To Eat and Drink in the Fellowship of God

It is for this purpose that God the Lord has brought you out of Egypt, for this purpose that He has written and revealed His Word to you — that you should have Life and Fellowship with Him, that you should eat and drink in His presence, in peace and without fear.  Indeed, this is your Life, both now and forever — to be and abide with God in harmony, in holy faith and holy love, in Christ.

In view of that divine Life to which He calls you, do all that He has commanded you.  Fear, love and trust in Him above all things.  Hear and heed His Word.  Call upon His holy Name.  Follow the Cloud of His Glory by day, His Pillar of Fire by night, and dwell with Him in His Tabernacle.

Eat and drink the Food that He provides — the Living Bread from heaven, the Living Water from the Rock — for these are your Meat and Drink indeed, even here and now in the wilderness.

So, also, love one another; for love is of God, and you and your brothers and sisters in Christ are His own people, the beloved sheep of His green pasture.  Love is the fulfillment of the whole Law; for love does no harm to the neighbor, but helps him and supports him in all things, at all times.

Do not yearn for the feasting and fashions of Egypt, from which the Lord has set you free.  Do not return to your sins, like a dog to its vomit, nor indulge in the lusts of your flesh, like a pig in its wallow.  Rather, stay the course and trust the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, and spirit.

Do not grow restless in the desert, nor suppose that the Lord has forgotten you or failed to keep His promises.  Tremble in fear of the Lord, to be sure, for He is the Holy One before whom all creation bows in reverence.  But do not quail in terror and deathly despair, as though His desire were to destroy you.  It is not.  His desire is to save you and give you Life, because He loves you.

Repent of your false belief, despair, and other great shame and vice.  And do not attempt to fathom the heart and Spirit of God apart from His incarnate Son, Jesus the Christ, the beloved and well-pleasing One, the new and greater Joshua who serves you in love.  Not even Moses enters the glorious presence of the Lord God Almighty apart from this Joshua, Christ Jesus, the Word-made-Flesh who tabernacles among His own with grace, mercy, and peace.

The Law of God is good and wise.  It instructs you in the way that leads to Life in fellowship and harmony with the Holy Trinity.  Yet, apart from Christ Jesus it is a consuming Fire, which accuses and condemns you and threatens to destroy you utterly and forever.  It exposes the darkness in your heart and mind, the self-idolatry and lack of love in your thoughts, words, and deeds.  It uncovers the nakedness of your sin and the stench of death that already clings to the carcass of your flesh.

Apart from Christ Jesus, you are an animated corpse, merely biding your time on the way to your grave (and far worse) — separated from the Living God and devoid of His Life-giving Holy Spirit.

Who, then, shall save you from this body of death and the darkness and damnation of your sin?

It is Jesus, Jesus, only Jesus, the beloved Son of the Living God.  He is the Holy One of Israel.  He is the Christ, your Savior.  He is the Glory of God — in Person — in the Flesh.  He is the Sacrifice of Atonement, and His Blood is the New Covenant of peace and reconciliation with God.  You are anointed with the Holy Spirit unto Life, and you have Fellowship with the Father, only in Jesus.

So, listen to Him.  Hear what He says to you, take it to heart and believe it, and live by His Word.

Consider also the touch of His hand — His Body given for you — and be raised up from the death of doubt and fear to Life and Hope and Peace and Joy in His holy Flesh and precious Blood.

He has brought you through the waters out of Egypt.  He has baptized you in the Cloud and in the Sea of His own Exodus, His Cross and Resurrection.  And so shall He bring you through the Jordan into Canaan, the Promised Land, flowing with Milk and Honey and every Good Thing.

Not Moses the Lawgiver, but this new and greater Joshua does it, who is the fulfillment of the Law.  By the Gospel of His Cross and His forgiveness of your sins, He brings you in with Himself.

So shall He bring you at last up to the high and holy Mountain of God in and with Himself.  That is, not to Sinai, but to the true Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem, His Holy Hill — not consumed with fire and brimstone, lightning and thunder and billowing smoke, but bathed in the beauty of His divine holiness and cloaked with the radiance of His righteousness, innocence, and blessedness.

The time is not yet.  But do not fret, do not be afraid, do not hide yourself away.  Do not withdraw from the world and curl up inside yourself.  Do not lie there frozen, nor sit there dumbfounded.

See, here is Jesus.  Stand up, and follow Him.  He is your Pillar of Cloud by day and Fire by night.

He leads you forward by the way of His Cross.  That is hard to understand, more difficult to bear, but it will not defeat you.  It is by the wood of His Cross that He parts the sea and opens the Rock and pours down Manna from heaven, by the wood of His Cross that He defeats all your enemies, sin, death, the devil, and hell, the world with its wickedness, and the treachery of your own flesh.

Cease your grumbling and complaining.  The Lord has heard the cries and lamentations of your heart, and He has already acted to save you by His mighty arm and His outstretched hands.

So, then, close your mouth altogether, and first of all open your ears to hear what Christ Jesus the Lord shall say to you; for you have nothing worth saying until He has spoken and you have listened.  Then open your mouth and be fed.  Eat from His hand, drink from His Cup.  And after He has filled you with Himself, confess what He has said, what He has done, what He has given.

Yes, you’re in the wilderness — and Jesus is right there with you all the way.  You’ll not starve, for He is feeding you.  Your shoes will not wear out, your feet will not blister or swell, so long as you follow Him.  Though an army encamp against you, do not be afraid.  The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is with you; the Lord God of Sabaoth is for you.

