READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:
Exodus 3:1-14
2 Peter 1:16-21
- St. Matthew 17:1-9
Mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you.
Who speaks to you on this day of His Transfiguration from
His Gospel, saying:
“And he was
transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes
became white as light”
Today, the Transfiguration of our Lord Jesus Christ, is
brought before our ears and eyes in God’s Word to reveal the purity God demands
and the purity He is willing to give. This should point us to the Way of Faith
in the midst of this fallen world, not so that we don’t lose our way and try
our hardest to keep ourselves on it, but so that we find our Way in Christ,
carrying the cross first.
So, you’re a saint, as we concluded last week. Beloved by
God’s Son and sanctified in and by His Body and Blood. Easy enough. But what do
saints do? Especially in the seemingly threatening light of Jesus’s glory
today? As we said last week, the saints tremble, they despair, and they say
silly things like, “let us make tents”.
Why tents or houses? To house the glory in front of them.
More specifically, to hide it so it doesn’t kill them. This “white like the
sun” was threatening. Just as if you were to stare into the sun or stay out in
the midday sun in the dryest, hottest desert, only this was worse.
The brightness of Jesus is the brightness of God. It is not
only a physical brightness, but a spiritual brightness. A brightness that can
be felt in both body and soul. Pierces them, to be precise. We can liken it to
the darkness that could be felt in Egypt (Ex 10:21) and the sword that will
pierce St. Mary’s soul also (Lk 2:35). It is judgement.
In the presence of Jesus’s Transfiguration, I’m sure the
Apostles had at their disposal Psalm 7:8, “The Lord shall judge the peoples;
Judge me, O Lord, according to my righteousness, And according to my integrity
within me.”
If so, then why did they have to be told not to be afraid? If their
righteousness would be judged favorably, why were they weighed down and
unaware, as St. Luke recalls (Lk 9:32)?
I’m sure they were adhering to God’s Word and acting
accordingly. No faithful Jew would ever go against God. Keeping His
commandments, praying diligently, abiding in His grace and mercy, and
faithfully using the gifts they received from Him. These are godly works and
commanded in God’s Scriptures. And yet they were still terrified to the point
of burying their heads in the sand at their feet.
It is interesting to see them in great fear where no fear
was, according to Jesus. And, remembering Psalm 53, it is the workers of
iniquity who have no knowledge, “who eat up my people as they eat bread:
they have not called upon God” (v.4-5).
Indeed, there are two things that call upon God, that call
Him to action: “the prayer of the righteous” (Jas 5:16) and the sins of
Babylon (Rev 18:2, 5). And since we, and the Apostles, know that Psalm 14
teaches, “The Lord looks down from heaven upon the children of men, To see
if there are any who understand, who seek God. They have all turned aside, They
have together become corrupt; There is none who does good, No, not one” (Ps
14:2-3), it must mean Babylon has triumphed.
Were you to ever encounter a real angel of the Lord and not
a fallen angel, if you did not immediately feel your guilt weigh you down like
a millstone, then it was not an angel. The holiness of God does not allow His
Name to be slandered or His honor impugned. It is not that He is angry, it is
that you are a citizen of Babylon and Transfiguration Jesus asks, “Fahrscheine
bitte”, “Papers please”
Repent. We come now to the very brink, where hope and
despair are akin. Our Great Hope, the Lord God Who is One, now demands and
commands us to be as holy as He is. He even wants us in His presence, but in
His presence is fire, smoke, thunder, lightning, and light brighter than the
sun. When, in another place, He promises that in His presence there is fullness
of joy and pleasures forevermore (Ps 16:11).
So which is it, sinful man, righteous man? Which is the true
Word and which is the false? You can claim righteousness, but only out of your
own pride. Or you can claim forsakenness, that there is goodness with God, but
its not for you. St. Peter wants to house, to hide the glory of Jesus on earth,
because he knows he is guilty.
In our own sin, we believe God is only motivated by
externals; righteousness, wickedness. We never think that external reflects
internal. It doesn’t cross our minds, or St. Peter’s, that God be motivated by
His own mercy.
Go back to our Old Testament reading for today. It was
affliction, suffering that motivated God. More than that, it is because God is
merciful, that He is moved to deliver His people. His is a self-motivation,
because He is Good. He does not wait for evil or righteousness, but acts on His
own and at His own time.
When Jesus is made man, He opens the heavens. They were
opened at His birth and the choirs sang Gloria in excelsis. They were opened at
His baptism and St. John the Baptist sang the Angus Dei. They were opened
today, and the gang was brought together, the Apostles and Prophets, which our
faith is built upon.
And finally, the door was jammed open by His cross, when
death and life contended and life was victorious. The suffering and death of
Jesus is the righteousness God seeks and in it He carries the wickedness that
leads to everlasting death. In other words, Jesus also motivates God.
And if it is Jesus, then the motivation is forgiveness. That
God is moved to forgive sins because He is merciful and because of Christ’s
atoning sacrifice for sinners.
The apostles know of His mercy, at least in theory. In
practice it may be different, you know, because God can do whatever He wants.
But they have not yet been given the sacrifice for sins. They still think they
need to provide it. They still believe that He needs them to provide for Him.
It is in that despair of thinking that Jesus then hides
Himself. Jesus doesn’t aim for the high life, a return on His investment, or a
promise from you to do better before He heads to His greatest work. He takes on your despair, crucifies it, and resurrects it to hope. Despair is of sin. It expects
nothing good, holds on to nothing good, and has nothing good.
Jesus moves without despair, obeying the Father perfectly on
our behalf. He does cry out in anguish, but builds His hope on “Thy Will be
done.” In His perfection, hope comes in the morning of His resurrection
from the dead. The light of Transfiguration is brighter than anything, except
the light of Easter morning.
There, Jesus secures hope and victory for all eternity, not
just for a moment. In the Resurrection of Jesus, all suffering is seen to end,
all questions and doubts have been answered at last. Such as where
righteousness is, where wickedness ends, and where our own guilt rests: on
Jesus.
So that when there is guilt, judgment, and a burning furnace
blocking our path to God, the righteousness of Christ is that way and is given
to us to break through that way. When we despair because of the cross given to
us to bear, we knuckle under because the promise of joy and pleasures at God’s
Right hand is that way.
God gives us duty to weather the storm of despair. When we
adhere to His Word, pray to Him, abide in His grace, and use the gifts He gave
in Word and Sacrament, we don’t earn gold stars. Instead, we get the comfort of
knowing we are still on the right path. The path towards hope.
Jesus is faithful to complete the work that He began in us.
The Holy Spirit is strong to sustain us on our way with His Church. The Father
continues to take care of all our needs of body and soul. We follow the Lamb,
because He has gone ahead to show us that everything will be ok.
Our proof is His Blood. Our papers are adoption papers as
sons of God. And our hope is in Him alone Who has conquered sin, death, and the
power of despair with His own Body. Jesus, knowing the prophets, Apostles, and
we cannot handle His glory, houses Himself in His own Body, His tent, in order
that we have the power to house Christ.
Hear this in Ephesians 3:
“For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord
Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He
would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with
might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts
through faith;” (v.14-19) in your own body.
Baptized into His Body, we are cared for by the Head, by
Christ, as a Bride is cared for by her husband. “For no one ever hated his
own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the Church”
(Eph 5:29).
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