Gloria Dei Lutheran Church | Urbandale, Iowa

Transfiguration

Pastor Phillips’ Sermon

Sunday, February 14, 2010

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Hallmark says it’s Valentine’s Day, but our church year says it’s Transfiguration Sunday. For many of you, you’ve heard about this all your life but, for some people, it’s really a strange kind of story, the idea of Jesus up on that mountain, His appearance being changed before the disciples, transfigured. What is it all about? What’s the point of the transfiguration? Why are Moses and Elijah there? Why do they hear the voice from heaven speak, “This is my Son.” What’s it all about? What’s the point?

Well, to help understand this, I want to talk a little bit about friendships. You probably have a friend who has been a friend for your whole life. But if you go way back to the beginning of that relationship, when you first got to know them and you started to get to know them and share different things about yourself, you kind of had to take a risk. You had to take a risk and share something personal. And when you did, it didn’t push you apart. It made you even closer. You revealed something about yourself that told who you really were and now you have a friend for life. You have somebody who you can call anytime, day or night, you know if you need them, you can call them.

Well, that’s a lot of what the transfiguration is about. It’s Jesus revealing Himself to the disciples so they know who He really is. It kind of reminds me of a film I recently saw. Now it’s not brand new. It’s a year or two old called Twilight. In that movie, the lead character, Edward, takes the lead female up to the top of a mountain and, on that mountain, he reveals to her who he really is and she sees him. Now she’s had all kinds of clues to kind of piece together his identity but, on the mountain, he makes it clear. And that experience was powerful for their relationship, too. She was no longer questioning who he was or in doubt about his identity. Now she knew and that revelation made them closer than ever and gave them a powerful intimate bond that enabled them to endure many things that would come down their path.

This is what the transfiguration is all about, the identity of Jesus being revealed to the disciples. Peter, James and John are standing there as witnesses of this glorious event. I can hardly imagine what it must have been like, to be on that mountain with Jesus, to see Moses and Elijah, to hear that voice, to see Jesus’ face change, just shining brighter than the sun and His clothes gleaming like lightening. What an incredible experience that must have been for those disciples.

Now they had some ideas about who Jesus was. They had some clues as they went along the path and they had some hopes, too. “I wonder if He’s the Messiah?” They were thinking about that but, finally, when they saw His glory on the mountain, Peter called it later, “His majestic glory,” I just love that description, when they saw that majestic glory of Jesus, they no longer had any doubt. His identity was clear. He was the one. He is the one who God sent. His very own Son, the promised Messiah.

You might be thinking, “Well, why is the identity of Jesus so important? Why is it so important for the disciples to know that? Why did He have to reveal Himself in such a dramatic way?” Well, the people of that time had been expecting the Messiah for hundreds of years. Century after century, the prophets had proclaimed to them that God would send the Messiah, this person who would deliver them. Now they would think back to people like Moses and things like that and connect some of their hopes for the Messiah to what Moses did for the people, freeing them from slavery and stuff like that. So when they were thinking about the Messiah coming, it wasn’t just a spiritual matter. They were thinking politically, too. They were thinking that He was going to free them from the Romans’ power and set them on the course to the glory days of Israel, going back to the days of Solomon and all that golden age. That’s what their expectations were. And occasionally, someone would come along who would be a powerful leader and kind of charismatic and get them all fired up, but it wasn’t the Messiah. It was a false Messiah. In fact, in Acts 5, Gamaliel, one of the great Jewish leaders at the time, comments on this. He says, “Some time ago, Theudas appeared claiming to be somebody and about 400 men rallied to him. He was killed and all his followers were dispersed, and it all came to nothing. After him, Judas, the Galilean, appeared in the days of the census and led a band of people in revolt. He, too, was killed and his followers were scattered.” So the transfiguration is to establish that Jesus is not just another rebel leader who is going to get a few hundred people to follow Him and then be killed and nothing happens.

Seeing Jesus’ face shine like the sun made it clear that He really was the Messiah. Hearing the voice of God, the Father, speak on behalf of His Son showed that He really was the Son of God. Why was it so important, though, that Peter, James and John had to see that? Why was it so important for them to be clear on the identity of Jesus? Well, if you think about it, they were the foundation of the Christian church. They were the first evangelists. They were the ones to take the message throughout the world. We hear from Christian legend that Peter was crucified in Rome for proclaiming the gospel. We hear that James was the first bishop of Jerusalem, the first pastor over all the other pastors in Jerusalem and presided over the Jerusalem council, the first Jerusalem council. We hear that John was the only disciple to die a natural death, and that is because he was exiled for preaching the gospel to the Isle of Patmos where he wrote the Book of Revelation. Can you see why these three had to see Jesus transfigured before them? Do you see why the identity of Jesus had to be clear to them? Because they were the foundation. And if they were unclear about Jesus’ identity, unsure of who He was, whether He was God’s Son or not, the future generations that would be built upon that foundation could only echo a weak representation of Jesus instead of the reality of who He was. The transfiguration firmly established His identity so these three could be the pillars of the Christian church.