Lift up your eyes roundabout and see.  You are surrounded by the Glory of the Lord, already in His Ministry of the Gospel here within His Church on earth, and so also in that great Cloud of His witnesses, His saints, who have gone before you in the faith and live forever in His presence: Moses and Elijah, Aaron and his sons, Samuel and David, Peter, James, and John, Mary and Joseph, Simeon and Anna, Stephen and Paul, Timothy and Titus — a multitude of disciples from every nation, tribe, and tongue, which no man could ever count, but God Himself has numbered.

All of them have been transfigured by the Cross of Christ Jesus to share His Resurrection and His Life everlasting.  And you are likewise being transfigured by His Cross.  Not yet outwardly — for your mortal flesh is still wasting away — but inwardly you are being renewed, day by day, in hope and expectation of the Glory that shall be revealed in you, both body and soul, in the Resurrection.

Here and now the surety of that exceedingly great and precious Promise is being given to you — the Word of Christ Jesus in your ears, in your heart, and in your mouth (for He is not far away but near to you with His Word); and the Body and Blood of Christ Jesus, given and poured out for you, for the forgiveness of all your sins.  See, He stretches out His hand, not to harm you, but to save.

To eat and drink in His presence — to feast upon Him, who is the Lord your God in the Flesh — this is already a sweet Foretaste of the neverending Feast to come.  It is the endless Sabbath Rest that remains for the people of God.  It is your Life and your Salvation in Fellowship with God.

Arise, therefore, and do not fear, but live.

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

To Live and Abide with God in His House of Love

Whether a person knows God or not, everyone desires love.  They may not know what love is, and they may be looking for love in all the wrong places, but you and all have been created for Love — for the sake of Love — to be loved by God in Christ, and to love both Him and your neighbor.

As I mentioned last week in speaking of Agape, real Love is more than a feeling.  It is a passion, to be sure, but not the passion of selfish lust; it is the passion of self-sacrifice, which is willing to suffer and die for the sake of another.  That is the sort of Love for which you have been created; for that is the Love with which the Lord has created you and loved you and given Himself for you.

As a human being, a man or a woman, you are created in the Image and Likeness of God to love and care for one another as the Lord your God loves and cares for you in Christ Jesus.  Indeed, you are called and commanded to love your neighbor as Christ Jesus loves you in His tender mercy and with His free forgiveness; and not only that, but, as we heard last Sunday, you are to love even your enemies, to pray for those who persecute you, and to forgive those who trespass against you.

As a Christian, insofar as it depends on you, you are to be at peace with all people; to forgive, as you are forgiven, and to do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the household and family of God. And of course, that begins with your own household and family — with your father and mother, with your brothers and sisters, with your own husband or wife, and with your children.  And if you are left without a family of your own, your love begins here within your congregation, and it extends from here to your immediate neighbors, to your classroom or your workplace.

Everyone longs to be loved, as I have said, whether they can put a name to it or not.  Everyone is created to receive the Love of God, and to love the Lord and their neighbors in turn.  Our hearts and minds, bodies and souls are restless and uneasy, aimless and out of sorts, until they settle into that life of Love, which is from God and found in Him alone, in the incarnate Son, Christ Jesus.

To live and abide in love is to be at peace with others, to rest in your own place in communion with those the Lord has stationed around you, graciously giving and receiving without keeping score or counting the cost.  It is to build a house and make a home and to share it with your neighbors.

But would you build a house of love that will last?  Would you build such a house that will abide and remain, not only for this lifetime, but beyond death and the grave?  No, your home and family are not forever.  Even holy marriage is only until death.  Children grow up and move away to make homes and families of their own.  Friends and neighbors come and go with the passing years.

An abiding House and Home — a dwelling place of perfect Peace and Sabbath Rest and never-ending Love — is found only in the Lord your God.  But would you build such a House for Him?

The Law of God is good and glorious, it really is.  And it seems to offer the obvious answer and solution: Love God, and love your neighbor.  Fear, love, and trust in God with all your heart and soul, mind and strength, and do no hurt nor harm to your neighbor.  Do not take, but give and help and serve your neighbors.  Do not be selfish or greedy or lustful or jealous, but be content with what you have.  Be happy with your lot in life, trust the Lord your God, and do your job faithfully.

Such is the way of the Law, and it is indeed the way of Love.  It is holy and righteous and good, and it is right to live accordingly.  So it seems very promising.  If you would only do these things, then you would live, and God would be very pleased, and you would be at peace with everyone.

Yet, for all of that, it is a false and misleading dream to suppose that the Law will save you in that way and provide you with the House of Love that you desire from the very depths of your being.

The Law cannot bring you into the Land of Promise, however great its promises may be.  The Law of love lets you see it with your eyes, so that you know what it looks like; but the Law will not let you enter.  The Law is a faithful servant in God’s House, but the Law cannot build the House.  The Law can crush and destroy your enemies; it can defeat Pharaoh and all his hosts.  But it cannot give you Life.  The Law accuses you and would destroy you.  It does not bring you into the Good Land.

It is not for Moses but for Joshua to bring you through the waters of the Jordan into Canaan.  Neither is it the great Prophet Elijah, but the One who comes after Elijah — the One to whom that Prophet also points — the Christ of God, the One anointed by the Holy Spirit at His Baptism in the Jordan River for that great and final Exodus which He accomplishes at Jerusalem.  He is the One who loves you and saves you, who brings you out of Egypt into the Promised Land of God.

Your own wisdom, reason, and strength will not get you there; nor will your own beauty, charisma, or wealth get you the Love that you need.  Your own works of love will not build a permanent House and Home with God.  No matter how hard you work, no matter how skilled, intelligent, or crafty you may be, your own efforts will not do it.  All your glory fades, and all your works fail.

But the beautiful Glory of Christ Jesus, which is the Love of God, that is what saves you.  And that is what builds the House of God for you, in which you abide with Him, and He with you, forever.

