A sermon preached by Pastor Lewis Polzin on February 27, 2022 at St. Peter–Immanuel Lutheran Church in Milwaukee, WI, on Deuteronomy 34:1-12. You may play the audio of the sermon here.
A mostly unedited transcript of the sermon follows the jump:
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
The text this morning is from Deuteronomy, the 34th chapter:
Then Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, which is opposite Jericho. And the Lord showed him all the land, Gilead as far as Dan, all Naphtali, the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, all the land of Judah as far as the western sea, the Negeb, and the Plain, that is, the Valley of Jericho the city of palm trees, as far as Zoar. And the Lord said to him, “This is the land of which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, ‘I will give it to your offspring.’ I have let you see it with your eyes, but you shall not go over there.” So Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab, according to the Word of the Lord, and he buried him in the valley in the land of Moab opposite Beth-peor; but no one knows the place of his burial to this day. Moses was 120 years old when he died. His eye was undimmed, and his vigor unabated. And the people of Israel wept for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days. Then the days of weeping and mourning for Moses were ended. And Joshua the son of Nun was full of the spirit of wisdom, for Moses had laid his hands on him. So the people of Israel obeyed him and did as the Lord had commanded Moses. And there has not arisen a prophet since in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face, none like him for all the signs and the wonders that the Lord sent him to do in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh and to all his servants and to all his land, and for all the mighty power and all the great deeds of terror that Moses did in the sight of all Israel.
Thus far the text.
My dear friends in Christ,
This is one of these weird accounts that in scripture, we know that there were two authors writing. The first was Moses and the second is Joshua, because Moses, in the middle of this passage, dies. How can Moses write the end of the story, especially how can Moses know that no other prophet has arisen like Moses in all of Israel if Moses dead. We have these two authors, Moses and Joshua ,two men who were appointed as prophet and as judge over Israel to men, to lead people to and into the promised land, and of these two men, there would be no one greater for many, many years, at least not in terms of the leadership.
We know that Jesus is actually the fulfillment of the prophet, the one that no one has risen arisen like Moses until Jesus. But what about their leadership? Joshua certainly was a leader on par with the leadership of Moses. At least it seems that the people rebelled against Joshua a little bit less than they rebelled against Moses and all of his ways. Between the two them, until David, there could be seen to no greater leader than these two men.
But with these two, we have a problem. We have kind of a big problem actually, because we see it through Moses's life and we see it after Joshua's death: that Israel, as the book of Judges is wont to say, her people did what was right in their own eyes. You see, they had been moving, at least for the last 40 years, to a land called Israel, named after, of course, Israel, Jacob, who the Pharaoh did not know. The Pharaoh did not know Joseph. The Pharaoh did not know Israel. He probably had no idea how all of Israel came into the land of Egypt, except that they were there as slaves. Yet, Moses took his people out by God's power and delivered them from the hands of Pharaoh, and by their own disobedience, they were forced to wander through the desert until all the people of the generation that was willfully defiant against God and against Moses had died out.
Moses was not immune to this defiance. Of course, we know that God told him to speak to the rock that water would come out, but Moses, in his anger, struck the rock. And because of that disobedience, God promised he would not enter the promised land. We think that that's maybe an overreaction, but it's not, because Paul tells us that the rock that traveled with them that gave them this water was Christ. Moses then struck Christ, the Son of God. The picture of Moses striking Christ is so tied to the crucifixion, and that was obviously the greatest disobedience ever. Moses, in that same spirit, broke the will and the Law of God by doing this. And so Moses even seemed to do what was right in his own eyes.
Joshua seems to be a little bit more holy in his life than Moses. Moses had been a murderer, he didn’t circumcise his son, so the angel of the Lord was trying to kill him, Moses was too lenient on his brother in his idolatry, Moses was prone to anger and overreaction, made excuses for himself, like he was a stutterer. Moses was not exactly a paragon of virtue. But Joshua, one of the faithful spies to go and search out the land of Israel, that promised land, seems a bit more holy, and yet, despite all of the wonderful things that Joshua did in leading the people Israel into the promised land, the people only gave him lip service. He wasn't the leader that I think everybody had needed. After all, the people went off and worshiped different gods, they fell prey to the temptations of the flesh, when it came to the people that were living among them, they did not obey God. When He said to strike them all down, well, they didn't quite do that, or to destroy all the plunder, well, they didn't quite you do that either.
