This sermon was preached at Our Saviour Lutheran Church, Semaphore, 8.45am, and Good News Lutheran Church, Albert Park, 10.30am.
Grace, mercy and peace be to
you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
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.”
Prayer: May the words of my
mouth, and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord,
our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Today we are celebrating the event of Jesus’
transfiguration. This is the wonderful event in the life of Jesus where he took
Peter, James and John up a mountain, and his clothes and face began to shine with
bright heavenly light. We are also told that Moses and Elijah appeared next to
Jesus, talking with him about his departure, his journey to Jerusalem to die as
the Lamb of God for the sin of the world. We are also told that when Peter, who
was completely amazed by this appearance and had no idea what to do, was
suggesting that he make three tents for Jesus, Moses and Elijah, a cloud came
and covered over everything. And God the Father spoke from the cloud, “This is
my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.”
This is such a wonderful event, and yet many
Christians don’t often think about it too much. We have a custom in our church
of remembering this event, and celebrating it on the last Sunday of the
Epiphany season. The Epiphany season is that time of the year after Christmas,
which begins by remembering the visit of the wise men to the baby Jesus, and
the Baptism of Jesus. The word Epiphany means to “show”, or “manifest”, or
“display”. We see God making a wonderful “showing” when he sent the wise men a
star to lead them to the country of Israel, and also when he “showed” himself
as the Father, Son and Holy Spirit at the Baptism of Jesus: The Father spoke
from heaven, the Son was being baptised in the water, and the Holy Spirit came
upon him in the form of a dove. Today, as we celebrate the Transfiguration, we
remember the wonderful way in which God showed to us the power and the divinity
of his Son, Jesus Christ—he shows us that he is truly the powerful Son of God
himself—by speaking his voice from the cloud, as wonderful light radiates and
beams forth and shines from Jesus face, and body and clothes.
Actually, the two events of the Baptism of Jesus and
the Transfiguration form a kind of pair of bookends to the Epiphany season: we
celebrate the Baptism of Jesus at the beginning of the Epiphany Season at the
beginning of January, and we celebrate the Transfiguration at the end of the
Epiphany season. And both of these events have something in common. On both
occasions, God the Father actually speaks his voice in the hearing of all the
people who were present at these events. In fact, at both events, he says the
same thing: This is my beloved Son, with
whom I am well pleased. However, at the Transfiguration, he says something
extra: Listen to Him! It’s this
command of God to listen to Jesus that I’m going to focus on today, and I think
that these words of God the Father actually give us a wonderful interpretation
of everything that goes on. In fact, these words are the centre and the focus
of this event at the Transfiguration – Listen
to Him!
So firstly,
today, I’d like to take us back to the Old Testament, to the book of
Deuteronomy, chapter 18. Now, the book of Deuteronomy is a particularly special
book in the Old Testament, which contains—if you like—a long sermon or speech
from Moses, just as all the people are about to cross the River Jordan and
enter into the promised land of Canaan.
Now, during the book of Deuteronomy, Moses gives the
people all kinds of warnings to the people about what they should do and not do
when they enter the Promised Land. Particularly, they must remain faithful to
God, and not start worshipping the false gods of the people in the land. But
not only that, but the people were not allowed to copy to worship practices of
the people who worshipped other gods, and use these practises to worship the
true God. For example, you might remember in the book of Exodus, when the
people worshipped the Golden Calf. Not only did they worship this statue, but
Aaron said that the calf was in fact God himself, and that through worshipping
this statue of the calf, they were worshipping God himself. Do you see? Aaron
made it look like they weren’t worshipping some other god, but that they were
actually worshipping the God of Israel. But the people weren’t allowed to do
this—they weren’t allowed to use idols, and such like, in such a way that they
could gain access through them to God. The way to meet God was not to worship a
calf statue made out of gold.
