The sermon below was proclaimed on February 23, 2020 at Our Savior’s Lutheran Church, Rock Valley, IA.
Grace and Peace to you, from the one who is, who was, and who is to come, Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.
Today we celebrate the Transfiguration of our Lord, Jesus Christ. We remember Christ going up the mountain with his disciples, his face and clothing, shining like the sun. We remember God speaking from the cloud, echoing the words from Jesus Baptism, Behold, my beloved, with whom I am well pleased, listen to him.
But, Why here? Why now are we celebrating this odd event in Jesus Ministry and Formation? What is its purpose in our church calendar, and in our lives?
Epiphany is ending, Christmas is well past. In three days, we mark Ash Wednesday and the start of Lent. Maundy Thursday and Good Friday loom heavy on the horizon.
Jesus knew when he took the disciples up that mountain what would be coming in the near future. Immediately before this week’s gospel reading, Jesus has told his disciples that he must die, and that anyone who would follow Jesus will also have to pick up their cross.
Death is drawing near. A time of fear, uncertainty, and sorrow waits for the disciples. Just like when God called Moses to the mountain in Sinai. God knew that the Israelites had a long, dangerous, frightening road ahead of them before they would reach the promised land.
There is nothing that we can do to stop the fate of Christ. There was nothing that Peter could do when in Matthew 16:22 after Jesus had spoken of his death and suffering to come, “Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, ‘God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.’”
For many people, myself included, Lent is a difficult time of the Church year. It is a time we are reminded of our own mortality, and the mortality of those we love. When we are reminded of the fact that we too are dust, and to dust we will return, we remember loved ones who have died, recent and long-standing wounds of grief are reopened. In Lent, we are called to remember our sins, our brokenness, and our broken relationships. In Lent we are reminded of the myriad of ways that we are captive to sin and cannot free ourselves.
Neither Moses nor Jesus needed these mountain top experiences to know who God was or how God continued to work in the world. They had a strong relationship with God, they regularly experienced God’s presence in their lives. They spoke with the God who creates and sustains. They knew the ways God worked in the world, they understood that God was an ever-present source of life and love.
This moment of transfiguration on the mountain top is a moment in which the witnesses, and we as recipients of their testimony, recognize that God is just as present in suffering and sacrifice as God is present in the promise and potential of our lives. On one hand, the transfiguration affirms Jesus’ divinity, on the other, it begins to give the disciples eyes to see God’s light in the chaos to come: death, loss, fear and resurrection, the work of the early church. The challenge for the disciples and for us is to live in a world without Jesus’ physical presence. The transfiguration invites us to live in the light of the glory of God seen, experienced in the radiant face of Jesus on the mountaintop. As this light shines in our hearts, the incarnate God, Emmanuel, God with us is made real every day.
God prepares us with these sorts of divine encounters so that we can endure the world here, the world of the cross, the world that is broken and breaks us, but that same world is not beyond God’s redemption.
These encounters still happen today. For some of us they are truly mountaintop experiences, events that shine a blinding light on the very real presence of Christ in our lives. For most of us the experiences of God’s presence come in more mundane ways, in ordinary moments at work, in school, in nature, or the city. They happen anytime and in any place that we have made time and space for the Holy Spirit to speak to us. These are moments of awe and wonder at the work God’s hands have wrought. They are moments of beauty we experience in nature, in the grand canyons of cities, in the eyes, the spirit, the soul, of other people that we encounter. These are moment of awe we experience in houses of worship, in hospital rooms, or holding a newborn.
Then, in this experience, this incredible, awe inspiring and awful experience of God’s presence, God majesty, the disciples are filled with fear and fall to the ground. Christ comes to the men touches them, and tells them, “Get up, do not be afraid.”
The same God who is so great, so majestic, so vast that the heavens above and the earth below are unable to contain God. The God who is so terrifying that we can do nothing be fall to our knees in God’s presence, is also the God, in Jesus Christ, who is willing to become human, to reach out to us, to touch us, to sooth our fears, to heal our wounds, to take our sins on God’s self, and suffer death on the cross to save us. This is the God who reached out, and gently, lovingly placed his hand on the shoulder of the disciples and told them to get up and do not be afraid.
God is willing to give up his glory, to shed the power, and the light, to experience weakness, vulnerability, and death so that we would be able to experience God’s love and gentleness.
This then is why we celebrate the Transfiguration here and now. We need to see and hear God’s majesty and power. We need to see the blinding light shining from Christ’s face and hear the voice from the clouds. We need to be reminded of the greatness of God to understand God’s love for us, shown in Christ’s death and resurrection. Transfiguration prepares us to suffer through the long days of Lent, it prepares us for the journey we each have ahead of us in our lives. Transfiguration reminds us of both God’s unsurpassed glory, and God’s willingness to reach out to each of us, to touch us and tell us, do not be afraid.
Gracious God, loving Parent. We thank you that you have decided to show us your glory from the mountaintop, in light so blinding to behold. We thank you that you choose to show your glory all the more clearly through the love that led your Son to die on the Cross to save us from our sins. Be with us, reminding us that though many things must come to pass that are too difficult for us alone, you are with us, a hand on our shoulder bidding us to get up and do not be afraid. We thank you that you sent the Holy Spirit to comfort, to teach, and to be with us, while we wait your Son’s returning in Glory. In Jesus name we pray, Amen.