And that's okay. These are problems because they are failures in leadership; to not have people do the things that you're leading them into, that is a failure of leadership. Certainly it's a failure of the people, but Moses and Joshua, we know we'e sinners. It's no surprise then, that the things that they did were sinful. That's why Jesus is kind of a surprise for us. A prophet above all prophets. No one expects a prop above all prophets to be sinless. And yet Jesus was.
Moses was able to see all of Israel, all the promised land that God had promised to give to his beloved people, that the land in which he would bring forth the line of the Messiah. Moses was given to see all of that. And still Moses could not live righteously, could not live in a holy way. Joshua was to take the people Israel into that promised land to destroy the people there, and still, he could not live in a righteous way. He could not live a holy life by his own merit. But both of these men show us something greater because they point us to Jesus. They show us that, yes, they were sinners, but there is redemption for such sinners as these, they show us that there is a way that they will enter the promised land, not a land of this earth, but a land of the earth that is to come.
You know, Moses had been taken up on the mountain a couple of times to stand in God's presence. And I heard it said, and I like it, and I can't prove it, but I'm going to share with you one theory, which is one of these times that Moses went up on the mountain with God, that he was somehow taken in that moment into the future to stand with Jesus and Elijah at Jesus's transfiguration. Because God is certainly eternal, He can bend the rules of space and time. And it seems that, well, at least in one of these instances, Moses had a very clear vision of heaven, and heaven is very clearly defined in the scriptures as the presence of Jesus. So is it possible he was taken to the transfiguration while he was alive? Sure. Although, is it possible that Moses was taken from heaven and given to Jesus to tell him about the exodus which Luke calls Jesus's departure, His death, which was to come in Jerusalem? Yeah, that's possible too. So, we don't really know either one, but we do know Moses was given amazing visions of what would happen, not just that the Israel of God would enter into this promised land, but that they would enter into the promised land of eternal rest. Moses was given that and he tried his best to teach his people, do not rely on your own power, but rely on God.
You might think that that's weird considering that Moses has been seen as the great Law giver. I mean, after all, all 613 commandments from God that people had to obey came right out of Moses's mouth to the people. But the point of the Law isn't to say, just do this and you'll live. That that's part of it. But the point of the Law was to show Israel that they couldn't do this. Every so often they would realize they had broken the Law, but, more often than not, the response of Israel was, All that the Lord has said, we shall do. Oops. They made vows before their God that they could not follow through.
Now, Elijah. We don't have any readings about him in our pericopes for today, but Elijah is another prophet. And certainly one of the greatest prophets ever to live, somehow less than Moses and Jesus, and yet still greater, it seems than almost all the prophets. Now Isaiah is probably my favorite prophet, but that's just because his writing is so beautiful. Elijah had almost as tough a time with Israel as Moses had because all of Israel was trying to kill him. It's kind of weird how that happened. There were still the faithful remnant, but we see in Elijah's story how he's bemoaning the fact that he's all alone, they killed all of his brother prophets, and the people don't support him. I mean, it even came to the point that he had to be fed by ravens instead of other faithful people, but still, Elijah knew what it was to be a failure, just like Moses and just like Joshua and still somehow Moses and Elijah were brought to stand with Jesus at perhaps the clearest moment in all of Jesus's earthly life, up until the resurrection, of his divinity, his being the Son of God. How is it that these two imperfect men could stand with God in all of his glory and not be destroyed? We’ll come back to that in a minute.
How is it that we're here? We're called, certainly, as children of God, but we are called by his Word to be in this place. And if we take his Word seriously, then all the commandments that Moses gave to the people of Israel stand also for us, because God's Word is true always and forever. Let's take 10 of those commandments that we know so well. The other 603, we don't know as well, and they don’t all apply because we aren’t the people of ancient Israel, but the 10 commandments that we know so well, we know we don't stand up the 10 commandments. They tell us, do these things and you'll live. And we don’t. We not only fail in our leadership, we fail in our ability to follow after our Leader. We don't treat God as though He is the only God. We certainly don't honor the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. We misuse His name all of the time. We don't obey the authorities that are over us. As much as we might argue with the things that they do do, we should honor our government every single moment. We hate people in our hearts and, by doing so, we murder them. We lust after people and so commit adultery. We steal, we lie, we don't assume the best thing about people when they sin or when they do something, and we just automatically jump into assuming the worst. We covet what we do not have. We covet who we do not have.
