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stransf05
Glory
That the Church May Share virtua girl s60
Text:
Matthew 17:1-9
Date: The Transfiguration of Our Lord / Epiphany Last 
2/6/05
Today
we celebrate the Transfiguration of Our Lord. But what, really,
are we celebrating? To the eyes of only three witnesses the Father
allows them to glimpse the brightness of His Son's Divine Nature
shining through every pour of his human body, every warp and woof
of his garments. Until now it was only on the basis of his miraculous
signs of healing and his teaching that we have come to believe that
this Man is truly the Son of God. Now, for just a moment, our eyewitnesses
saw his glory. It is important in order to get the message of salvation
right to get the identity of the Savior right. He is not a mere
Superman who, when the going gets tough, flies into the nearest
telephone booth donning his tights and cape to come and save the
day. Such a view cannot then make any sense of his humiliating death
on the cross. No, this vision reveals the mystery of the two natures
of Christ, human and divine, united in one Person, each nature performing
what is particular to it but with the full cooperation of the other
nature. I say we are celebrating a mystery here where Holy Scripture,
the Word of God holds sway and human reason must take the back seat
and allow faith to see, understand and rejoice. As it is incomprehensible
how the true God reveals himself as One yet three Persons, so is
it impossible for the human mind to understand completely how two
natures, human and divine, are one Christ. But understanding and
believing are two different things.
To
understand the significance of the Transfiguration one needs to
have some knowledge of the record of the Old Testament—the record
of Moses and Elijah, the record of the images of God's presence
in mountain and cloud, in brightness and fire, in Divine Words spoken
and written in stone, and in the significance of eating and drinking
in table fellowship with the Almighty. While some celebrate the
Transfiguration in late summer (August 6), the Lutheran lectionary
places it on the last Sunday after The Epiphany as a fitting conclusion
to this season and as preparation for the descent into the 40-day
penitential season of Lent. On Epiphany I at the Baptism of Our
Lord we heard the voice from heaven say, “This is my beloved Son.”
Today we hear that same voice saying those same words with the additional
command, “listen to him.”
So
what are we celebrating? We are celebrating Jesus our Savior, the
incarnate Son of God, and how according to his two natures, human
and divine, he came to bring salvation to us and to the whole world.
We are celebrating the fact that, as in Jesus our very human nature
has been exulted in communion with the divine, so each of us begins
already now to be renewed in holiness and look forward to the day
of being delivered completely from the devil, the world, sin and
death to the glory of eternal life. As our hymn of the day puts
it:
Oh,
wondrous type! Oh, vision fair
Of
glory that the Church may share [LW 87:1]
The
“glory” of our incarnate Lord and Savior he shares with his Church,
each disciple, as he comes and lives in each one now through the
means of grace, and which we will share in full in the day of resurrection.
His glory becomes our glory.
What
is the glory of Christ? His glory, first, is his Person, Who he
is. Then his glory is his work of salvation.
When
the Lord called Moses to come up to him on the mountain “that I
may give you the tablets of stone, with the law and the commandment,
which I have written for their instruction” God's presence was signified
by the cloud that covered the mountain. And “the glory of the Lord
dwelt on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days” (Exodus
24:12, 15-16). Similarly, “after six days Jesus took with him Peter
and James, and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain
by themselves.” Mountains are places of revelation, of divine communication.
Remember the principle, however, that no one can bear to see God
face to face, “for man shall not see me and live” [Exodus 33:20
(ESV)]. The glory of God's holiness cannot come in contact with
sin without destroying it. Therefore any saving demonstration of
God's glory must be veiled as in a cloud or in a messenger. Here
the veil of Jesus' human flesh shields the eyes of the witnesses.
As
Moses foretold of the Christ as “a prophet like me from among you,
from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen” [Deut. 18:15 (ESV)],
and as the prophet Malachi predicted, “"Behold, I will send
you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord
comes” [Malachi 4:5 (ESV)], so here they appeared talking with Jesus.
Peter, however, got it wrong. He proposed making three tents, one
for each of the glorious personages. He should have proposed only
one, for only Jesus is God. Now it was time for the bright cloud
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