So, in Deuteronomy 18, this is what Moses preaches to
the people. He says: When you come into
the land that the LORD your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow
the abominable practices of those nations. There shall not be found among you
anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, anyone who practices
divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer or a charmer or
a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead, for whoever does
these things is an abomination to the LORD. And because of these abominations the
LORD is driving them out before you. You shall be blameless before the LORD
your God, for these nations, which you are about to dispossess, listen to
fortune-tellers and to diviners. But as for you, the LORD your God has not
allowed you to do this. The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like
me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen.
Let me read to you this last verse again. The LORD your God will raise up for you a
prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall
listen. Moses is saying that God will raise up a prophet like himself, from
his brothers, from the Jewish people. Now, there are a number of places in the
New Testament, where this verse is taken to be talking about Jesus. After Pentecost,
Peter uses this passage to speak about Jesus in one of his first sermons, after
he heals a man sitting outside the temple. Stephen, the first person to be
killed for the Christian faith, uses this passage from Deuteronomy to refer to
Jesus. It’s as if to say, that since the people entered the Promised Land all
those hundreds and hundreds of years ago, after Moses had died, they have been
waiting for a prophet. And Christians say, that this prophet that the Jewish
people had been waiting for centuries, is in fact, Jesus.
Let me read the prophecy again. Moses says: The LORD your God will raise up for you a
prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall
listen. Now, let’s have a look at the Transfiguration, and see how this prophecy
is actually fulfilled in our reading.
First of all, Moses calls Jesus a “prophet like me”.
Actually, at the transfiguration, Moses is there. In fact, we’re not entirely
sure whether this is Moses in his spirit, or in his body, because at the end of
the book of Deuteronomy, it says that nobody knew what happened to Moses body.
Mysteriously, here is Moses, talking to Jesus. And after Moses had received the
law, we read that his face began to shine with bright light, such that he even
had to put a veil, a cloth, over his head, because the people just couldn’t
cope with and withstand this wonderful light. In the same way, Jesus’ face
shines, but not only that, but his whole body shines, and even his clothes. But
Jesus doesn’t normally appear like this, but he is always the Son of God, he is
always God of God, Light of Light, but most of the time when people saw Jesus,
this light was not hidden by a cloth or a veil, like Moses, but is was hidden
simply by his human flesh. So Jesus is like Moses, in that his face also shone
like Moses’ face.
Also, Jesus was like Moses, in that both of them
performed miracles. But they performed very different types of miracles. Moses
performed miracles that were frightening and scary for people. They were
miracles that revealed God’s anger and his judgement and his wrath. For
example, Moses put his hand in his coat, and it was full of leprosy. He put his
staff on the ground, and it became a snake. He poured water on the ground, and
it turned to blood. He brought about many plagues in Egypt—flies, frogs,
darkness, death—you name it!
Now, when Jesus came, he also performed miracles, but
miracles that were comforting and encouraging and which strengthened people.
For example, he turned water not into blood, but into wine, for people’s
enjoyment. He didn’t bring about leprosy, but he healed lepers. He healed many
people, he cast out demons, he gave sight to the blind, and allowed the deaf to
hear, and raised the dead. So Jesus’ miracles were of a different character to
Moses’ miracles. But the fact that they both performed miracles like this,
means that Jesus is very much like Moses.
But also, Jesus was a prophet like Moses, in the way
that he spoke. Moses brought the 10 Commandments to the people. But then Jesus
applies and comments on the commandments in a way that had never been done
before. He says: You have heard that it was said, “You shall not murder”. (Jesus
quotes the 10 Commandments). But then he says: But I say to you, whoever hates his brother is a murderer. So Jesus
is also like Moses in the way that he speaks. Moses spoke the thunder of God’s
law, and brought the people in a limited way into God’s presence through all
the laws and details about worship, about the tabernacle, and the priests, and
the food regulations, and all that kind of stuff. But Jesus also speaks the
thunder of God’s law, but he does so in order to lay them bare and to bring
them the forgiveness of sins, which he won for them through his suffering, his
blood, and his death on the cross. That was something that Moses didn’t bring,
but Jesus did bring. So in this way, Jesus is very much like Moses, and he is a
wonderful teacher of both the law and the Gospel, but especially the Gospel. We
read in John’s Gospel: The law was given
through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
Now, if we look back through the bible, we read that
there were many great prophets, like Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel. And
if we were to name the greatest of these prophets, we would probably say,
Elijah. Elijah was an amazing prophet, and he spoke God’s word clearly and
boldly at a time when very few people wanted to hear it. However, we believe
that Elijah was not this prophet that Moses spoke about, but that Jesus is this
prophet.
