The Definitive Answer to the Ultimate Question
Grace and peace to you from God our
Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
I’m sure
you’ve heard the saying, “There are three things that you need to know about
real estate: location, location, location.”
It emphasizes the importance of one factor—location—when it comes to
assigning value to real estate.
There is a
similar three-fold principle for correctly understanding the Bible: context,
context, context. The interpretation of
every word and passage of Scripture must be in agreement with its context. This includes the historical context—the
circumstances of the world in which it was written; and the immediate
context—the verses preceding and following the passage in question.
This is
especially true with regard to our text for today, Luke 9:28-36. Luke carefully links his account to the
previous exchange between Jesus and His disciples: “Now about eight days after these sayings [Jesus]
took with Him Peter and John and James and went up on the mountain to
pray.”
What
sayings? Well, Peter’s great confession
of faith, Jesus’ prediction of His suffering and death and resurrection, and
Jesus’ description of the demands that discipleship would place on those ready
to follow Him. All of “these sayings”
really focus on one question: “Who is this Jesus?”
The crowds
suggest Jesus is John the Baptist, or Elijah, or perhaps, one of the prophets
of old risen from the dead. Peter’s
answer: “The Christ of God,” is correct in so far as it goes, but falls short
in expressing His true nature. Jesus seeks
to correct such misunderstandings of His identity by explaining His mission and
work: “The Son of Man must suffer many
things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be
killed, and on the third day raised.”
Eight days
later, an event occurs up on the mountain near Jerusalem that provides the heavenly Father’s
answer to the question: “Who is this Jesus?”
As Jesus prays,
He is transfigured. He appears in
heavenly glory (at least as much heavenly glory as sinful human beings are able
to look upon and live). Moses and Elijah
appear with Him, representing the Old Testament—the Law and the prophets—all of
which testify to Christ. Both prophets
had enjoyed intimate fellowship with the Lord.
Both had left this world under unusual circumstances. Both were “mountain men” of sorts.
The Lord had
empowered Elijah to do mighty wonders and speak boldly on His behalf as he
defeated the 450 prophets of Baal and Asherah at Mount
Carmel. The Lord had
strengthened the prophet, providing food and drink for him in the
wilderness. Elijah had cried out to the
Lord at Mount Horeb.
The Lord had answered him in a whisper and promised to be with Him. And then a little later, the Lord took Elijah
into heaven with a whirlwind, so that he did not see death.
The Lord
spoke to Moses from the burning bush at Mount Horeb. He gave the Law to Moses at Mount
Sinai. Moses was given the
ability to do miraculous signs and speak on the Lord’s behalf—leading them
through the Red Sea, feeding the people with
bread and meat from heaven, giving water from the rock.
Today’s Old
Testament lesson tells us that the Lord Himself buried Moses on Mount Nebo
after giving him a glimpse of the Promised Land. It also makes the point Moses was special:
“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 wonders that the Lord sent
him to do.” But earlier in Deuteronomy, Moses
had spoken of a greater prophet yet to come: “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.”
As Jesus,
Moses, and Elijah converse on the mountain, they speak about the very subject
Jesus had introduced eight days earlier to His disciples’ shock and horror: His
departure. Or as the Greek renders it:
His exodus. Moses had been the
leader of the exodus that had brought Israel
out of the slavery of Egypt
to the Promised Land by way of the Red Sea. Jesus is the leader of the new exodus from
the slavery of sin into the promised land of heaven by way of the cross.
I used to
wonder, with all this commotion going on, how Peter and his companions could
possibly grow so heavy with sleep that they almost miss the whole scene. It will happen again on the Mount of Olives
when Jesus asks them to pray with Him in Gethsemane. But I think I can understand now. As He often did before important events,
Jesus was praying; and we know that Jesus would, on occasion, pray all through
the night. The lack of sleep and the
down time from all the recent activity of Jesus’ ministry would be enough in
itself to make one tired.
But something
more is happening here. Prayer is hard work. It is spiritual warfare. And any one of you, who have engaged in
prayer during a crisis situation or chronic condition know just how difficult
it can be just to keep awake even in the middle of prayer, or a sermon. That’s our spiritual lethargy at work, our
sleepiness and deadness to God’s Word and prayer. And proof certain that we dare not rely on
our own prayers to enter the kingdom
of God, if even Peter,
James, and John can’t pull it off in the visible presence of Jesus in His glory.
