Sunday, March 2, 2025, Sunday of the Transfiguration
“Looking Down from Higher Ground”
Psalm 97:1-12; Deuteronomy 34:1-12; Hebrews 3:1-6; Luke 9:28-36
Divine Service III with Holy Communion
Hymns: #414 “Tis Good, Lord, to Be Here”; #417 “Alleluia, Song of Gladness”; #850 “God of Grace and God of Glory”
Dear Friends in Christ,
Grace, mercy, and peace to you, from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus. Amen.
At the end of the Book of Deuteronomy, Moses stood on the top of Mt. Pisgah, looking across to the Promised Land – a Promised Land that Israel had yet to enter, a land still full of fortified cities and terrifying giants and fierce, well-armed enemies, with Israel looking at years of warfare and struggle ahead of them before they would finally come to possess it. In our Gospel reading, Jesus looks down from the mountain of glory, seeing a broken world in need of a Savior, and a cross waiting for Him. We have our own mountaintop on this this day, this sanctuary from the world that we call God’s Church. We all love to be here – “It’s good, Lord, to be here” - but we can’t live here. As we look down from our own higher ground, what’s waiting for us when we leave this place?
After about eight days, our Gospel says, “Jesus took Peter, John and James with Him and went up onto a mountain to pray.” “To pray” was the reason for their going up on the mountain, and why Jesus brought them along. That’s why we’re called together to this mountain top that we call “Church.” We’re called here to draw near to God, to be close to God, to talk to God and hear from God and be fed by God. We come here, for just a little while, to “stand on holy ground.”
“So as Jesus was praying,” says our Gospel – because He was praying, as a result of His praying – “the appearance of His face changed, and His clothes became as bright as a flash of lightning.” For the sake of these disciples of His, so they could know without a doubt who He was and where He came from - for their blessing, for their help, for their faith, for their good -- whatever veil there is that separates the darkness down here on earth from the glory of heaven, was pulled back, just for a moment – just a little crack in the fabric of eternity to let the glory light shine through.
When Apostle John encountered Jesus years later, in his vision at the beginning of the Book of Revelation, he wrote this about the Savior’s unveiled appearance: “I turned around to see the voice that was speaking to me; and when I turned I saw seven golden lampstands, and among the lampstands someone ‘like a son of man.’ He was dressed in a robe reaching down to His feet, with a golden sash around His chest. His head and His hair were white like wool, white as snow, and His eyes were like blazing fire. His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and His voice was like sound of rushing waters. In His right hand He held seven stars, and out of His mouth came a sharp double-edged sword, and His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance.” On the mountain of His transfiguration, the face of Jesus became what people would see if there were no veil to cover Him - Jesus straight up and terrifying, Jesus undiluted, Jesus in all His holy reality - white as a lightning bolt, impossible to look at, like looking into the face of the sun.
And then, stepping through that gap that separates heaven and earth, that separates time and eternity, came Moses and Elijah, who appeared in all their holy glory to talk with Jesus about what was coming soon for Him, and what had to be done to save this lost world from its sin. The cross didn’t just happen; it wasn’t an accident or some unanticipated tragedy. It was planned; it was always God’s plan. It was God’s plan when Moses stood on Mt. Pisgah looking over at the Promised Land, and when the fiery chariot swooped down to take good prophet Elijah to heaven. The Father’s plan from the beginning has always been all about Jesus and His cross – and about us.
There’s a great deal of comfort for us in knowing, by the way, that even though Moses and Elijah had been gone from the earth for years, they were still alive somewhere on the other side of death when they stepped through that crack in time onto the mountain side. “He who lives and believes in Me will live, even though he dies,” Jesus said, “and whoever lives and believes in Me will never die.” That means you and I will live on as well.
“Peter and his companions were very sleepy,” says our Gospel. They almost missed it; they almost slept through the whole glorious thing! Have you ever fallen asleep in Church, in the Presence of God? Not actually “putting your chin down” and nodding off (I hope not!); but getting distracted, losing the thread of a sermon, looking out the window, speaking the words of the liturgy while thinking about something else? We’re human, same as Peter and his friends.
“But when they became fully awake,” says our Gospel, “they saw His glory and the two men standing with Him.” What a way to wake up! What a shock that must have been, to wake up from a nice nap to stare right into the glory of Heaven! Jesus prayed to His Father with everything in Him (as He was able to do), until the disciples couldn’t keep up with Him (who of us could?) and gave up exhausted and fell asleep. But God in His mercy shook them awake in time to see. May He in His mercy do the same for us all!
“As the men were leaving Jesus, Peter said to him, ‘Master, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters-- one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.’ (He did not know what he was saying.)” That’s like us again, all too willing to trade the heavenly Tabernacle for an easier-to-take earthly one; one less challenging, less insistent on obeying our Lord when He says, “Pick up your cross and follow Me.”
