Transfiguration
Mt
17:1-9
2/2/20
Jesus asked his disciples: “Who do people say that the Son of Man
is?” The answers varied – John the
Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah or one of the prophets. Then Jesus asked the really
important question: “But who do you say that I am?" And Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the
Son of the living God.” Jesus
replied,
“Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not
revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.”
Now after Jesus
had come to them walking on the water and then stilled the sea, the disciples
fell at his feet saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.” So the thing that is really new here – the
recognition provided the Father - was the fact that Jesus is the Christ, the
Messiah promised by God in the Old Testament.
Then
immediately after this confession by Peter that Jesus is the Christ, Matthew
tells us: “From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he
must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief
priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.” Peter had confessed Jesus as the Christ. And now, Jesus was talking about his
suffering and death.
There
was a variety of expectation about the Messiah in first century Judaism. But
the one thing that bound them all together was the rock solid belief when the
Messiah came he would be the mighty, conquering winner. There was absolutely no
room for a dead Messiah. After all, a
dead Messiah – a Messiah killed by others – was clearly not the Messiah.
It’s
not surprising then that Peter took Jesus aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “Far be
it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you.” After all, Peter had just correctly identified
Jesus as the Christ – the Messiah sent by God.
Yet Jesus’ response was to turn to
Peter and say,
“Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are
not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”
And
then Jesus doubled down by saying that the cross was not only the purpose and
goal for him. It was also to be expected
by all who followed him. Jesus told his disciples, "If
anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his
cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it,
but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”
For the
disciples, this was an incredibly confusing exchange. First Peter confesses Jesus as the Christ,
and is praised by Jesus because he is exactly right. In fact it is a recognition that God the
Father himself has provided. And then Jesus says that he is going to suffer and
die – something that the disciples are convinced cannot possibly be true of the
Christ.
Surely they
were still pondering what exactly had happened in this conversation. And so we note with great interest that our
Gospel lesson for the Feast of the Transfiguration of Our Lord begins by
saying, “And after
six days Jesus took with him Peter and James, and John his brother, and
led them up a high mountain by themselves.”
Matthew
rarely provides specific time references in his Gospel. The statement “after six days” clearly links
our Gospel lesson back to what has just happened in Peter’s confession of
Christ and Jesus’ first prediction of his passion. We must see these two texts as standing in
relation to one another. The transfiguration of Jesus must be understood in
relation to the disciples’ confusion – and indeed rejection – of the idea that
Jesus the Christ is going to suffer and die.
Jesus
took Peter, James and John upon on the mountain. Then we hear in our text: “And
he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun,
and his clothes became white as light.”
Jesus Christ is true God and true man at the same time. During his
earthly ministry the Lord humbled himself by not using his divine power to
serve himself. He didn’t use it in force
and violence against his enemies whom he could have vaporized in an instant.
Yet this did not change the fact that he remained true God. And at the transfiguration Jesus briefly
allows his divine glory to shine through.
Not
only that, but there appeared talking with him Moses and Elijah, two of the
greatest figures in the Old Testament. Caught up in the
moment, 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.” The problem with this suggestion is that it seemed to place
Jesus on the same level as Moses and Elijah.
Of course, nothing could be farther from the truth.
And so while Peter was still
speaking 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.” God the Father spoke the same
words that he had at the baptism of Jesus.
As we saw then, they are words based on Isaiah chapter forty two verse
one where the prophet had written: “Behold my
servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have
put my Spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations.”
These words
by the Father at Jesus’ baptism had identified Jesus as the Servant of the Lord
– the suffering Servant who would bear our sins in order to give us forgiveness. Jesus has just spoken about his upcoming
death, and the Father commands the disciples to listen to him. Yet he speaks
these words about the Servant again as
Jesus stands beaming in divine glory.
The
transfiguration of Jesus shows that Christ and death; glory and death are not contradictions. This was not the way
the disciples understood things, but this was
the way that God was carrying out his action to save us.