When Moses
and Elijah are about to leave, Peter tries to perpetuate the experience, to
capture the moment. It’s as though Peter
pulls out his cell phone and says, “Could you guys pose for a quick picture so
I can get it up on Facebook. My friends
will never believe this!” We do
that. We want to preserve the “religious
moment.” The mountaintop
experience. The feeling. The vision.
Peter is
still babbling when the mountain is enveloped by a cloud. This is not your average, ordinary cloud—but
a very Old Testament cloud—the kind of cloud that led the people of Israel out
of Egypt, across the Red Sea, and through the wilderness. The kind of cloud that descended on Mount Sinai when God gave the Ten Commandments to
Moses. The kind of cloud that filled the
tabernacle and the temple, driving out the priests because of its glory. No, this is no ordinary cloud; rather, it
indicates that God the Father has come on the scene, to answer the question for
Himself of who this Jesus is.
At the
Baptism of Jesus, the heavenly voice addresses Him directly: “You are My Son,
whom I love; with You I am well pleased.”
Now the Father repeats this identification for the disciples’ sake:
“This is My Son, My Chosen One; listen to Him.”
Jesus is more than some prophet like Moses or Elijah to whom people are
bidden to listen. He is God’s Son, the Incarnate
Word of God. The author of Hebrews
affirms this: “Jesus has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses—as much
more glory as the builder of a house has more honor than the house itself…
Moses was faithful in all God’s house as a servant, to testify to the things
that were to be spoken later, but Christ is faithful over God’s house as a Son.”
As quickly as the vision had come, so quickly
it is gone. The disciples are left alone
with Jesus. It is a thrilling but
frightening experience—one they do not share with others until after Jesus has
risen from the dead. For it is then they
begin to understand what they have seen—a glimpse of Christ’s glory, a preview
of the resurrection. Here is God’s definitive
answer to the ultimate question: Who is this Jesus? Christ’s true identity as God’s Son and the
Son of Man, our Savior can only be fully understood in the shadow of the cross
and the light of His resurrection.
And so… now
that we’ve looked at this passage and have seen it in its proper historical and
immediate context, we must address another question: What does it have to do
with you and me? After all, we weren’t
there on the mountain. It was not our
eyes that beheld the unveiled glory of Christ or who saw Moses and Elijah. It was not our ears that heard the voice from
the heavenly cloud. So, just what does
this mean for you and me and for all other believers throughout history?
By nature, we
are all theologians of glory, that is, we prefer our religion to be one where
we can judge the actions of God by what we see and the way we think and feel. We want a God who is big, and powerful, and
audacious; therefore we expect Him to manifest Himself in displays of
power. But with a few notable
exceptions—such as His Transfiguration—God does not work this way.
God generally
works graciously in the lives of His people through lowly, everyday, little
things: words, water, bread, and wine. Our
various vocations and stations in life, by trial and tribulation. The Lord displays His power in weakness, His
glory in suffering and shame. Even on
the mountain, He makes it clear that He does not want His disciples to be
fixated on the glory, but to look to the cross.
Today, we
remember Christ’s Transfiguration, when He reveals His divine glory before His
disciples. But as exciting as that
metamorphosis is, God has something even more important to teach. Amid the stirring spectacle, God directs
Peter, James, and John to something that seems rather dull and insignificant:
words. He tells them, “This is My Son,
My Chosen One; listen to Him!”
“Listen to
Him!” Listen to this Prophet greater
than Moses. The Father does not point
the three disciples to what they see and feel.
It is what they hear that is important.
For it is ears, not eyes, that bring salvation. As St. Paul
writes in Romans 10:16, “Faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the Word
of Christ.” No matter how glorious the
display of His majesty, God doesn’t save by His glory apart from His Word. His glory may convince man of His existence
and power; but He uses His Word to give them faith to believe that He is
gracious and merciful.
On the
mountain, the disciples see a glimpse of Jesus’ glory as He pulls aside the
veil of human nature. It is a glory
Jesus always had, the glory of God from eternity, which He doesn’t lose when He
takes on humanity. Left to themselves,
the disciples would be perfectly content to just bask in that glory for a while. It is, after all, a bit of heaven here on
earth. Certainly much better than that
“departure stuff,” with all of its talk of suffering, rejection, cross, and
death.
What about
you? Are you really so different from
the disciples? Do you get tired of
hearing Christ and Him crucified, week after week? Would you rather look for something more
relevant? Something more exciting?
If you’re
honest, you must confess that you’re no stranger to the disciples’ wish to stay
high on the mountain, to revel in the glory.