So, that sounds good.  That is the Gospel, and it’s simple enough, albeit profound and marvelous.  You know and believe that it is true, that God loves you and saves you in Christ Jesus.  But what is so staggering is the nature and content of His beautiful Love and Salvation in this body and life.

God does not look at the outward appearance, nor does He appear as you would imagine Him.  He looks rather at the heart; and He opens His own great Heart of Love to you in the Person of His incarnate Son, in His Body of flesh and blood like yours, transfigured in radiant Glory on the High Mountain this morning, but so also crucified, put to death, and buried in the dark valley below.  He is the Chosen One, the Lord’s Anointed — the Christ or Messiah — who is your Savior.

He goes up that Mountain to pray — not in desperation for Himself, but in His great Love for you and all people, all those He has come to save.  He goes up the Mountain to God, in anticipation of His being lifted up and drawing all men to Himself and bringing them to His Father in heaven.

And as He prays and intercedes for you, so does He live for you, and so does He die for you.  For you and your salvation He sets Himself on the Way of Love, which is the Way of His Cross and Passion; and that is what transfigures His Body.  The appearance of His face is changed, as He now sets His face toward Jerusalem, taking up the Cup and fulfilling the Baptism His Father has given.

Recall that, in the Garden — as He takes these same three men, Peter, James, and John, along with Him — and as He goes apart to pray — the appearance of His face is changed again, and the sweat falls from His brow like great drops of blood, in order to cleanse the soil cursed by Adam’s Fall.

It is in Love for His Father and for you and all that He comes down from heaven and comes down from the High Mountain to the Cross in Jerusalem.  And it is there in His suffering and death that His Body is transfigured by the sins of the whole world, as the once-and-final Sacrifice, in order to redeem you and all the children of Adam from captivity.  Thus does He fulfill His Exodus as the Passover Lamb of God, that He might bring you out of death into life, through the wilderness and into Canaan, as the One who is baptized in the Cloud and in the Sea, in the Water and the Blood.

With that in view, St. Peter is not completely off base when he suggests making tabernacles.  The Feast of Tabernacles followed shortly after the Day of Atonement.  At that time the people would take leafy branches with the fruit still hanging on them and make little tents for themselves, little tabernacles.  And for a full week they would live in those tents, remembering that God had brought them out of Egypt, preserved them through the wilderness, and brought them into a Good Land.

And St. Peter knows that the Lord made His dwelling among the sons of Israel by giving Moses, that great and faithful servant, careful instructions for a Tabernacle that went with the people in the wilderness; and upon that Tabernacle the Cloud of God’s Glory rested and remained among them — the Pillar of Cloud by day, the Pillar of Fire by night.  So was God the Lord with them.

St. Peter understands that much.  Yet, he would have the Christ and hold onto Him in Glory apart from His Cross and Passion; as the week before St. Peter rightly confessed that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God, but then rebuked his Savior when He would go to the Cross and die.

Hard as it is to comprehend — for you no less than Simon Peter — there is no Christ without the Cross; for His divine Glory is manifested precisely in His Passion.  It is with the very Flesh of Christ Jesus that God, the Builder of all things, constructs His new and better Tabernacle; not with the skin of animals, but with the skin of His beloved Son.  And it is by the Cross of Christ Jesus that God pitches His Tent in the midst of His people; not as though He needed a dwelling place for Himself, but that He might be your Dwelling Place.  For the Body of Christ Jesus, crucified and risen, is the Temple of God, His House and Home wherein you live and abide with Him forever.

This is the Glory of God, that He saves you by His grace at great cost to Himself.  The Father gives His own dear Son, and the Son lays down His own Body and Life for you, to rescue you from sin and death, to wake you up from your sleepy stupor, to raise you up from the dust of the ground, and to bring you in and with Himself up the High Mountain to His God and Father in Paradise.

By and from His Holy Cross and Passion, in and with His Resurrection from the dead, He adorns you in the glorious white garments of Holy Baptism, cleansed and sanctified in body and soul, without any spot or wrinkle or blemish, adorned as a Bride made beautiful for the Bridegroom.  So shall you appear with Christ Jesus in His Glory, as did Moses and Elijah on that Mountain.

The two men in white are His witnesses of these things, that Christ has died, that Christ is risen, and that Christ will come again, as even now the Cloud of His Glory rests upon His Body in the Tabernacle of His Church on earth.  It is right here in this place, from this Pulpit and at this Altar.

That is what the crucifix signifies, confesses, and declares: That here is the Glory of God in the crucified Body and shed Blood of Jesus, the Christ.  That here at His Altar, He is the Tabernacle of the Lord your God.  This is where He opens His great Heart of Love to you.  He withholds nothing but gives you Himself; and by the Fruits of His Cross you are glorified in and with Him.

It is in divine and holy Love that God has built His Tabernacle for you here.  And in turn, He also builds you as a living stone into His House and Home; so that, by His grace, through faith in Jesus Christ, your body and life become the dwelling place of God among your neighbors here on earth.

Men, when you love and serve your own wife, there’s nothing she can’t do, and there’s no woman on earth more beautiful or glorious; your love makes her bold, courageous, and strong, so that her own unique gifts and graces are able to shine the more brightly and clearly.  Likewise, when you love and care for your children, they are strong and free and able to do great things to the glory of God; they learn from you to love others, and they grow to build houses that are strong and good.

All of you, then, rejoice that you are children of God in Christ Jesus, and you have such a Father who loves you and cares you; for you are members of the Bride of Christ by your Baptism in His Name, and you have such a Bridegroom who loves you, serves you, and gives Himself for you.  He shelters and protects you in the House that He has built.  He feeds you with Good Things and clothes you with His own Righteousness.  He delights in you, and He glorifies Himself in you, and you in Him, so that you are beautiful and radiant with the Glory of His Cross and Resurrection.