And we realise this at the Transfiguration, because
not only is Moses standing there with Jesus but also Elijah. And together Moses
and Elijah testify by their presence, that the prophet that the Jewish people
are looking for is not Elijah, but Jesus Christ. Can you see this wonderful way
in which Moses and Elijah point to Jesus here? And together they show that
Jesus is the fulfilment of these words from Deuteronomy: The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet from among you, from
your brothers—it is to him that you shall listen.
But there are two more things in the Transfiguration
that relate to this prophecy. First, it says that Jesus will come from among you, from your brothers. Moses
means that Jesus will come from the Jewish people, not from some other people.
And so, we see Jesus here, just like an ordinary Jewish man, amongst his three
friends, Peter, James and John. He takes them up the mountain, these three
fishermen, who grew up similarly to him, and to whom Jesus talks to as an
ordinary person to ordinary people. Jesus came from among them, from among the
Jewish people. But then, when they arrive at the place, a separation
occurs—Peter, James and John are over there, and Jesus is over there. Jesus is
shining with brilliant light, with all the light of his divine nature, brighter
than the light from heaven itself, and Peter, James and John are completely
dazzled by it. Because Jesus is not just a normal Jewish man, but he is also
the Son of God, and in fact, true God of true God. At the end of the reading,
when the cloud has gone, and everything is back to normal, Jesus touches his
disciples, like a brother, like a friend, and he says: Rise, and have no fear. Don’t be afraid, it’s me, let’s go, let’s
walk together. And so, Jesus comes from among his people, from the Jewish people,
from their brothers.
But secondly, God the Father wants to make it
especially clear that these words from Deuteronomy apply to Jesus. Moses says: The LORD your God will raise up for you a
prophet from among you, from your brothers—it is to him that you shall listen. At
the Transfiguration, God the Father himself hides his voice in a cloud, and
speaks his voice to all who are there: This
is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased. Listen to him! Moses said: It is to him that you shall listen. And
now God the Father says: Listen to him! It’s
as if God the Father is coming with his own finger, and pointing to his only
Son, and saying to Peter and James and John: This is the one that you’ve all
been waiting for, this is the one you should listen to. In fact, every Sunday,
this is what we Christians actually come here to do. We come to listen to
Jesus. We don’t come to listen simply to a pastor, or to listen to each other
over morning tea. We come to listen to Jesus, as he speaks his own words to his
people, through the absolution and the forgiveness of sins, whenever someone is
baptised through the words that are spoken, in the Lord’s Supper when we hear
that this bread and wine is in actual fact his body and blood, and in the
sermon, when the word of God and the words of salvation are proclaimed and
spoken to you. So listen to God the Father’s voice, when he says to you: Listen
to him! Listen to Jesus!
Now, there’s another aspect to the Transfiguration
that we haven’t really spoken about yet. What happens here is an amazing
vision. And Jesus himself calls it a vision, but it’s not like the disciples
were dreaming or day-dreaming, and what they saw wasn’t actually real. It was
real, it happened. They saw it, and they saw it as something that was happening
right there in front of them, they didn’t imagine it, and it didn’t happen in
their heads.
But also, there’s something very mysterious in the way
that Moses and Elijah appeared. Because in one sense, they were dead—but also,
there was something very strange about the deaths of both these men. With
Moses, nobody knew where he was buried. In the book of Jude, it says that there
was some kind of dispute between the archangel Michael and the devil about the
body of Moses. We don’t really know much about it, but it’s a strange thing
that nobody knew where Moses’ body was, and yet, here at the Transfiguration,
here is Moses. Also, Elijah was taken into heaven on a chariot—he didn’t die a
normal death, and he also didn’t have a grave site. And yet, at the Transfiguration,
here is Elijah. All this is very mysterious, and strange, and is a holy mystery
that we leave in the hands of God. We don’t want to delve into it too much,
because if we do, it can even become dangerous to us. When Peter starts to ask
about these things, God brings down a cloud. It’s as if he puts all these
things off limits. Sometimes Christians are deceived into thinking that they
need to penetrate through this cloud of unknowing to discover God in the
darkness there. No—the cloud comes down, the mysterious things are off-limits,
and God the Father points us to Jesus.