There is no commandment of God that is presented before us, that we say, This, at least, I have kept. And yet we're called before God into this holy place. This is a holy place because the Word of God is read and meditated upon and the Sacraments are delivered here every time we gather together. We’re called to this place and if God is truly here, we expect him to strike us down dead. We expect to be like Moses, to not be allowed into the promised land. We expect to be like Joshua and have our friends and our family and our people around us, who we love, betray us at every moment because they just can't help themselves. And because of that, we expect God to strike us dead here, too. But He doesn't. Instead, He welcomes us in this place. He brings us into His loving embrace through Word and Sacrament. He enters into you through your ears and through your eyes as you read, through your mouth as you receive Christ’s body and blood in his holy Sacrament, and for all this, you expect to die.
I mean, Moses died out in the wilderness because he struck a rock. You, a sinner, chew and drink the body and blood of Christ. It seems to be almost worse in some way, and still you're not struck down, but you're given life. You're given forgiveness. You're given salvation and you're given the promise of a land that is greater than any kingdom of this world. For all your sins, you are given the glory of God. How is this possible? It is possible in the same way that Moses and Elijah stood with their divine Lord in that moment. It’s possible in the way that Peter and James and John were enveloped by the cloud of God and hearing his voice did not die. It's possible because the Son of God, the great prophet, priest, and king over all people, died to forgive your sins. He died to take your unrighteousness away from you and to give you everlasting life. He died so that you might have the righteousness of God put upon you, so that, not only is your sin taken away, but life and goodness and holiness and righteousness and everything that is a good gift from God is given to you.
And you have that as a sure and certain thing, not some imaginary declarative statement that it’s just kinda like I lived righteously. No, you have been given the real and forensic, legal, righteousness of Christ. It belonged to Him and now it’s yours. You are counted righteous. You know you're a sinner, but you have all of the righteousness of Jesus. And so if you look in the mirror, you're going to see the Law standing as your accuser and saying, you don't deserve any of this, but Jesus doesn't look in the mirror at you. He sees you with his own two eyes in light of his glory, the glory that He had as He was hung up on that cross. And He says, You are righteous. It's not just a wink wink nudge nudge. We can say something is something else and it doesn’t make it true. We can say it’s snowing three feet today, and it’s not. That's not the kind of declaration that Jesus puts on you. He says, It is snowing three feet today, and by his Word, His command, it would snow. But instead of just something silly like that, He says, You are a righteous child of God. I love you. I welcome you into my presence forever and ever and ever. And it is a real and true thing, that by His Word, the entire universe, including your sinful flesh, bends to His will, and you are made righteous.
That's what the transfiguration is truly about. It is to show you the glory that Jesus has as the Son of God, the glory that is found in His crucifixion, and the glory that is given to you this day and every day as His beloved baptized child of God. That's what the transfiguration is about. So, it doesn't matter if you're like Moses and Joshua and you’re failures in leadership. It doesn't matter if you are like the people of Israel who failed to follow in the footsteps of God. It doesn't matter if you're like Peter, who puts his foot in his mouth at every single circumstance. God has declared you righteous by the blood of Jesus.
And instead of striking you dead, he heaps life and life and life upon you. By the forgiveness of your sins, we are empowered to turn from our wicked ways and trust in the righteousness He gives to us. Every time you remember Christ and His Word, and you remember your Baptism and you receive his Sacrament in the Supper, every time, every moment, every second that you remember that you belong to Him, He gives you more of Himself. Jesus in His transfiguration shows that He is the beloved divine Son of God, being of the same substance of the Father. He is God himself. And if He can accept people in His midst like Moses and like Elijah, like Peter and James and John, and if He can be in heaven with all the saints who are now in their glory, He can also be with you. He promises to be with you now and always, and you know that He can fulfill that promise because He shows you that He is divine. And if He is divine, there is nothing He cannot do, including saving our sorry selves.
So be like Moses, be the failure, be like Joshua, be the failure, and know that your Lord has brought you here this day, not to look at your failure, but to forgive it and to give to you every good gift under heaven, forgiveness, life, and salvation, the good gifts of God. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Now may the peace of God which passes all human understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord! Amen.
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