The Lord is your Sun and your Shield, your Strength and your Song, because He has become your Salvation.  Crucified and risen from the dead, He is your Pillar of Cloud by day and your Pillar of Fire by night.  And in the preaching of His Gospel, in the waters of your Baptism, in His own holy Body and precious Blood, He is your Tabernacle throughout all generations, even forevermore.

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

The Glory of the Cross in the Word and Flesh of Christ Jesus

From the Baptism of our Lord in the Jordan River to the Transfiguration of our Lord this morning, the Season of Epiphany begins and ends with the Voice of God the Father from heaven, declaring Christ Jesus to be His beloved and well-pleasing Son.  In both cases, His coming Sacrifice for the sins of the world is in view, as He enters upon the Way of the Cross in the waters of His Baptism, and as He now descends from the high and holy Mountain on the final leg of that journey.

It is precisely as the beloved Son of God — out of love for His Father, and out of His great love for you and all His neighbors — that the Lord Jesus makes His way from and through the waters of the Jordan to His innocent suffering and death in your stead as the Lamb of God who takes upon Himself and takes away your sins.  To love you in this way, to lay down His Body and Life and to shed His holy and precious Blood for you, is the way in which He lives as the Son of God.

Now, then, it is by virtue of your own Baptism into Christ Jesus that God the Father speaks from heaven concerning you, as well, declaring that you are His beloved and well-pleasing son, because you share the sonship and inheritance of Jesus the Christ, the incarnate Son of God, who lived and suffered, died, was buried, and rose again for you in His own Body of flesh and blood like yours.

It is for that reason, also, that the Glory manifested in the Body of Christ Jesus — and reflected, as well, in Moses and Elijah on the Mountain of Transfiguration — is the Glory that you are given to share as a member of His Church, as a baptized disciple given to bear and carry His Cross.

St. Mark begins his account of the Transfiguration, “After six days.”  So, what happened the week before this event?  It was then, first of all, by revelation of God the Father, that St. Peter gave his great confession that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God.  But then also, when Jesus went on to explain what it must mean for Him to be the Christ, that He must suffer and die and be raised again, Simon Peter made the mistake of presuming to rebuke the Lord Jesus and deny His coming Cross and Passion.  So the Lord must continue to catechize the disciples, including you, to understand the Glory of His Cross.  For it is precisely by His Cross that He saves you and gives you life; and it is by way of His Cross that you enter with Him into the Kingdom of God.

In spite of all that, and no matter how much you “know,” it is difficult for you to comprehend — indeed, it is impossible for your fallen flesh and sinful reason to comprehend — that the Glory of the Transfiguration is the Glory to be accomplished by way of the Cross, manifest in advance for the benefit of the Holy Apostles, that they might proclaim that Glory of the Cross in the light of the Resurrection of our Lord.  For you that Glory is perceived by faith and not by sight — not by what your eyes see, but by the preaching of the apostolic Word of Christ into your ears.  So it is to His Word and the preaching of it that you cling, in which you hope, come hell or high water against you, no matter what your eyes and feelings and earthly experiences might be telling you.

The Transfiguration of our Lord is another revelation from God the Father in heaven — to Peter, James, and John — that Jesus, though a true Man of human flesh and blood, is nevertheless the Christ, the Son of the Living God.  So, then, though they will soon behold their dear Lord Jesus being led away and crucified like a sheep to the slaughter — and though they will not understand it at the time it is happening — they will know in retrospect that no one takes His life from Him, but He lays it down willingly, and He will take it up again, all in keeping with the Word and Will of His Father.  So must they also recognize that all His Words to them are Spirit, Truth, and Life.

It is by way of His Cross and Passion that the Word of the Prophets shall be clarified, fulfilled, and made more sure in His own Body of flesh and blood.  For that same Body, which is transfigured with divine Glory on that high and holy Mountain, shall be transfigured once-for-all upon the Cross in His atoning Self-Sacrifice for the sins of the world.  And that same Body, crucified and risen from the dead, is given to you — into your body — here at the Lord’s Altar, in order that your body might be transfigured into the likeness of His own glorious Body.

That Word-made-Flesh — His Body given and His Blood poured out for you to eat and to drink — confirms the preaching of His Word to you; and it confirms the Word and promises of God in your Holy Baptism; and it confirms the Word of forgiveness that is spoken to you in His Name.  It is, in fact, the confirmation, surety, and pledge of your own Resurrection from the dead, even now in this poor life of labor as you live and work by faith (and not by sight) under the Cross.

So it is that you are comforted, strengthened, and lifted up without fear by the kind and gentle voice of the Lord Jesus, as He reaches out and touches you with His Flesh.

As you bear and carry the Cross in this body and life, surrounded by sin and death on all sides, within and without, it is so easy to despair.  But your God and Father in heaven has not rejected you, nor has He left you in the dust and forgotten you.  The Cross He lays upon you is the Cross of Christ Jesus, His beloved and well-pleasing Son; and as you are baptized into Him, so do you also share His Resurrection and His Life.  Hence, the Voice of the Father from the excellent Glory declares: “You are My beloved, with whom I am well-pleased!”  Yes, even you, a forgiven sinner.

None of this makes sense until the Cross and Resurrection are accomplished.  The disciples may “know,” but they don’t yet understand.  In the moment they are dazzled and confused, even afraid.  And when the Cross appears, they will be scattered in fear.  Bold, brave, boisterous Peter will deny his Lord with curses, then weep like a baby with bitter remorse.  Even now, as he sees the Glory of the Lord Jesus, Peter does not understand that it is the Glory of the coming Cross and Passion.

