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“A Mountaintop Experience
Luke 9:28-36

 

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Pastor Kevin Vogts
Trinity Lutheran Church
Paola, Kansas

The Transfiguration of Our Lord–Last Sunday after the Epiphany—February 7, 2016

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

For the Transfiguration of Our Lord, Jesus takes with him up the mountain three of his disciples, Peter, James, and John.  Those three disciples were representative of the Twelve, and they, and their experience, are also representative of us.

A hymn we will sing during Communion says, “How good Lord, to be here!  Your glory fills the NIGHT.”  Although neither Matthew, Mark, nor Luke specifically says that it was nighttime when the Transfiguration took place, because we are told the disciples were “very sleepy,” and because Jesus’ glory was so bright, it is assumed these events took place at night.  And there is significance in that for us.  The invention of the electric light has changed our modern perspective, but throughout most of human history, darkness was greatly feared, and therefore a synonym for evil. 

“Light has come into the world,” Jesus said, “but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.”  Paul warns us in 1st Corinthians that when Christ comes as our judge, “He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness.”  Hell itself is described by Peter as “blackest darkness,” and by Jesus simply as, “the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” 

So, the darkness which covered the mountain before the Transfiguration represents the spiritual darkness of our sinful world, and our sins, and the judgment we deserve.  As Paul warns in Romans, “The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness.”

The evangelists Matthew, Mark and Luke struggle for words to describe the sudden, glorious light which shines on the mountain.  “His face shone like the sun,” Matthew reports, “and his clothes became as white as the light.”  “His clothes became dazzling white,” Mark says “whiter than anyone in the world could bleach them.”  “The appearance of his face changed,” says Luke, “and his clothes became as bright as a flash of lightning.”

“I have come into the world as a light,” Jesus says, “so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness.” The sudden, glorious light shattering the darkness on the mountain represents Christ triumphing over Satan, salvation triumphing over sin, the light of God’s forgiveness triumphing over our deeds of darkness. 

“For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness,” Paul says in Colossians, “and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”  The sudden, glorious light shattering the darkness represents your redemption, the forgiveness of your sins.  Peter puts it this way: “[He] called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.  Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”

Why did Christ take along these disciples to give them this vision?  Luke tells us, “Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed,” and Matthew says that on another occasion, “He went up on a mountainside by himself to pray.”  So, as he often did at other times, Jesus could have gone up the mountain all by himself for the Transfiguration. 

But, John reports that another time when the Father spoke to Jesus from heaven, Jesus told those with him, “This voice was not for my benefit, but yours.”  The dazzling transfiguration of Jesus on the mountain, the appearance of Moses and Elijah talking with Jesus, the voice from the cloud saying, “This is my Son, whom I have chosen; listen to him,” all this was for the disciples’ benefit, and OUR benefit too.

Over the next six months the disciples would be sorely tried and deeply disappointed.  They still had at this time the mistaken idea that Jesus was to be an earthly king.  At this point, the disciples were like many of the people working on the campaigns of the presidential candidates.  Just as the workers in those political campaigns often expect to get a job in the administration if their candidate wins, the disciples at this time still had a very crass idea about Jesus’ kingdom, and their future role in it.

That is why, as Luke tells us just a few verses after today’s text, “An argument started among the disciples as to which of them would be the greatest.”  Even at the Last Supper, Luke reports, “A dispute arose among them as to which of them should be considered the greatest.”  They thought that once Jesus overthrew the Romans and re-established an earthly kingdom of Israel, he would dole out perk positions, like a president rewarding his supporters with cabinet posts or ambassadorships, and they were arguing about who should have the most prestigious appointments in Jesus’ earthly kingdom.

Jesus tried to set the disciples straight, to help them see the true, spiritual nature of his kingship and kingdom.  As Matthew reports just before the Transfiguration, “From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.”  But, the disciples persisted in their misguided notions, until it all came crashing down during that horrible week we call Holy Week.  Their beloved Master, crucified, dead and buried.  And gone with him, all their hopes of a new earthly kingdom for Israel—and for themselves, positions of power, privilege, and prestige.

It is to prepare them for the shock of his rejection, suffering, death and burial, to prepare them for the low point of Holy Week when they would walk with him through the valley of the shadow of death, that Jesus now gives this glorious vision on the mountaintop to his disciples.  So that as he is stricken, smitten and afflicted, they will remember his true, divine glory revealed on the mountain.  So that as he hangs dying on the cross, they will recall the voice from the cloud, “This is my Son, whom I have chosen.”

The fascinating book, “Where’d That Come From: Everyday Expressions Found in the Bible,” lists hundreds of common sayings that we may not realize have their origins in the Bible.  One of these is “mountaintop experience.”  That phrase comes from today’s Gospel Reading, and the other Gospel accounts of The Transfiguration of Our Lord.   As Matthew says, “[Jesus] led them up a high mountain by themselves.  There he was transfigured before them.” 

Just as Jesus revealed himself to these disciples in a mountaintop experience, to strengthen them before they walked through the valley of the shadow of death, before they experienced the trauma and shock and disappointment of Holy Week, it is to strengthen you as you begin a new week in your life, with its own traumas and shocks and disappointments, that each Sunday Jesus reveals himself to you here.

The disciples saw Moses and Elijah talking with Jesus.  These two emblematic authors from the Old Testament represent the Word and promises of God.  For the disciples, this part of the vision was particularly an assurance that, despite the events to come, which will not be at all what they expect, Jesus is indeed the Messiah, the fulfillment of all the Old Testament promises proclaimed by Moses, and Elijah, and the other prophets.

In the mountaintop experience of worship, you also receive assurance from God’s Word and promises.  As Paul says in Colossians, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God.”  You receive assurance that, even though things to come may not turn out at all as you expect, even though you may walk through the valley of the shadow of death, God is working all things together for your good, he will never leave you or forsake, he is with you always.

Luke says at the Transfiguration, “A cloud appeared and enveloped them.”  This again harkens back to the Old Testament, to the Exodus, when the Lord appeared to the Israelites as a pillar of cloud.  Paul explains its significance in 1 Corinthians: “Our forefathers were all under the cloud and they all passed through the sea. They were all baptized . . . in the cloud and in the sea.”  Perhaps it is because a cloud is, after all, made of WATER, that the cloud in the Exodus and in the Transfiguration represents the waters of Holy Baptism. 

Just as a cloud enveloped the Israelites in their mountaintop experience, the Exodus; and just as a cloud enveloped the disciples in their mountaintop experience, the Transfiguration; in the same way, Holy Baptism is for you a mountaintop experience in your life, through which God enveloped you with his love.

The disciples heard a voice from the cloud declare, “This is my Son, whom I have chosen.”  This harkens back to Jesus’ own baptism, at the beginning of his ministry, when his heavenly Father proclaimed from a cloud, “This is my beloved Son.”  Your Baptism is a mountaintop experience in your life, because in Baptism YOU have been “born again” as a beloved child of God.  As Paul describes Baptism in Titus, “He saved us through the washing of REBIRTH and renewal by the Holy Spirit.”

In the Transfiguration, Jesus revealed to the disciples the true splendor of his divine glory.  In the mountaintop experience of Communion, although you behold only the earthly elements of bread and wine, Christ promises that you are indeed encountering in this Sacrament his divine glory, in, with, and under the bread and wine.  As Paul says in 1 Corinthians, “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?”  Just as Jesus strengthened his disciples for the struggles ahead with his glorious presence in the Transfiguration, Holy Communion is your mountaintop experience, to strengthen and preserve you steadfast in the true faith unto life everlasting.

Jesus knew that when things got bad for his disciples, especially when they would walk through the valley of the shadow of death during the awful events of Holy Week, they would need something to reassure and strengthen them.  So, Jesus gave them the mountaintop experience of the Transfiguration. 

That’s also what’s happening here in worship, your own mountaintop experience, as you encounter the Lord’s glory through his Word and Sacraments, to reassure and strengthen you.  As Peter said at the Transfiguration, “It is good for us to be here.” 

Amen.

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