Let us pray! Lord Jesus Christ, on the mount of
Transfiguration Peter, James and John beheld Your divine glory. This was to confirm for them and us that You
had to go to Jerusalem to die for our sins.
May we begin to prepare our hearts as we prepare for our Lenten journey
to survey the wondrous Cross, not as an end, but the beginning of our
relationship with You. For You came to
save us from our sins and Your transfiguration confirms the divine plan of
salvation for all of us saints gathered here at Emmanuel this morning. AMEN.
After Michele and I were married, there
was a time where movies played an important part in our entertainment. One of the trilogies that we thoroughly
enjoyed was the “Lord of the Rings” adventures of Frodo, Sam, Gandalf, Aragorn
and the other hobbits from the Shire and other characters of Middle Earth. One scene from the Two Towers is especially poignant for this morning. Gandalf, whom everyone had thought had died
fighting a Balrog in Mount Doom, suddenly appears in the Forest to a few of the
company, Legolas, Aragorn and Gimli, that had set off in search of the Hobbits
taken by the forces for the Dark Wizard.
When Gandalf appears, he no longer is the Gandalf the Grey, but has
transfigured and transformed into Gandalf the White.
So to this morning the story of Jesus
Christ on the Mount of Transfiguration was not only a stimulus for J.R.R.
Tolkien, but was the inspiration for the return of Gandalf. As we heard, “Jesus Christ took with Him Peter
and James, and John…and led them up a high mountain by themselves.” It was not uncommon for Jesus to go to
mountains for prayer and communion with God the Father, but in taking Peter,
James and John, it probably caused some of Jesus followers to wonder what would
occur. Once on the mountain, probably Mount
Tabor, which is East of Nazareth, Jesus “was transfigured before them, and His face
shone like the sun, and His garments became white as light.” For those of you who have been up when the
sun rose and see the sun in the distant East rising, Jesus transfiguration
wasn’t slow, it was immediate, it was blinding.
Consider if at noon you were to look directly in the sunlight, this is
what looking at Jesus would have been like.
Jesus immediately transfigured before them and Peter, James and John
beheld the Glorified Body of Jesus Christ.
Then, “Moses and Elijah appeared to
them, talking with Him [that is Jesus]”. In this account Matthew inspired by the Holy
Spirit, clearly identifies two men that predate him by 1500 and 1000 years
respectively. Moses who had died and
Elijah who had been taken up into heaven in a fiery chariot were conversing
with Jesus, splendid in white, in His Spiritually Glorified state.
Can you imagine the conversation, the
two greatest representatives of the Old Covenant, one having given the Law, the
other being the most zealous for the Law, on the eve of the Law’s ultimate
fulfillment were speaking to Jesus Christ, the one Whom would fulfill the
Law? Yet what does Peter do, he doesn’t
try to ‘hold onto these three figures’, but says, “Lord, it is good for us to be
here; if You wish, I will make three tabernacles here, one for You, and one for
Moses, and one for Elijah.”
Peter wants these three men to stay and probably wants to ask all kinds
of questions and sit at their feet and drink up the wisdom and instruction of
all three individuals.
Yet, what occurs, the plans of men to
delay the fulfillment of the law is thwarted by none other than God the
Father. In similar fashion to Jesus
Baptism that we celebrated earlier this month, “a bright cloud overshadowed them,
and behold, a voice out of the cloud said, “This is My beloved Son, with Whom I
am well-pleased; listen to Him!”
Just as on the river Jordan where God’s voice Spoke and Jesus was
revealed as the Son of God. Here on the
Mount of Transfiguration God reveals to James, Peter and John that Jesus Christ
is the fulfillment of His promise. This
Jesus Christ Whom they have seen heal the blind, the lepers and the lame, feed
the multitudes, teach with authority and explain more explicitly God’s Kingdom
and prophecy about His own death and resurrection is revealed as the
fulfillment of the prophecy of old.
Jesus Christ in Whom the Father is “well-pleased” is the One Who would
complete the plan of salvation.
As soon as God the Father spoke, Peter,
James and John Jesus disciples, “fell face down to the ground and were terrified.” In their sight and hearing, they had seen
legends of the Old Covenant and heard the Voice of God the Father and some
would say out of their wits they were ‘terrified’. But the Pastoral Shepherd that Jesus was, “came
to them and touched them and said, “Get up, and do not be afraid.” The vision they had just beheld Jesus plainly
and clearly says for them not to be afraid of and Jesus commands them, “Tell
the vision to no one until the Son of Man has risen from the dead.”
So what can we take away today, 2000
years later? What gem does God reveal
for us today as we celebrate His Transfiguration, the appearance of the Moses
and Elijah and the strict command to the disciples to ‘tell no one until the
Son of Man has risen from the dead’? The
gem we take away is that this same Jesus Who revealed His Glory on Mount Tabor,
fulfilled on the Cross of Calvary for you and for me the plan of
salvation. In His one gesture of dying a
sacrificial death on the Cross, He made You and I heirs of eternal life. We no longer are bound by sin, death and the
devil and we are transfigured as well in our baptism into His life, death and
resurrection.
This
same Jesus Christ Who not moments earlier was in splendid array in garments
Whiter than any other transfigures us as well.
Through our baptism with Water and Word, we, the collective church of
Emmanuel Lutheran are transfigured and made in the image of God. Though we still live in earthly attire,
though we are conceived in sin, though we are both saints and sinners as Martin
Luther would attest, we have been through the Blood of the Lamb transfigured by
Jesus Christ. We are a new creation that
waits now for God’s calling to come home to be with Him in His Kingdom. Our transfiguration is an accomplished fact
and because Jesus has been raised from the dead, we now are empowered to tell
others what He has done for each of us through Water and Word for all of us
saints gathered here at Emmanuel this morning.
AMEN.
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