THE TRANSFIGURATION OF OUR LORD
Year A
March 2, 2014
Exodus 24:12-18
2 Peter 1:16-21
Matthew 17:1-9
Pastor David Tryggestad
Concordia Evangelical
Lutheran Church
Duluth, Minnesota
The monthly journal The
Lutheran arrived at our house on Friday, and, as usual, the first thing I
read was the column on the last page from our Presiding Bishop, newly-elected
Elizabeth Eaton. She writes about our Gospel text for today, the
Transfiguration of Our Lord:
The Transfiguration is a strange
story—the mountain, the light, the appearance of Moses and Elijah, the utterly
confounded disciples, the voice of God. How do we make sense of this
supernatural event? What does the Transfiguration of our Lord have to do with
us? I confess that I couldn’t figure it out. So, when serving in the parish, I
scheduled Youth Sunday on Transfiguration Sunday, thereby successfully avoiding
preaching about it for years.[1]
I laughed out loud! What a coincidence! Today is Youth
Sunday at Concordia. Not only that, but I invited one of our youth leaders, Bjørn
Anderson, to preach today, not telling him what the Gospel text was, of course.
He declined. Another time!
Presiding Bishop Eaton goes on to remind us of the context
of our Gospel for today. We preach from our lectionary, a cycle of assigned
readings over three years. Sometimes our Gospel readings take us through an
ongoing narrative over several consecutive Sundays, as we had during February
with four Sundays on the Sermon on the Mount, each Sunday picking up where we
had left off the week before. Many times, however, there is no connection in
the Gospel from one Sunday to the next, and today is an example. Presiding
Bishop Eaton reminds us that the scene immediately prior to our Gospel for
today is Jesus’ first prediction of his suffering and death. You will remember
that the disciple Peter takes Jesus aside and declares, “No way, Lord! This
will never happen to you!” So the Transfiguration of our Lord, situated as it
is, is a kind of response to Jesus first passion prediction.
Let’s rehearse the scene again. Jesus takes his inner
circle—Peter, James, and John—up the mountain—we don’t know which one; it
doesn’t matter. He is transfigured before them: his face and clothing become
dazzling white. Moses and Elijah appear with him, both figures having been dead
for many centuries. Jesus spans the
boundaries of time. We are reminded that our First Lesson for today takes
us up the mountain with Moses as he is receiving the gift of the Ten
Commandments from God. We also remember that, many centuries later, God also
communicated with Elijah on a mountain. It’s a mountain-top experience, if ever
there was one. Peter exclaims, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you
wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for
Elijah.” Peter wanted to hold onto the mountain-top experience. But he had no
sooner gotten the words out when the voice of God is heard for only the second
time in the entire Gospel. God speaks exactly what God had spoken at Jesus’
baptism: “This is my Son, the beloved; with him I am well pleased.” But this
time, God adds, “Listen to him!” When the amazed and terrified disciples
finally have the courage to look up, Moses and Elijah are gone, and they see
only Jesus.
Only Jesus.
Is it possible that “only Jesus” is enough?
I’ll come back to that question.
Now I’d like to turn from the Transfiguration of Our Lord in
the context of the Gospel of Matthew to the Transfiguration in the context of
our Church Year. In the Church Year, we go from the mountain of the
Transfiguration, where Jesus’ glory is revealed, directly to Ash Wednesday. We
go to the 40 days of Lent, when we consider our Lord’s suffering and death and
our participation in it.
Our First Lesson from Exodus takes place on Mount Sinai. Our Gospel—the story of the
Transfiguration—takes place on a mountain. It is ironic that that next mount in
our narrative will be Mount
Calvary, where Jesus is
proclaimed King hanging a cross.
It is important to note in this particular year in our
Church Year, Year A, four of the five Gospel readings during Lent prior to Palm
Sunday come from the Gospel of John. In the Gospel of John, Jesus’ glory is
revealed most profoundly on the cross. There is no story of the Transfiguration
of our Lord in the Gospel of John; for John, the glory of Jesus is revealed
most profoundly on the cross, where Jesus’ purpose is accomplished, where it is fulfilled,
where it is finished. Jesus’ cry from
the cross, “It is finished,” is not a cry of dereliction or dejection; rather,
it is a cry of accomplishment.
Today in our open hymn, “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling,”
we sang, “Changed from glory into glory . . .” In these upcoming 40 days of
Lent, Jesus goes from glory to glory, from the mountain
of Transfiguration to Mount Calvary.
Now I’d like to return to the question I left dangling: Is
it possible that “only Jesus” is enough? After God speaks from the cloud, “This
is my Son, the beloved, with him I am well pleased; listen to him!” the
disciples look up and see Jesus only. Moses and Elijah are no longer visible.
They see only Jesus. Is it possible
that “only Jesus” is enough?
I was at the Y this past Friday, and a man with whom I have
been in conversation for some time came into the shower room. “How are you?” I
asked. “Terrible!” he exclaimed. “I am so angry with God.” He went on to
lament—no, rail—against his notion of a heavy-handed God of wrath. Things
haven’t been going very well for him and he has a lot of struggles in his life.
“I am so angry with God.” He is angry with God because he believes that God is
angry with him. The shower room is not exactly the place for an in-depth
conversation about anything, least of all about an angry God, or the perception
of one. I told my friend as I had just posted a blog that morning about that
very notion, commenting on the story of the Transfiguration.
Is it possible that God, in his pronouncement about Jesus,
“Listen to him!” is instructing us to interpret all that had gone before him in Scripture—Moses and all the law,
and Elijah and all the prophets—through
the lens of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus? Is it possible that
God is instructing us to see God’s very
self through Jesus, through his life, death, and resurrection? Is it
possible that God is instructing us to see “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling”
in Jesus, and nothing but love?
Today is the commemoration of the brothers John and Charles
Wesley, the founders of Methodism. Charles was the hymn writer. Charles wrote
the lyrics to “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling.” Earlier in the sermon, I
quoted from the last stanza: “Changed from glory into glory . . .” and related
it to Jesus himself, going from the mountain
of Transfiguration to Mount Calvary.
Charles Wesley actually has us in
mind in these lyrics. It is we, the
followers of Jesus, who are being “changed from glory into glory” throughout
our lives, because of the glory of our Lord, who has gone from the mountain of
Transfiguration to Mount Calvary. Jesus’ glory becomes our glory, and at last we can sing, with all those who have gone
before us:
Changed from glory into glory,
till in heav’n we take our place,
till we cast our crowns before thee,
lost in wonder, love, and praise!
Thanks be to God!
No comments:
Post a Comment