who also is alone responsible for correctly interpreting the same Scripture. We, who are to listen to Jesus, do well to pay attention to the Scripture, His Word, as to a lamp shining in a dark place.
Through the Scripture, God’s Word, in all its forms, our Glorious God touches and so blesses us. At the Baptismal Font, our Glorious God touches us with water and the Word to adopt us by grace. When we who are baptized privately confess our sins, our Glorious God touches us with words of individual Absolution to raise us up and remove our fear over the sins that we know and feel in our hearts. And, as Moses and more than 70 others in today’s Old Testament Reading saw God and ate and drank in His presence, so at this Altar and its Rail the God-man Jesus is Himself present in bread that with His word is His body, given for you and for me, and in wine that with His word is His blood, shed for you and for me, for the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. Whatever our brokenness, whatever our hurt, and whatever our despair that has us fallen on our faces and terrified, Jesus our Glorious God, through His Word and Sacraments, comes and touches us, raising us up and removing our fear.
Truly we have “A Glorious God with Human Touch”, Who by grace through faith in Him, forgives us of our wrong ideas of glory and all our sins. We want to live every day with repentance and faith in Him, and we want to tell others about Him. Yes, as the disciples were coming down the mountain, Jesus commanded them not to tell anyone the vision until He rose from the dead, but Jesus has risen from the dead! Since then, we can tell others about Him! Now is always the perfect time. Later this morning we will sing farewell to “Alleluia” and put it away for Lent, in which 40-day period we prepare for the annual celebration of our Lord’s glorious resurrection from the dead. Before we make that Lenten journey to Jerusalem with our Lord, The Transfiguration of our Lord has given us a “preview” of His resurrected glory—the same glory in which He is going to come with His angels on the Last Day (Matthew 16:27), and the same glory that is also ours—with which glory, by God’s mercy and grace in Christ Jesus our Lord, we also will then shine in the Kingdom of our Father (Matthew 13:43).
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +