Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
The text this Transfiguration Sunday is from the Gospel of Matthew, the 17th chapter:
And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James, and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light. And behold, there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. And 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.” He was still speaking when, behold, 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.”
Thus far the text.
Dear friends in Christ,
Today is Transfiguration Sunday. This day closes out the season of Epiphany, a season in which we have seen the Lord Jesus Christ’s miraculous works and words, a season in which we have heard of the Lord’s desire to extend His people from East to West and North to South, a season in which the Lord has declared His work to the Gentiles, and not solely to the Jews.
This Transfiguration, we see fully the divinity of Jesus manifest in His humanity. We have seen His human nature, His frailty, His weak flesh. But, until now we have not seen His divinity. We have seen Him born in a manger to sinful parents. We have seen visiting Magi from the East bring this child presents. We have seen Jesus circumcised, according to the Law of Moses, on the eighth day. We have seen Jesus baptized in the River Jordan to fulfill all righteousness. We have seen prophecies spoken over Him, we have heard songs sung about Him, we have seen old men hold Him in their arms. We have seen Him call His disciples, we have seen Him teach marvelous things in His sermons and on the roads. We have seen Him do many things according to His human nature, that human nature which He shares with each and every one of us, but we have not yet ever seen His divinity.
Until now. For this Transfiguration Sunday, Jesus ascends the mountain with His three closest friends and followers, to show them a glimpse of who He is and what He’s about to do. Six days after Peter’s great confession, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God,” six days after Peter was called Satan for getting in the way of the crucifixion, Jesus ascends a mountain and shows His disciples a little bit more of who He is. But, it’s not just Jesus. We see all the persons of the Trinity doing what it is that they do: point to Jesus and His work. We have heard the Father declare that this Jesus is His beloved Son, even as Peter once confessed, and in a declaration that last for all eternity, we are to listen to Him, Jesus only. We have seen the Spirit surround these people like a cloud, pointing the disciples and our eyes, only to the center of it, Jesus Himself, Jesus only, even despite Peter’s best intentions to stop the crucifixion.
This epiphanic vision, the vision which gives us a last epiphany, a last insight into the person and work of Jesus, is the last we shall receive this Church year until after the Resurrection of Jesus. It is the last time we shall see His divinity on display until Jesus returns back from the dead. It is the last epiphany which reveals to us more of who Jesus is, more of what He’s about to do.
And He is assisted in this vision by Moses and Elijah, the physical and personal representation of the Law and the Prophets. This tells us that the Law of Moses, as Jesus has always said, is all about the Messiah who would come to save His people from their sins. And this tells us that all the prophetic words of the Old Testament were to point us to this coming Christ, that we might recognize Him, not as a beautiful man, but as Isaiah says, a suffering servant, whose form is unbeautiful, for He has no beauty to draw men to Himself, yet for our sake He was stricken, smitten, and afflicted.
This Transfiguration we should be reminded, that as we see the glory of the Lord shining even out of His own flesh, this is the same glorious Lord that we will, in 47 short days from now, crucify. We shall take Him, in both His deity and humanity, and nail Him to a tree. We have our reasons, just as those at that time did. We think we do this in order to stop an insurrection, to stop Him from preaching against us, to stop Him from telling us that we have had it all wrong, to stop Him from telling us that we have sinned, to stop Him from making us feel bad, to stop Him from showing us the real ways of the Father, to stop Him from being Jesus. We have killed God.
You see, the reality is that according to our sinful natures, we would rather kill God than kiss Him. The reality is that according to our sinful natures, we would rather strike God dead than listen to Him. The reality is that according to our sinful natures, we cannot stand the sight of God.
And the reality is that God the Father knew this, and so He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to take on our human nature, without a sinful nature, without the perversion that we inherit and that we commit, that sin which stains us worse than blood on snow, to live a perfect life, hiding His divinity, and to be crucified for us. This is reality. We would kill, He would kiss us in peace. We would strike Him, He would hold us. We would run from His sight, He would pursue us. The one who knew no sin would become Sin for His people so that we, who would crucify Him, would be redeemed, possessing forever, not our sinful nature, but a righteous nature which He gives to all men freely.
This is the Transfiguration. For in this glorious event, we see the humanity of Christ standing before these disciples, and yet we also see the divinity of Christ shining through so that Jesus’ appearance was changed. His face was bright as the sun, brighter, yet we cannot name what it is that is brighter. All we can say is that which surpasses the sun’s brightness is Jesus only. His clothes became like light, like snow, white, but whiter than those. We cannot name what is whiter. All we can say is that which surpasses the snow’s whiteness is Jesus only.
And the Lord God let this brightness, this whiteness, this marvelous light shine through Jesus’ humanity. The Scriptures tell us that Jesus had emptied Himself of His divinity when He took on human flesh. This does not mean that He stopped being God, but rather that He made little use of it as He humbled Himself to take on human flesh. In this transfiguring moment, however, the Lord made manifest His full divinity that it would shine through, overshadowing, overpowering the people around Him, and talking to a heavenly council made up of Moses and Elijah.
This divine light that we see from Jesus overshadows us. We are awed by it. We should be awed by it. But like Peter, all we end up doing is stammering and making fools of ourselves. We see the full brightness of Christ, and it doesn’t matter what we can do, it doesn’t matter what we can say, it doesn’t matter what we can think. We try, for sure. “I, a poor, miserable sinner, confess unto you all my sins and iniquities…” And we go on and on and on. I mean, really, when could one STOP confessing their sins? And yet, the Lord interrupts us with His Word, “Almighty God in His mercy has given His Son to die for you and for His sake forgives you all your sin.” “This is my beloved Son, listen to Him.” “As a called and ordained servant of Christ, and by His authority, I therefore forgive you all of your sins in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”
This is the divine light that continues to shine from the Transfiguration. This is the full divinity of Jesus come upon you, overshadowing you, guiding you. This divine light that is here is here because of His humanity. Because of His humanity, our Divine Lord could die. Because of His divinity, our Human Lord reconciled us to the Father.
We worship this day the Transfigured Lord, not because He is something different than what He once was according to His divinity. Not because Jesus wasn’t divine once, or became more divine as He lived. We worship this Lord because the Divine Second Person of the Trinity, the Beloved Son of God, at a certain point in history, over 2000 years ago, took into the Godhead, took into the Trinity, human flesh.
And because He is both human and divine, and He has given us this event, recorded in the Gospels, for us, to see this humanity and divinity, we may rest assured that the one who has won for us the forgiveness of sins actually did this and continues to do this for us. We may rest assured that this God-man Jesus Christ will fulfill what He has promised. He will deliver to us faith, saving us in our baptisms. He will be the host and meal, and we shall eat His body and drink His blood. He will preserve us unto everlasting life in the Resurrection from the Dead.
Just a man could not do this for us. Just a god could not have this kind of vested interest in us. Only a God-man, one who is both God and man, 100 percent of each, could desire eternal life according to the flesh, and deliver that life according to a divine gift. Only this man, Jesus, can do this, and this Transfiguration Day, we see that He has, for we see His divinity, we see His humanity, we see His love for us, His absolution for us, His meal for us, His washing for us, His preservation of us. We see this all on this Transfiguration Day, for we see that He is the God-man, He is Jesus the Christ, and we may trust Him forever, He who fulfilled all that was promised by Him, Jesus only, for you. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Now may the peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord! Amen.
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