At his
baptism Jesus had taken on the role of the One who would bear our sins. As the
Servant of the Lord he would be wounded for our transgressions and crushed
for our iniquities. Indeed, Jesus had just told the disciples for the first
time the he
must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests
and scribes, and be killed.
Jesus’
mission was to give his life as the ransom for us. But he was also to be the
means by which God defeated death. After talking about the upcoming passion, he
went on to add “and on the third day be raised.” The
glory revealed at the transfiguration points to Easter. It points to the resurrection. Christ and death; glory and death are not
contradictions. Jesus the Christ had
come to defeat death by passing through it. His glory would be revealed by
dying for the sins of all and then rising
from the dead on the third day.
Terrified, the disciples had fallen
on their faces on the ground. But Jesus
came and touched them, saying, "Rise, and have no
fear. When they lifted up their eyes,
they saw no one but Jesus only. And as they were coming down the mountain,
Jesus commanded them, “Tell no one the vision, until the Son of Man is
raised from the dead.” Only in the
resurrection would all become clear.
We are no different from the disciples. We want glory, not the cross. And we too think that they are contradictory. We think this way about life in the
Church. We see the persecution of the
Church around the world, and wonder why God isn’t caring for his people. We see
the growing pressure on Christians in our own nation who confess the truth of
God’s Word about sexuality and marriage, and wonder why God is allowing this to
happen in our culture.
And yet Jesus said, “If anyone would come
after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” Jesus never promised the absence of the
cross. What he said was to take up the cross and follow him. We can follow him because Jesus has already
revealed the glory of his resurrection. He has shown us that for those in
Christ the way of the cross leads to glory. The way of following Jesus leads to
resurrection on the Last Day – it leads to sharing in Jesus’ resurrection.
And
in a more general way, this is true for life as a whole. We don’t want hardships. We don’t want
difficulties. And when we encounter them we often don’t understand why they
have happened. They make us wonder about
whether God is really in charge – whether God really does care for us.
In our text this morning Jesus has
just predicted his suffering and death.
Yet now he stands shining in divine glory, for he is the One who as the
Son of God has also predicted his resurrection.
In the death and resurrection of Jesus, God has shown that this
mightiest work to save us occurred in the way of the cross. It occurred in weakness, suffering and
death. But this was not the absence of
God. In fact, God was never closer to us
than when the Son of God took our place and died for our sins. This was the love of God for us at work.
The truth of this was demonstrated on
Easter when God raised Jesus from the dead as the One who had defeated death by
passing through it. Because we have seen God work in this way – because we know
Jesus Christ the risen Lord – we can trust that God is not absent when we
experience weakness, suffering and the threat of death. We may not understand what God is doing. It may make no sense to us. We may not like it at all. Yet in the
resurrection of the crucified Lord we
find that God has spoken his great “Yes!” to us that allows us to have faith
him in the midst of all circumstances.
When the events of the
transfiguration were over Jesus touched the disciples, saying, “Rise, and have no
fear.” And when they lifted up their eyes, they saw only Jesus. In the midst of these circumstances of life
Jesus touches us and says the same thing: “Rise and have no fear.” He touches us through the water of our
baptism, for there we were buried with him in his saving death and have the
guarantee that we too will be raised up like him. He touches us through the Sacrament of the
Altar, as the risen Lord gives into our mouth his true body and blood given and
shed for the forgiveness of our sins. He
touches us in Holy Absolution as the pastor lays his hand on our head and
speaks the words of Jesus, “I forgive you all your sins.”
In
the midst of these circumstances we have the assurance that God is with us;
that he does care for us. We know this
because the presence of suffering and death for Christ was not the absence of
God’s work. Instead, it was the presence
of God’s most powerful and loving action for us. In the resurrection of Jesus all of this
became clear. That resurrection – announced by his glory in the transfiguration
this morning – provides the assurance of God’s continuing love for us in the
midst of all circumstances. And it tells
us that for those who believe in Jesus Christ this pilgrimage of life can only
end in one way – resurrection life with Jesus in his glory.
No comments:
Post a Comment