Transfiguration
– January 20th and 21st, 2018 – Matthew
17:1-9
In the Name of Christ Jesus, the Light of the World +
In the Name of Christ Jesus, the Light of the World +
And
so today we reach the pinnacle, the peak of Epiphany, there on the
mount of Transfiguration. We talk about Jesus revealing His Glory –
it shines forth today. We speak of Christ being the Light of the
World; He glows today. We are at a hinge in the Church Year –
after this we will begin our travels towards Lent and then to
Calvary, and so the Transfiguration works as a time to focus us, to
set us, to fix our eyes upon Jesus so we know what it is that we will
be seeing in the weeks to come. Let’s consider the text.
“And
after six days Jesus took with Him Peter and James and John his
brother, and led them up a high mountain by themselves.”
First of all, we have the note that this is happening “after six
days” – well, what happened six days earlier? In chapter 16 you
have Peter’s bold confession that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of
the Living God. And after that Jesus that He is, and that He has
come to be killed but raised on the third day. And of course, Peter
rebukes Jesus, Jesus says, “Get behind Me, Satan!” And then
Christ tells His disciples that whoever would follow Him must deny
himself and take up his cross. So what we had just seen in the
Gospel was an episode where it was shown that Christ has come to
suffer and die for sinful man, sinful man who continually thinks he
knows better than God. Peter says “Oh, you are God” and then
turns around and starts telling Jesus not to do things. That is what
happened six days before. We are going to be talking about God and
His efforts, His struggles against sin.
However,
there is more going on in this simple sentence – but to get it, we
need to think in terms of the Old Testament. If I say “sixth day”
to you, and you are thinking about the Old Testament, that’s the
creation of man. The idea of the sixth day always focuses on man’s
creation, man’s fall, and the promise of restoration. Moreover, we
see them go up on a Mountain. For a moment, just think about how
many Mountains from the Scriptures you know – Mount Sinai, Mount
Zion, Mount Ararat. Even the word “Armageddon” is just a way of
saying “Har Meggido” – or Mount Meddigo in Aramaic. God does
things on mountains. God gives Moses the 10 commandments on Mount
Sinai. When God talks to a despondent Elijah, it is on a mountain.
And because of this, the next verses really shouldn’t be any
surprise.
“And
He was transfigured before them, and His face shone like the sun, and
His clothes became white as light. And behold, there appeared to them
Moses and Elijah, talking with Him.”
And there, Christ Jesus is transfigured – there you could say that
He drops His guard a bit, and His innate, divine glory shines forth
and through Him – He glows – the grime and dust from His clothes
are overpowered with the radiance of His glory – it is an awesome
thing. And not only that - Moses and Elijah are there – the two
top preachers, the two top prophets of the Old Testament are there.
It is hard to explain just how fine, how sharp a point this event is
– everything in the Old Testament is funneling right to here and
this moment, all coalescing and coming together. It is as if every
bit of the Scriptures is there just ready to burst forth in
fulfillment, and what happens? And
Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good that we are here. If you
wish, I will make three tents here, one for you and one for Moses and
one for Elijah.”
There, at the culmination of everything - Peter starts talking.
Peter offers to start working. Now, what he offers is very kind –
it was probably around the festival of booths, the holiday when the
Children of Israel would basically camp out for a few days to
remember the sojourn in the wilderness. And there’s Peter saying,
“I’ll go set up the tents for everyone, if they want to stay.”
It’s a fine, nice thing – but think about the timing. There is
Jesus talking to Moses and Elijah – and He’s brought you along,
He’s invited you to listen in, and what do you do? You interrupt
and offer to go off and do something else. The text had said,
“Behold,
there appeared to them Moses and Elijah”
– and then there’s Peter, offering to do anything but beholding.
It would be like one of you standing up right now and saying, “Um,
Pastor, you like coffee, let me go make you a fresh pot of coffee”
right in the middle of the sermon. Nice sentiment, but terrible
timing.
This
sort of provides an example of a problem that we ourselves face –
the pressure to always be busy, be about doing something. What we
forget is that God knows that we are busy, that we have plenty on our
plates – and so in His wisdom He has called us to time of rest,
times to hear His Word. Human beings have always been ready to run
themselves back into the dust from whence God made us. He had to
tell the children of Israel, “Take a day off and rest and hear My
Word, it’s good for you.” Peter here shows the same thing –
instead of being ready to hear and listen, he’s ready to be
working. Same thing with Mary and Martha. And thus so often with us
Christians. This is not to say that we aren’t to be about striving
after good works and loving our neighbor – but what defines you,
what makes you a Christian? Not your works, but receiving Christ
Jesus and His forgiveness, hearing His Word. It’s Christ Jesus
coming to you that gives and grows faith, that makes you who you are
in Him. And lest you think I’m just pontificating, “He
was still speaking when, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them,
and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom
I am well pleased; listen to him.”
