Listen to the Sermon here.
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
The text that serves as a foundation for our sermon is our gospel reading for today, especially these words verses 30 and 31, “And behold, two men were talking with him, Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory and spoke of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.”
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, Jesus,
Transfiguration Sunday, as we end out the Epiphany season, end out the season of Christ manifesting Himself to the peoples, showing who He is to His disciples, stands as this great revelation that we all think we’d like to experience. Wouldn’t it be so wonderful if we could see God, see Christ, face to face, glowing white as the sun, brighter than the sun? And yet what we don’t realize is that our response would be much like that of the disciples. For unholy sinners, and we’re all unholy sinners, cannot dwell in the presence of the Holy Spirit. At least not without God cleansing them. At least not without God making them worthy. Today in our readings we learn exactly that. Today in our readings we learn that Christ’s departure, and that is His death on the cross, accomplishes our salvation so that we may stand in the presence of God.
Let us pray: Almighty God, our Heavenly Father, in the glorious transfiguration of your Son Jesus Christ, You made known to Peter and to James and John who Your Son is. May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer, that we may always, through Word and Sacrament, come to see Jesus face to face and know who He is and what He has done for our salvation; through your Son’s name we pray. Amen.
Peter and James and John ascend the mountain with Jesus. And scripture specifically says that Jesus took them “up on the mountain to pray” (Luke 9:28). That’s why Jesus was going up on the mountain. What mountain this is, Scripture’s not entirely clear. There are a few thoughts of which mountain this could be, but it doesn’t matter. Jesus goes up on the mountain to pray and He takes His inner circle, Peter and James and John, with Him. As Jesus is praying, as Jesus is praying, His face was altered and his clothing became dazzling white. Elsewhere scripture says it shone brighter than the sun. And Moses and Elijah appear with him, and they talk about Jesus’ departure.
Why Moses and Elijah? Moses is the great prophet in the Old Testament. He is the one who knew God face to face. Remember, Moses is the one who on Mount Sinai, God put in a cleft of the rock, and God passed by and then removed His hand so that Moses could see. God’s backside, he could see His back, so that Moses could see God. And when Moses came down from Sinai, his face was glowing, white. Likewise, Elijah stands as kind of the great prophet in the second half of the Old Testament. You get Moses in the first five books, but then from Joshua on, there’s not a prophet that arises that is like Moses. And certainly Elijah is not like Moses either. Elijah does not see God face to face. But Elijah does, after he is filled with the Holy Spirit and kills 450 prophets of the and God speaks to him there. But Elijah is seen as the great prophet in the second half, not as great as Moses, but certainly to be counted among the greats. And, thus in Moses and Elijah, we see that all of the Old Testament is pointing towards Christ’s departure in His death and resurrection. Jesus will make that explicitly clear on the road to a mass.
So Moses and Elijah are talking with Jesus. And what are Peter and James and John doing? They’re doing what they do best. Verse 32, “Now Peter and those who were with him were heavy with sleep”. They grow tired. They get heavy with sleep. “But when they became fully awake, they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him” (Luke 9:32). When they waken up, they see Jesus’ glory. They see him shining like the sun. And what do they want to do? Well, fear strikes them, and they want to build tents for Jesus and for Moses and for Elijah. Especially when the cloud comes and surrounds the mountain, they become afraid. Why? Because they realize that they are in the presence of the Holy One. They realize that they are in the presence of God Himself. And the holy cannot dwell in the presence of the unholy. The unholy will get destroyed. And so they went to build tabernacles, they went to build tents for Moses and Elijah and for Jesus. And then they hear the voice, “This is my Son, my Chosen One; listen to him!” (Luke 9:35). They fall on their faces afraid when Christ comes and Jesus is found alone and He comforts them and speaks to them peace.
Fast forward. Jesus takes his disciples up another mountain, the Mount of Olives, to the Garden of Gethsemane. And there, Jesus takes Peter and James and John, separates them out from the twelve, tells them to pray with him. Jesus goes and again He prays. And again, Peter and James and John do what they do best: they sleep. This time when they become fully awake, they don’t see Jesus shining bright as light, brighter than the sun. No, they see the torches burning, marching up the Mount of Olives to Gethsemane. They see Judas, one of the twelve, betray Jesus with a kiss, not Moses and Elijah speaking about Jesus’ departure. And as they follow Jesus down the mountain, they don’t hear the voice of God saying, “This is my son, my chosen one”, but they feel the deep darkness that covers the earth for three hours as God the Father sends a deep darkness over the earth so that the Father does not even look on the Son as He hangs on the cross. As there on the cross His Son bears the sins of the whole world, your sins, my sins. As there on the cross Christ gives up His last breath and departs from this world. Then the disciples return to the upper room. And sure they hear rumors three days later that Christ is risen. Sure they go and they see the empty tomb. But it’s not until that evening when Christ appears directly to them in the upper room, when Christ comes and appears and says to them what He said on the mountain, “Peace be with you”, that they have hope again. For then they know that they are in the presence of the God who forgives their sins.
We, in our lives, come up to this holy mountain, where God Himself is present. We made that clear at the beginning of the Divine Service, when we began, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Here, as Peter and James and John, we recognize that we are sinners standing in the presence of the Holy God. Likewise, we fall down on our faces and confess our sins to God. And He comes and He says, “Peace be with you. Your sins are forgiven.” And here we fulfill God’s command to listen to His Son, as here we hear the Word of God read and proclaimed. Here we get to hear the Word of God and see him face to face as in the Lord’s Supper, we eat Christ’s body sacrificed for us on the cross, we drink Christ’s blood shed for us on the cross. Christ’s departure which accomplished our salvation, nourishes our faith as we bodily partake of Him. And then as the disciples did, we are not called to stay on the mountain, to build tents for God here and dwell here forever. No. As Jesus did, we go down from the mountain, no longer with Christ’s command to not tell any. We go down from the mountain with glad shouts of proclamation, for Christ, Who was slain, has been raised. Christ’s departure has accomplished our salvation for us. And we go forth and gladly shout that to the world, that all may come to have the hope that we have, that all may come to have the sure and certain confidence that is ours through Christ’s death and resurrection.
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus, when Christ departed on the cross, when He gave up His spirit, He won salvation for you. As partakers of the joy of the resurrection, may you continue today and every day to gladly shout forth God’s holy name to all the world, letting all the world know what he has done for you. Amen.
And may the peace of God which surpasses all understanding guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
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