What does such Transfiguration with Light mean? What does it signify or indicate? It is a return to the Baptism of Our Lord, and a reassertion of the Father’s Word concerning His beloved Son. It is therefore also a proclamation of His Righteousness in the coming Cross and Resurrection of our Lord, whereby He atones for the sins of the world and makes all things brand new.
It means that He who is the Christ, the Son of the Living God, will enter into Glory, with His own flesh and blood, through the narrow passage of His Passion, by His innocent suffering and death.
It means that He who comes down from heaven into the dust of the earth and the depths of Sheol will also emerge and arise and go up again to the Right Hand of the Father in the heavenly places.
And it means that He will do so, for you and for all, in His own flesh and blood as the true Man.
We have celebrated, and shall evermore continue to celebrate the Incarnation of the Word, that is, the becoming flesh of the Son of God. In the Transfiguration of this same Lord Jesus Christ, we are given to behold, through the eyes of Peter, James & John, the Deification, or “Verbification,” of our human flesh in the Person of the incarnate Son. For His own flesh, which He shares with us by His conception and birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary, is the very flesh of the Word of God.
Henceforth, if you would hear and have the Word of God, then you must hear and heed this Man of flesh and blood. For it is in and with and through His Body that the Glory of God is realized.
This Divine Glory in the Flesh of Christ is the Word of God to you, which is the Light of the Lord shining for you in this dark place. It is a Lamp unto your feet, a Light upon your path. The Father speaks to you by His Son, and He inscribes His Voice forever and ever in the flesh of this same Lord Jesus Christ; His Holy Spirit writes with the Blood of this Man upon the vellum of His skin.
So it is, that, by this Word-Flesh of Jesus, you are given confidence and sure and certain hope in this dark place; in the midst of sin and death; in circumstances of hardship and hurt; in a context of doubt and fear; in the face of stark adversity and precarious uncertainty. Sufficient for each day is the trouble thereof; and you know well enough your own concerns and challenges. There are some who would say, to a young couple like Nathaniel and Sarah, “Why are you adding to your burdens by having children?” And, “Should any of us bring children into this cold hard world?”
The darkness not only surrounds you and presses upon you from the outside; it is also within you, filling you with fear and sadness, unbelief and anger. It is a darkness of heart and mind, the root of sin and death in you. It permeates your flesh and blood. It infiltrates your words and actions.
Such darkness cannot persist in the presence of God, nor can it survive the appearance of His radiant Glory. When His Light shines in the darkness, the darkness can neither comprehend nor overcome it. No, the darkness is instantly consumed, or it is scattered, by the Lighting of the Lord.
That is a problem, then, for you who are up to your eyeballs in deep darkness, within and without. How shall you persist or survive? How shall you live? Not without the Lord your God, who alone is the Author and Giver of Life. That is certain! You have no hope nor any help apart from Him. But how can you live with Him, either? How shall you abide His glorious presence?
That was the dilemma for Israel, too, at Mt. Sinai and beyond. The Glory of God upon the Holy Mountain was a consuming fire, thunder and lightning, and a billowing Cloud of fierce power. The people could not approach or touch that mountain, except at the invitation of the Lord, lest they die; and they pleaded with Moses that the Lord should not speak to them directly anymore.
There was no solution to be found in the people then. Neither is there any solution to be found in you now. In you there is the darkness of death; not holiness, but profanity and perversity. You are sinful and unclean, and it is surely true that what you deserve is nothing else but punishment.
Yet, the Lord, the Lord, He is gracious and merciful, compassionate and patient with His children; He is slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast Love. Therefore, what He did for His people then, in His grace and mercy toward them at Mt. Sinai, was to establish His Holy Covenant with them by the flesh and blood of sacrifice; and then to prescribe the Tabernacle and the Priesthood, the Liturgy of the Covenant, whereby He would dwell among them, and they would abide with Him.
Within that glorious Cloud that covered Mt. Sinai, Moses received from the Lord the heavenly pattern for the earthly tabernacle that he would build with Israel, in accord with God’s command. That same Cloud, which is the Glory of God, then filled that tabernacle when it was finished; not for the destruction of the people, but as the gracious presence of God for their life and salvation.
Now, beloved, the very One who is, Himself, the heavenly Pattern of that Old Covenant Liturgy, He has come, in the flesh; and He has accomplished and fulfilled this great Salvation for you and for all people, which is the Glory of God revealed and perfected in His crucified and risen Body.