Even before Peter is done presenting his plan, the Father’s voice
cuts him off and says, “Look at Jesus, listen to Him!” Peter,
you were brought up on the mountain not to do, but to behold, to
listen, to hear and to learn.
Likewise,
dear friends, even as we go about doing many things, here in our
congregation, in our homes, in our communities, at school, at our
jobs – even as we go about all these things, we are summoned by God
to His house, so that we might hear Christ Jesus. And in actuality,
as the weeks roll by into Lent and towards Easter, what we will be
going on here is nothing but what the Father has instructed –
listening to Jesus. We will behold His actions, we will hear His
teaching, we will see Him do what He came down from heaven to do –
to take on Satan and sin and death and defeat them for us.
We
need Jesus. We need His righteousness, His holiness, His perfection,
His sacrifice. That truth is demonstrated in our Gospel as well –
“When
the disciples heard this, they fell on their faces and were
terrified.” When
the Father speaks, the disciples hit the dirt. Again, this is
something we can skip by, we can forget. We cannot stand on our own
before God – we cannot saunter up to God and say, “Here I am,
look at all the wonderful things I have done, I have served you so
well – now give me stuff.” It doesn’t work that way – we are
sinful, and sinners who stand by themselves on their own merits
before God, sinners who try to invent their own brand of holiness,
sinners who try to do religious stuff on their own terms – they
die. And as for Peter – Peter at that moment probably thinks that
he is going to die. He had just interrupted a Divine Service, and if
you did that – you died. We, of ourselves are not holy and
righteous, all our works amount to nothing, and if left to our own
there would be nothing for us but to be terrified of God.
“But
Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Rise, and have no fear.”
And when they lifted up their eyes, they saw no one but Jesus only.”
The
only way to stand before the Father is to be bound, is to be tied to
His Son, Christ Jesus our Lord. See what happens in the text –
James doesn’t poke up his head to see if the coast is clear, John
doesn’t just pop and say, “Well, thank goodness that’s over
with.” They are terrified, they know the impact, the consequence
of their sin, and they are scared out of their mind. Before they do
anything – Christ comes to them, He touches them, He lifts them up,
and they see only Him. Those verses right there are a depiction of
your life as a Christian. You were lost in sin, condemned to nothing
but eternal damnation – and then Christ Jesus came to you and He
touched you. And I don’t mean this in just some figurative “oh,
how touching” sort of sense. Jesus walked up to those disciples,
and True God become True Man physically touched them – a real
incarnate Lord comes to the disciples. Likewise, that same Incarnate
Lord has come to you and He has touched you. He has touched you by
water and the Word – He touched you as the waters of Holy Baptism
were poured upon your head, He said to you, “You are baptized, your
sin is forgiven, and indeed, you are now bound to Me, now part of My
Body, part of My Church.” He comes to you physically in the Supper
– He places His own Body, His own Blood upon your tongue – and
why? So that He can say to you, “Rise, and have no fear.”
That’s a word of forgiveness – that’s “go now, depart in
peace.” That’s let us go forth in the peace of the Lord. His
Word continues to be spoken to you, heard by you, even now, even this
day.
Everything
in our lives, our existence as Christians, is centered in and flows
from Christ – for He Himself comes to us, gives us His Holiness,
His righteousness, His forgiveness, His life – and when we are in
Him, when we receive Him, we are strengthened, we are renewed, we are
prepared to endure all the trials and temptations of this world, for
He has already fought them down, He has already crushed Satan under
foot, and in Him, we have the victory. And it is important for us to
always behold this, to always see Christ, to always hear what He has
done for us – because Satan does desire our fall, the old serpent
desires us to fall away. Let us fix our eyes upon Christ – let us
give heed to what He has done for us, let our focus be upon Him, let
us rest securely in Him – because that is when we are able to rise
and go through those doors in peace, in trust, in confidence in
Christ, knowing that He is the Righteous One, the Lamb of God come
down to earth to win us salvation and redemption. We will hear His
victory proclaimed anew in these months to come, and we will be
strengthened by Him. In the Name of Christ Jesus, the Light of the
World +