This makes no sense — no more for you now than it did for St. Peter then.  It contradicts all your human wisdom, reason, experience, and strength.  Which is why you must listen to Jesus, and why you must cling to His Word for dear life; for His Word alone reveals the divine Glory of His Cross.  So, too, the Transfiguration could not be told until after the Cross and Resurrection, because it has no significance and cannot be understood apart from the atoning Sacrifice of Christ Jesus.

The Glory here revealed in His Body on the Mountain is the Glory of His Cross, which can only be recognized, received, and shared in His bodily Resurrection from the dead, whereby He opens the Kingdom of heaven to you and to all who believe and are baptized into Him.

Only after the Son of Man has risen from the dead will St. Peter understand the Transfiguration — only then will he begin to know what he is talking about — that is, the Glory of the Cross and the sure and certain confirmation of the Prophetic Word in the Flesh and Blood of Jesus Christ.

Now the Hour has come, and by the preaching of the Word-made-Flesh the Sun of Righteousness now dawns upon you, and the Morning Star now rises in your heart.  But as for Christ Jesus, so also now for you in this body and life on earth: His Light now shines in you and through your flesh and blood as you take up His Cross and follow after Him by faith in His Gospel.  For the Glory that you share with Him as a Christian is still the Glory of His Cross, which you bear and carry in the sure and certain hope of the Resurrection as a beloved and well-pleasing son of God in Christ.

To be confronted by the Glory of God apart from His Self-sacrificing Love upon the Cross is to be terrified and crushed by fear and dread.  For it is true, as you confess, that you are a poor, miserable sinner; and no sinner can stand in the presence of Almighty God, nor could you see Him and live.  His Law utterly condemns you and sentences you to death and eternal damnation; for His Holiness demands perfection, even as He is perfect, whereas you have fallen so far short of His Glory in every respect, as surely as you sin every day and deserve nothing but punishment.

But the last and final Word of God is not the Glory of His Law, but the Glory of Christ Jesus and His Gospel.  “Listen to Him,” says the Father — not to Moses or Elijah, but to the incarnate Son.  His Glory is the Cross, the voluntary Self-Sacrifice of His Body and Blood; His gentle touch of love and compassion; and His still, small voice of forgiveness, saying, “Arise, and do not fear!”  In this Gospel there is no condemnation, death, or damnation.  There is only Jesus for you.

In many and various ways, God spoke to His people of old by the Prophets; but now, in these last days, He speaks to you by His Son in the Flesh — in the washing of the water with His Word in your Holy Baptism; in the preaching of the Gospel and the Holy Absolution of all your sins; and in the giving of His Body and the pouring out of His precious Blood for you to eat and to drink.

And this very flesh and blood of Christ Jesus, which were transfigured by the hidden Glory of the Cross, shall transform your own body and soul into the radiant Image and Likeness of God in the same Lord Jesus Christ.  For He abides in you by the grace and ministry of His Gospel, and you abide in Him by faith in His Word and promise.  By the Fruits of His Cross you are forgiven all your sins, and in His Resurrection from the dead you shall be raised to live with Him forever.

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

Transfigured into the Glory of God by the Cross of Christ

What you find and receive at the top of the Mountain is Life with God: To eat and drink, to rest, and to live in His presence, reconciled and at peace with Him in the incarnate Son, Christ Jesus.

But for now it seems that you are far removed and far below the Lord your God.  What is more, you are afraid of Him and His Glory.  You’re afraid to get close to Him, as though you even could.

The Law of God with all its demands and punishments, with all its accusations and condemnations, is a consuming fire that threatens to destroy you.  And it surely would.  It’s not that the Law is evil.  Indeed, it is divinely good and wise, holy and right.  But it terrifies and threatens to consume you, because you are sinful and unrighteous.  You are not good and wise, but foolish and mortal.

Under those prevailing circumstances, appearances are deceiving, misleading, and frightening.

The Law cannot save you from your predicament.  It cannot save you from yourself, nor from your sin and death.  But it does aim at your life and salvation, at your Life with God in faith and love.  It aims at that, points to that, and leads you to that Life in Christ Jesus, crucified and risen.

On the one hand, the Law sacrifices Him and sheds His blood for your atonement, redemption, and rescue (for your Exodus), in order to forgive you, and to establish and seal His Covenant with you.

And on the other hand, the very life of faith and love which the Law of God calls for and requires is realized and fulfilled in the same Lord Jesus Christ.  So He is the One who brings you into that divine and holy Life, as He has opened up the way for you in Himself — in His Incarnation, by His Life and Ministry, and from His Baptism in the Jordan River to His Cross and Resurrection.

As your merciful and great High Priest, Christ Jesus is the One who brings you up the Mountain to God in His own Body of flesh and blood.  In Him, your entire human nature is transfigured with the very glory of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Hence, your life is not simply with God, lived in His presence; your whole life is hidden with Christ in God, in personal communion with Him.

You are transfigured in and with Him, in His Body, in His Person, by way of His Cross and in His Resurrection from the dead.  For His Cross and Passion are the pinnacle of perfect faith and love.  His sacrificial death is atonement, redemption, and the means of your reconciliation with God.

He grapples with all the curse and consequences of your sin and death in His own Body on the Cross, and He heals all those ills, all those hurts and scars, all those frailties and weaknesses, all those griefs and sorrows, and your sickness unto death.  And so it is that, in His Resurrection, your human body is raised up, made brand new, and glorified — like unto His own glorious Body.

So, too, your heart and mind, your soul and spirit, your thoughts and feelings and emotions, all are healed and made whole in the Resurrection of Christ Jesus from the dead.