This one Lord, Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Mary’s Son, is the fulfillment of the Law and of all the Prophets who came before Him in days of old. He is the Priest, the Sacrifice, the Tabernacle and the Temple, the Holy of Holies, and the gracious Presence of God in Person, in the Flesh.
He comes from God the Father, and He returns to the Father by the way of His Cross and Passion, in His Resurrection and Ascension, all for the sake of His Love, for the purpose of gathering you up in Himself and bringing you to His God and Father as a beloved child in His own Sonship. He comes down, so as to bring you up the Holy Mountain to see God, to eat and drink in His presence.
The trouble is, that, what you see and feel and experience, for now, in this poor life of labor, is not only the darkness of sin and death, inside and out, but also the darkness of the Cross itself, which is a deep dark Cloud of Glory in its own right. It is hard to understand, and difficult to bear. Not only for the Christ, who has no “easy” job awaiting Him at the bottom of the Holy Mountain, in the valley of the shadow of death. But, as it was for Peter and the other Apostles in their day, so is the Cross of Christ a deadly divine Glory for you to share and carry as a disciple after Him.
In order to prepare and strengthen the Apostles for their witness to His Cross and Resurrection, and for their administration of His Gospel in the Days of His Ascension, He reveals the majesty of His Glory to three of them, who will afterwards strengthen their brothers; and, through their witness, they strengthen the whole Church on earth in all times and places, even to the close of the age.
Not that they are able to comprehend what they behold at the time. It really can’t be understood until the Cross and Resurrection have been accomplished. Yet, they are able see and perceive that it is good; for it is a vision of the New Creation, perfected in the flesh of Christ. And, in retrospect, it all comes together and makes perfect sense, leastwise to those who, by faith, are His disciples.
The Glory of God is manifest in the flesh of the incarnate Son, precisely because He is crucified for our sins, and because He is raised for our justification. In His Cross and Resurrection, and in His crucified and risen Body, the Word and promises of God are established and certain forever. Not with the blood of bulls and goats, but, in and with His own Blood, the Lord has signed and sealed His new and everlasting Covenant with His Church, even under the Cross that she bears.
It is in His Church that His preaching and teaching sound forth, and that His Holy Sacraments are administered in His Name; such as you hear and see and witness for yourself, here this morning.
Wherever the Word of Jesus Christ is spoken and heard in His Name, and His Body and Blood are given and received in remembrance of Him, there is the Tabernacle of God among men. By these ways and means of grace, the Majestic Glory dwells with you, and you with Him; though in such a way that is yet hidden from your eyes in a dark Cloud.
Listen to Him, and pay attention. Hear and heed His Word to you. Give attention to His Law for your life, which is patterned after His Life for you; and walk in obedience to that Word of the Lord.
So also, listen to the utterance of His Gospel: His gracious Word and promises to you; His free and full forgiveness of your sins; and His blessing upon you. For as the Father spoke to Christ at His Baptism, and as He has spoken to Gwendolyn this morning by the same Son, Jesus Christ, so has He spoken to all of you who are baptized into Him, into His Cross and Resurrection, in His Name:
You are beloved of God and well-pleasing to Him. Yes, even you. You are His own dear child, His son or daughter in Christ. You are clothed in the radiance of His righteousness and holiness.
And so shall you, also, in the resurrection of your body, also shine like the sun, and like the stars forever and ever, reflecting the Glory of Christ that you share by His grace through the Gospel.
Listen, too, and hear how He invites you not to be afraid, but to rise from the dust and the dirt, and to live by faith in His mercy toward you. He stretches out His hand — not against you, to hurt or punish you — but in gentleness and tender kindness, to raise you up in peace, and to feed you.
In the hearing of His Gospel, by faith, this Morning Star now rises in your heart, in your body and your life: He scatters the darkness and shatters the gloom that have beclouded your vision and shrouded your thoughts. Now you are able to see, here and now, by faith, in humble bread and simple wine, the Body and Blood of God Himself for you: The God who is with you, in whose flesh is the Majestic Glory of the Holy, Holy, Holy One.
Here, then, at His Altar, is the Holy Mountain of the Lord your God: He is the Lord, the Almighty, the Merciful One, who keeps His Covenant in faithfulness, whose steadfast love endures forever.
Oh, come, let us worship Him; let us kneel and bow down before the Lord, our Maker. Let us fall down in reverence before His Footstool on earth, and worship the Holy One upon His Holy Hill.
In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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