If this is just an earthly house, and this place was all there is, and there’s nothing beyond it and nothing more to it than that, I guess we could safely nod off to sleep. But if this is truly God’s Tabernacle on earth, the place where God comes to meet with His people, and where we come to encounter the Living God - then what purpose does the Lord of Glory have in calling us up on this mountain, up to higher ground, up to this place of prayer, to be with Him? Is this mountaintop meant for a higher purpose or for something more?
While Peter was still rambling on, says our Gospel, “a cloud appeared and enveloped them, and they were afraid as they entered the cloud.” Frightening as it was, the glory cloud was meant for mercy! It’s there for the same reason Jesus hid His glory while He walked the earth – so that sinners like us won’t die when we come into the Presence of a Holy God. What if Jesus had just showed up in all His glory at the Sea of Galilee, bright and shining as a lightning bolt from heaven? The Galilean fishermen would have been scared to death and afraid to follow Him; and the crowds would have run from His glory, instead of sitting down to listen and hear and be blessed and fed. What if God showed up like a lighting bolt in this place, instead of with a kind and gentle Word? Instead, God wraps us up in a cloud of comfort and mercy, and says, “Do not be afraid.”
“And a voice came from the cloud, saying, "This is My Son, whom I have chosen; listen to Him." The voice from the cloud was the voice of the Father Himself - the same Father who breathed life into Adam, the same Father who held the hand of our first parents in the garden, the Father who gives all of us life and breath and loves us still. We’re not going to hear an audible voice from heaven on this day. (At least I don’t think so, but wouldn’t that be something?) But we have a true Word from God our Father that we’ve been blessed to open up and read together. And there the Father says, “This is My Beloved Son; listen to Him.” And the good Holy Spirit is speaking to us through that Word, and pointing us always to Christ, and calling us to follow Him.
And where was Jesus going, when the moment on the mountaintop was over? Back down into “the valley of the shadow of death.” Back to where all the hurts and all the grief and all the sin in the world were waiting for Him. Back to face the people who hated Him and hated His Father, to tell them the truth they didn’t want to hear - until at last they covered their ears and nailed Him to a cross.
“When the voice had spoken,” our Gospel says, “they found that Jesus was alone. The disciples kept this to themselves and told no one at that time what they had seen.” Who would have believed it anyway? Peter would write later about seeing Jesus shining bright as lightning on the mountain, and hearing the voice of the Father Himself speaking from the majestic glory. But it wasn’t time for that yet. The cross was still waiting. The sacrifice for our sin had yet to be made. They had yet to touch His scars on the evening of the first day of the week. Then it would be time to tell, and even to die like Jesus did for the sake of the telling. But not yet.
According to Luke’s Gospel, when Jesus and His friends came down from the mountain again, the first thing they ran into was a sick boy, and a distraught father; and the other nine disciples who’d tried to help the poor child, but couldn’t do a thing about it. So the scribes and the Pharisees were mocking them, and the people were turning away. Jesus said then, “O unbelieving generation, how long shall I put up with you?” And He quickly healed the child. And His road went on from there, helping and healing and doing miracles as we went, until He came to the place where we now know He always had to go.
What must the view have been like from that mountaintop? Looking up at the sky, the disciples were close enough to touch the clouds; it must have been magnificent. Looking out over the landscape, it must have been so beautiful. Rivers and valleys, greens and blues, God’s creation in all its glory, spread out before them. Who wouldn’t want to stay there forever? Why can’t we spend every day of our lives in this place, worshiping, praying, and singing hymns, while we let the world outside go by?
Looking down from higher ground, it’s easy to overlook the world as it is, easy to close our eyes and ignore the sorry details, the hurts and the troubles, the sorry state the broken world all around us is in. What would we see if we really took a look around, right outside the doors of this place? Who out there is sick, who’s hurting, who’s tired? Who’s living without hope and on the verge of giving up? Who hasn’t been told yet that there’s a God of love who wants to wrap His arms around them and cover them with His mercy? Who doesn’t know there’s forgiveness of sin to be had, and grace to be found?
We’ve been blessed with this mountain, for the sake of that valley, and for the sake of all the people out there who are living without hope. God put this little Church right here, in this place, on purpose, to call people out of darkness into God’s marvelous light. “God is the builder of everything,” St. Paul says – including this wonderful life saving station we call God’s Church. God pours out His gifts on us in this place, every time we come – His Word, His blessed Sacraments, the glory of His Presence - to give us the strength we need for all the work yet to be done.
May God open our eyes, more and more, day by day, to look out at the world and really see - to open our eyes and look at the fields, to see that so many people God loves are “harassed and helpless, like shepherdless sheep.” We, by God’s grace, have been given real power from heaven to do something about it. This mountain top is bright and shining and beautiful; may we now carry God’s light into the valley below. In Jesus’ name; Amen.