Though it does not yet appear what you shall be in glory at the last, already it is true for you in Him — even now, hidden under the Cross, subjected to death and the grave.

There are no short cuts up the Mountain, no way to bypass the Cross on your way to Glory.

The Apostles are not even to speak of the glorious vision until after the Cross and Resurrection are accomplished; because the Glory of the Transfiguration is the Glory of the Cross, which is then manifested in the Resurrection — and manifested in the preaching of the Gospel of the Cross.

So, too, the transfiguration of your body and of your whole human nature — in and with Christ Jesus — occurs by the ways and means of His Cross.  It happens by the preaching of His Cross unto repentance and faith in His forgiveness of all your sins.  And it is given to you in the Fruits of His Cross, in His holy Body and precious Blood, given and poured out for you to eat and drink.

It is for the sake of His Cross — for you and your salvation, in divine and holy love — that the Lord Jesus has come down from the Mountain.  And really, in Him, the Mountain Top itself has come down to you.  The Cloud of the Majestic Glory of God rests upon the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ, even to His sacrificial death on the Cross.  For He is the Ark of the New Testament; He is the Mercy Seat; He is the Holy of Holies; and He has come down to tabernacle with you here.

So, listen to Him.

Hear and receive His Gospel, His forgiveness, His perfect Peace and Sabbath Rest.

See how He stretches out His hand and lays it upon you, not to punish and destroy you, but to comfort, to heal, to raise you up from death to life, and to serve you in grace, mercy, and peace.

You do ascend the Mountain of God with Christ Jesus, and in the Resurrection you also shall be transfigured.  But already here and now, the Glory of God dwells with you on earth.  By His grace, He is here with you to save you, and His flesh and blood unite and seal you to His God and Father.

His Blood of the New Testament satisfies the Law of God and sanctifies you.  It makes satisfaction for your sins of thought, word, and deed, and it transfigures and transforms your heart and mind, your words and actions, your body, your lips, your hands and feet, to be glorious with His Glory.

So it is that, even under the Cross — and precisely by the bearing and sharing of His Cross — the Glory of God is manifested in you.  In the forgiveness of all your sins, and in your salvation by God’s grace through the Gospel.  Then also in your faith and love, in your forgiveness of those who sin against you, and in your self-sacrificing service for those neighbors God has given you.

Thus are you stunning and beautifully adorned in both your body and soul with the true beauty of Christ Jesus, and in Him you are the most handsome of men, the most gorgeous of godly brides.

Such a life is not found on some Himalayan peak, far and away beyond your reach.  It is already hidden with Christ in God, while it has also come down from heaven and drawn near to you here at the bottom of the mountain, down in the valley so low, the valley of the shadow of death.

That is where the Altar stands among the people of God, and where His Church stands firmly and rests upon the twelve pillars of the Lord’s holy Apostles, the eyewitnesses of His great Salvation.

And so it is that you live in the presence of God, because God has come to live with you in His own Body of flesh and blood, with His own Word.  In Him you have perfect Peace and Sabbath Rest, because He has reconciled you to Himself, and to His Father by His Spirit, with the Gospel.

Daily and richly He comes to abide with you in mercy, with His free and full forgiveness of sins.

In Christ Jesus — in His Cross — in His Word — and in His entire Ministry of the Gospel, you behold the Lord your God with the eyes of faith.  You recognize the glorious goodness of His grace; and you eat and drink — not only “with Him,” in His presence, and not only food and drink that He provides — but you eat and drink the incarnate God, and He makes His tabernacle in you.

Yes, He abides with you and dwells even within you, in spite of all your frailties and weaknesses.

Consider, for example, where is it that Peter, James, and John are given to eat and to drink.  It is not high up on the mountain away from all the others, but in the Upper Room of the Church, in the Passover of the New Testament, in the gathered assembly of the disciples; and here also with you.

Here at His Altar, within His Church on earth, all the Law and the Prophets have been fulfilled in Christ Jesus; and here they are made sure and certain for you in the Ministry of His Gospel.

Here the Morning Star now rises in your heart and mind, in your body, soul, and spirit, by His gracious forgiveness of all your sins, and by the free gift of Himself, His Life, and His Salvation.

So it is that you shine like the stars with His righteousness, innocence, and blessedness; and so it shall be that you live with Him in His Resurrection from the dead, body and soul, forever and ever.

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

The Glory of God in the Exodus of Christ Jesus

If not for the Lord Jesus Christ, who is alone your Savior and Redeemer, you would remain trapped in Egypt, held in bondage by a tyrant Pharaoh.  Whether you know it or not, you were conceived and born in sin — a slave to sin — fast bound in Satan’s chains, death brooding darkly over you.  From the start, sin and death have been your torment night and day, the inheritance you received from your parents, grandparents, and all your ancestors, all the way back to Adam and Eve.  Left to yourself, you fall deeper and deeper into their bondage, until life itself becomes a living hell.

It is because of your sin that you are mortal, that you are dead and dying.  And that consequence of sin is something you cannot simply ignore or deny, much less escape.  Day by day, the older you get, your body is wearing out, slowing down, falling apart, and returning to the dust of the ground.  And yet, despite all that, your sin feels quite comfortable.  You would be happy to remain in the Egypt of your sin, if only that Pharaoh, death, would get off your back.  As it is, when the Lord lays the Cross upon your body and life in the wilderness, you long to return to Egypt, to the lusts of your flesh, and to the bondage and consequences of your sin.  You remember only its comforts and none of its tyranny, although it is your sin that enslaves you and kills you in body and soul.