What about for our time? Do we really need to know the identity of Jesus? I think we do. I think we do when we see a society move further and further from its Christian roots. Think about what people faced 2,000 years ago and how important it was for them to know Jesus and know His identity, the hopelessness and despair of their situation. I think today we face many of the same things, the same feelings, the same challenges, the same problems in life. People are hungry for truth. People are starving for someone they can count on, and I think evidence of this was in our last presidential election when the people were so excited about a human being, so fired up to vote for somebody and there’s nobody except Jesus who is worthy of that kind of mania and focus.

There is nobody who can take all our cares upon Himself like Jesus. There is nobody who can solve the struggles we face and comfort us when we need comfort like Jesus. We need to know His identity today. He’s the only one worthy of our devotion and praise. And the transfiguration makes it clear, that He’s the only one who is full of all glory and honor. So that’s what the transfiguration is all about, Jesus’ identity being made clear.

But it’s also about the disciples’ faith being strengthened by that experience. Think about the impact that would have had on you if you were there, standing there with Jesus watching that whole event. I can’t hardly imagine what that would have been like, how wonderful that might have felt. What a glorious occasion, Jesus shining like the sun. What would that have done to your faith if you’d have been there?

Well, I believe it was what the disciples needed to strengthen them and make them confident, to be able to proclaim without a doubt who Jesus is and what He came to do. I believe they needed that experience because of what lay before them. They were about to see all of Jesus’ passion. They were about to walk through the valley of the shadow of death with Jesus. They heard the things His enemies said, how they plotted to kill Him. They say the angry mob who came with clubs and swords into the Garden of Gethsemane where He was praying to arrest Him. They heard the liars accuse Him when He was on trial. And they heard that crowd call out for his crucifixion. They saw His face disfigured, bruised and beaten. They saw His blood spill on the ground. They saw the power of the Roman soldiers as they led Him away, and they heard the ringing sound of hammers on nails in the midst of Jesus’ agonized cries. How did they see all of that and still believe?

Peter, James and John believed because they saw the transfiguration. They believed, in spite of the hurricane of violence swirling around them, because they could lift up their eyes and see His gleaming white robes and His face brilliant with the radiance of His glory. They remembered when they were on that mountain, the light came from within Jesus. It wasn’t shining down on Him from above. It was coming from within Him, showing that He indeed was God and there was no darkness in all the universe that could extinguish the glory of Jesus.

What about us? That was then. Of course, they had a lot to face and deal with. What about us? Does our faith need to be strengthened? Do we need to be encouraged and built up? Absolutely. We need to have strong faith in a place where one earthquake can kill 230,000 people, a place where tsunamis and hurricanes can wash away villages leaving no trace they were ever there. We live in a world with godless governments where they can do everything to keep God out of the public life and in a society that attaches less and less value to life and to those who barely cling to its fringes.

We live in a place where there’s pain and suffering, where we are strained and stretched and challenged. Yes, our faith needs to be strengthened so we can endure whatever comes in this world. When Peter, James and John stood on the mountain with Jesus, Peter said something that I would say is one of the greatest understatements of all time, in view of everything he saw and heard, he said, “Hey, Jesus, it’s good to be here. Good? It’s great to be here. It’s great to be here on the mountain with you, Jesus, to see who you really are, to know that we can count on you no matter what, that everywhere we go, you’ll be with us and, even on the cross, hung there by nails, we know that you will rise again because you are the Son of God. You’re the one God promised. It’s not good to be here. It’s great.” And again, I wonder what would it have been like to be there? Boy, I wish I was there to see His glory.

Then again, because God works through parents and Sunday School teachers and pastors and the Holy Spirit speaking through God’s Word spoken to my heart, I have been there. I know what they knew. I know who Jesus is. My faith has been strengthened so I can live this life one day at a time by faith. And how about you? Has Jesus been transfigured in your life? Do you know who He is and what He’s done for you? I pray that you do so that we together with Peter can say, “Lord, it’s good to be here.” Amen.