Now, there are actually many people in our country and
in our society who are interested in spiritual things. In the 60s, many hippies
went to India to find spiritual enlightenment. Many people still go to wellness
clinics in Asia to find spiritual health. Many people want to receive visions,
and they want to contact the dead, and cross over into other dimensions, and
they start to wonder about all these things. People even today, just like
superstitious people in ancient times, look up at the stars, and practice
astrology, and try to derive meaning from them, as if the stars and the zodiac
are telling us messages about our lives.
Well, Moses spoke about these things in Deuteronomy:
Earlier, I read where Moses said to beware of the practices of the nations when
they entered into the Promised Land. Moses says: The nations, which you are about to possess, listen to fortune-tellers
and to diviners. But as for you, the LORD your God has not allowed you to do
this. Moses makes a long list of these strange practices of the nations:
fortune-telling, sacrificing children, practicing divination—which is, let’s
say, “trying to get a message from something that doesn’t give messages”—,
interpreting omens (like reading stars, or tea-leaves, or bird-calls, or
whatever, to get some warning), sorcery (which is witchcraft, or occult),
charming (which is attaching some spiritual power to something that doesn’t
have that power—like saying, “this magic rock will protect you”). Moses also
mentions, “mediums” (who are people who claim to give messages from the dead),
or “necromancy” (which is talking to dead)… all these things, Moses says, the
nations listen to these people. But the Lord your God has not allowed you to do
this. Instead, who should you listen to? Moses says, “It is to him you shall
listen!” To the prophet like me! God says: This
is my beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased. Listen to him!
What Moses describes with all these strange practices
things, is basically the traditional religions which are found all across the
world. If you go to India, you’ll find talking to the dead, reading omens,
fortune-telling in Hinduism. If you go to Africa, you’ll find it there with the
witch-doctors. If you go to South America, you’ll find it there with the
shamans, or whoever. And this stuff is making a strange come-back in Australia.
If you start take notice, you’ll see this stuff everywhere, and realise just
what a pagan country Australia.
What you need to know, and what Moses teaches, and
what God the Father teaches at the Transfiguration, is that, if you hear a
message from any of these people, who practice this stuff, it is not Jesus. It
is not the voice of Jesus. The Word of God does not come through these people,
and these practices. It is mutually exclusive to listen to the fortune-tellers,
and to listen to him!
So we don’t become distracted by the wonderful
spiritual vision at the Transfiguration, and go off trying to chase our own
personal spiritual vision, through whatever means. We don’t become distracted
by the presence of Moses and Elijah who are there, and start trying to build
tents for dead people, and try to talk to them, and get messages from them.
King Saul wanted to talk to dead Samuel, and he was rejected by God.
And so, at the Transfiguration, there are so many
comforts for us. We don’t need to embroil ourselves in all this complicated,
mystical stuff. We are simply told to listen to Jesus, to hold fast to his
Word, and never let it go. When we have the Words of Jesus, we have everything
we need. We have everything we could ever possibly want, and we will never be
disappointed. He is our true Saviour, our true God, our true Light, who has won
the true forgiveness of our sins, and promises us eternal life with Moses and
Elijah, and all his saints, in wonderful glory, just like we see in the
Transfiguration. Our bodies will be transformed to be like his. The forgiveness
of sins which receive even today through the absolution and the Lord’s Supper
is the beginning of that wonderful Transfiguration that will happen to us on
the last day so that all our sins will be completely erased and we will shine
like Jesus. So let’s listen to him, and take tremendous comfort in this event!
Amen.