The Law cannot save you from this prison house of sin and death.  But when you hear what God would have you do, your instinct is that, if you would only try harder, if you could only do better, then perhaps you could set yourself free.  With Moses, though, you still wander in the wilderness.

The Law of God is good and wise, it is His good and gracious will, and it points you to the good Land that God has promised, so that you are able to see it from afar.  But you shall not enter that Land by or with the Law.  For even great and faithful Moses dies outside of Canaan.  And so does the Law of God accuse you of your sins and condemn you to death.  It cannot bring you into life.

It is, instead, the new and greater Joshua who leads you and brings you into the Kingdom of God.  It is He who has fulfilled and satisfied the Law for you and thereby released you from its death-grip.  And all of this He has accomplished, for you and for all, by His own Cross and Resurrection.

This “Joshua,” Christ Jesus the Lord, Yahweh in the flesh, the incarnate God, He is the true and perfect Passover.  He is the Lamb of God who takes upon Himself and takes away your sins, who is sacrificed in your place, whose Blood covers and protects you from death and the devil.  He is the firstborn Son who is slain, that you should be set free from Egypt and Pharaoh’s bitter yoke.

So, too, He is the Crossing of the Red Sea out of that cruel bondage.  As His arms are lifted up for you upon the Cross, the waters are parted, that you might pass with Him through death into life.  Pharaoh and his army are drowned in those waters, but you live in them because Christ has entered into those deep waters, has suffered their torrent and assault, and has overcome them for you.

And He is with you now as you journey through the wilderness.  He is your Pillar of Cloud by day, and He is your Pillar of Fire by night.  He is the manifest presence of God here with you, powerful to save you and sustain you in the desert.  His Word and Holy Spirit guide and guard you.  They go ahead of you, and they surround you on all sides, a solid wall between you and all your enemies.

The Lord Jesus also feeds you on the way, not only from His hand but with Himself, His Flesh and Blood.  He who is the true Manna from heaven, the Bread of Life — the Living Bread who gives you Life — He feeds and nourishes you on the pilgrims’ way.  You may grow tired of Him, you may grumble and complain against Him, but He remains your Daily Bread, today and every day.

He is the Rock that follows you, and from His riven side flow rivers of Living Water, His Word and Holy Spirit, His cleansing and quenching Blood.  These gifts that come freely from Him are what sustain you on the journey.  These gifts are what keep you alive, although you continue to sin and repeatedly fall into sin with every step.  Your sins would kill you, but Jesus redeems you.  His death has conquered death, and His Life is your life indeed in body and soul, now and forever.

By the Gospel of His Cross and Resurrection, He is and remains your Sabbath Rest along the way, even in the wilderness.  For at the new and better Mountain of His Holy Cross, He has established the New Covenant of forgiveness and life in His own Blood, shed for you, poured out for you, given for you to drink.  He is the Bull who is sacrificed as a Whole Burnt Offering, for Atonement, Thanksgiving, and Fellowship with God.  His Blood is offered to His Father, and His Blood now anoints you in body and soul, that you should belong to His Body and Bride, His Holy Church.

His Body is your Tabernacle in the wilderness and the true Temple of God in heaven and on earth, for He is indeed Immanuel, God with us.  His Flesh and Blood — conceived and born of St. Mary, crucified and risen from the dead, now given and poured out for you to eat and to drink here at His Altar — these are your Dwelling Place, your Sanctuary in the world, where you abide with God and He with you.  For Christ Jesus is your merciful and great High Priest, who has given Himself to atone for all your sins, who is risen from the dead and ever lives to make intercession for you.

Just so, He is also the true Joshua who leads you through the waters of the Jordan — through the waters of your Holy Baptism, as through the waters of His own Baptism in the Jordan River — out of the wilderness of sin and death into the Promised Land of milk and honey and every good thing.

Not only do you see it from afar, as you do for now by faith, but so shall you enter into that Good Land with the Lord Jesus Christ, in both your body and your soul, in and with His Body, crucified for your transgressions, risen from the dead for your justification, and ascended to the Right Hand of the Father as the Pledge and Promise of your own Ascension.  When your Baptism is finally completed in death, and you then tread the verge of Jordan, then you shall follow Him who is the true Ark of the Covenant into that Good Land which God has sworn to give you by His own Name, by His Word and Holy Spirit.  Then you shall enter, body and soul, the great Wedding Feast of the Lamb in His Kingdom forever, as surely as you share in that Feast here at His Altar here and now.

For the time being, here in the wilderness, you do grow weary and faint.  You are overwhelmed by drowsiness and overcome by sleep.  Your sin hinders and entangles you.  Though you struggle against it, day after day you stumble and fall into various vices and shameful sins, into false beliefs and temptations to despair.  The angel of death is always stalking you, while Satan prowls around doing his best to devour you.  Left to your own devices, you would most certainly be done for.

But see here, Yahweh Sabaoth is with you, not to punish but to save.  The Lord of hosts, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, He is your God, and He has become your Champion.  He is with you in the Flesh of Jesus Christ, and He remains a very present Help at all times and in all places.  He has called you out of Egypt, and He has sealed you with His Blood, that you might be His own, and live under Him in His Kingdom, and serve Him in everlasting righteousness and holiness.

This Man, the Son of Mary, Jesus Christ, He is the one true God in flesh and blood like your own.  He is the beloved and well-pleasing Son of God the Father, by whom and for whom all things in heaven and on earth exist.  He is the Chosen One — anointed in His Body by the Father with the Holy Spirit to be the Christ, your Savior — chosen and anointed to suffer and die in His Body, that you might live in His Body.  For He is the Glory of God incarnate, in the flesh.  He is the Word-made-Flesh who tabernacles with you, who dwells with you in love.  And He is powerful to save.