Your sinful nature seeks music that stirs the heart, even if it starves
the soul. It seeks a message that
tickles your ears with helpful hints and warms you with fuzzy feeling, rather
than the Word that is sharper than a two-edged sword dividing down to the marrow
with Law and Gospel. Like the disciples,
your Old Adam wants anything and everything in religion but suffering, death,
blood, and talk of sin.
Jesus’
disciples see and experience the flash of light and the appearance of Moses and
Elijah, and they think that is the point.
But they are wrong. The disciples
miss what is most important—and it isn’t what they see. It is what they hear. God tells them, “This is My Son, the Chosen
One; listen to Him!”
Seeing Jesus
in His glory doesn’t tell the whole story.
On the Last Day, everyone will see Him in His glory. Every knee will bow and every tongue will
confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. But only those who recognize Him as their
Savior—the One crucified and risen for the forgiveness of their sins—will bow
down joyfully.
Eight days
before His Transfiguration, Jesus had spoken of the cross. If the disciples had been listening, that’s
what they would’ve heard in the heavenly conversation of Jesus, Moses, and
Elijah. They were talking about His
“departure,” His cross. Moses and Elijah
can’t stay, for Jesus has work to do:
bloody, hard work that only He can do—His work of cross and
death.
And so the
moment of glory ends. The disciples look
up and see only Jesus, for Jesus is all they need. They go down from the mountain and Jesus “set
His face to go to Jerusalem,” where He will be
led to another holy hill, Mount
Calvary. To the unbelieving eye it looks anything but
glorious; but there Jesus displays Himself more glorious than He ever has shown
Himself before.
To glorify is
to lift up. And the Roman soldiers
unknowingly glorify Jesus on the day He destroys death. That’s why the disciples keep silent, for God
doesn’t want the Mount of Transfiguration to replace the Mount of Calvary. For the true glory of Jesus is metal, bone,
and whip ripping through the skin and muscle of His back, not the light shining
through His face and clothes. The true
glory of Jesus is the hammering of nails through His flesh and vein. The true glory of Jesus is the sharp thorny
crown piercing His innocent brow. The
true glory of Jesus is Him hanging between two thieves, not hanging out with
Moses and Elijah.
God in the
flesh must go to Jerusalem
and face the full force of man’s hatred and brutality. He must endure the blasphemous lies of the
Sanhedrin and the pragmatism of Pilate.
He must bear the sins of man and the righteous wrath of God. Jesus takes on human flesh for one purpose:
to be the Sacrifice that takes away the sin of the world. The Messiah must pay with His life.
Christ, and
Him crucified! That is this definitive
answer to the ultimate question! The
cross! That’s where the glory is! That’s how God loved the world. That’s where Jesus shows the Father’s love to
us, where He shows us what mercy truly is.
The crucifixion is where Jesus defeats the devil, where He pays the debt
for sin. It’s where life and
righteousness is won for us fallen creatures.
Jesus will not have us see His Transfiguration unless we see it through
the lens of the cross. In His death, He
shows His true glory. For it is from the
cross that all forgiveness and life flow.
And even from the cross we are to hear His words. Listen to Him! Jesus says: “Father, forgive them.” And He cries out: “It is finished!” Christ has won the victory and conquered
death so that you may live forever.
And that’s
why Jesus’ disciples must listen to Him: He has so much more for us to
hear! Jesus will pray and teach us to
pray. He will give us more of the Word
and teach with authority. He will
correct and rebuke; He will encourage and forgive. He will speak the words of His Supper. He will give the Church His Spirit and the
power to retain and forgive sins. He
will give His Baptism into His death and resurrection. And He will promise to be with us always to
the end of the age through His means of grace.
So, what
about you? Are you awake? Are you listening? After all, you’ve been hearing Him for years,
right? Is there anything that dazzles
the eye, which draws your attention off of what Christ wants to give you? Is there anything that would draw your focus
off of Christ and Him crucified for your sins?
If so,
repent! Confess your faithlessness and
unbelief. Recall your Baptism daily,
putting to death that old sinful nature that the new man might rise and live in
righteousness, innocence, and blessedness forever. Sit at Jesus’ feet and listen to His
Word. Eat the very body and drink the
very blood that was given and shed for you for the forgiveness of your
sins. Hear the gracious promises of the
Gospel as if your life depends on it.
Because it does! Your life does
depend on His Word—not just now but for eternity!
Listen to
Him! For in Christ crucified and His
holy Word you have the definitive answer to the ultimate question; that is to
say you have salvation and eternal life. Indeed, in Christ, you are forgiven for all of
your sins.
In the name
of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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