Day after day, this is what He does, He saves you from yourself.  He saves you from your sins and their enslavement of your body and soul.  He saves you from the power of death and from your fear of death.  He saves you from that cruel taskmaster, the devil, from all his works and all his ways.

Your Savior, Christ Jesus, is by your side upon the plain with His good Gifts and Spirit, that you should behold the Light of the Revelation of the Glory of God in His Face, which shines upon you in the Ministry of His Holy Gospel.  By His Word and the preaching of it, by His forgiveness of your sins, and by His Holy Sacraments, you are set free.  He speaks to you in peace from His Holy and Life-giving Cross, and in His Resurrection from the dead He breathes His Holy Spirit into your heart, mind, body, and soul through the Gospel.  Therefore, Satan, sin, and death cannot harm you.  For the Son of God has set you free in His own great Exodus, and in Him you are free indeed.

It is by His Holy Baptism that He has brought you out of Egypt in and with Himself, and so shall He also bring you into Canaan, clothed in the beautiful white robes of His glorious righteousness.

You have heard how it was manifested in Moses and Elijah as they shared in the Glory of Christ.  So shall you share the Glory of Christ in both body and soul forever and ever, because His Blood, that of the perfect Lamb, covers and protects you from death.  And His Body is your true Spiritual Food, by which your body and soul are transfigured to be like Him in your resurrection from the dead on the last day, when you shall live forevermore with Christ and with His whole Church in Glory forever.  For with Moses and Elijah, with Peter, James, and John, and with all the company of heaven, with those who go before and those who follow after, your place is with Christ Jesus.

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

The Glory of God in the Body of Christ

The ministry of the Law is not without divine glory.  Indeed, it appears to be the height of glory.  And to be sure, the Law is the Word and Will of God.  It is holy and just, and it reveals what is good and right and true, what is acceptable and pleasing to the Lord.  His Law is impressive, and it is powerful.  It shakes the very mountains, and it crushes hearts.  It is not without divine glory.

But the righteousness of the Law cannot save you.  It does not make you righteous but condemns you.  It is not the Law with its rules and regulations, with its commandments, with its virtues, that reconciles you to God in peace.  Nor is it the Law that glorifies you with the very glory of God.

When you are confronted with the Law and its demands, with its commands and prohibitions, and with its threats and punishments, it will either terrify you by exposing your many sins and failings, or it will mislead you into selfish pride and presumptuous self-righteousness, as though you were actually keeping the Law and doing alright in your efforts and accomplishments.

The Law will either frighten or deceive you in these ways, not because the Law is bad or dishonest, but because of the hardness of your heart.  You cannot keep the Law.  You cannot save yourself.

But God never intended that the Law should save you.  His Law does not give you life but guides the Life that He gives you by His grace.  It points you to the life and love of God, which are in Christ Jesus, your Lord.  The Law points to Him.  And on the Mountain of Transfiguration it gives way to Him who is its perfect fulfillment.  Moses and Elijah cast their crowns, so to speak, at the feet of Him who is the King of heaven, who has come down in the flesh to justify and save you.

Now, you should understand that, because the Law of the Lord is the Word and Will of God, and especially because it points to the incarnate God, Christ Jesus, in whom it is fulfilled, to contradict the Law or disobey it, to disregard it or reject it, is all the more deadly and damnable than trying to save yourself by keeping it.  It is surely better to live according to the Law than to break it.  For if you reject the Law of God, if you disobey His holy Commandments, if you persist in unbelief and hatred for your neighbor and for God, then you will surely die in your wickedness.

It is no small thing to break God’s Law, to break His Commandments, to turn away from Him.  It is no small thing when you fail to pray, or fail to hear His Word and take it to heart.  It is no small thing when you make other gods out of your possessions, or your friends and family, or your security in this world.  It is no small thing when you disobey your parents and other authorities, when you disrespect them in your thoughts, words, or deeds.  It is no small thing if you fail to love your neighbor, if you hurt instead of help, if you take instead of give.  If you persist in such things, you will die in them.  They are contrary to the Word and Will of God.  Repent, and do otherwise.

Refrain from doing evil, and begin to do what is good and right according to God’s Word.  But do not suppose that you will save yourself by keeping the Law.  That you cannot do.  It will not work.  If you try to save yourself by keeping the Commandments, then you remain under the curse and condemnation of the Law.  You cannot keep it perfectly, so attempting to acquire life for yourself by the standard of the Law will not result in life but death.  Anyway, the purpose of the Law is not that you should save yourself, but that you should love and serve your neighbor and glorify God.

The fact is that you consistently fall short of that divine and holy purpose of the Law.  So, when God comes down with Commandments etched into stone and confronts your stony heart, then there is wrath and fear and terror and dread.  Not the promise of life but the threat of death.  You rightly quake at His presence, for you cannot stand before Him with any righteousness of your own.

But when the Lord your God comes down from the Mountain in the flesh and blood of Christ Jesus, the incarnate Son, then the greater glory of God is revealed in mercy and compassion.

When Moses had asked to see God’s glory — to see an indication that God would be and remain with His people — the Lord sheltered Moses in the cleft of the Rock.  And the Rock that followed them was Christ.  Thus showing His glory to Moses in the promise of Christ, God declared, “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and compassion on whom I have compassion.”  That is to say, not according to any of the works of the Law, but according to the grace of God Himself.  That is the mercy and compassion of God which is found in the Body and Blood of Christ Jesus.

It is when He comes down from the high Mountain, as you have heard this morning — not with tablets of stone and Commandments of the Law, but with His own Body prepared for the sacrifice of His Cross — that is where and how the greater glory of God is revealed and manifested for you.

Everything that the Law of God commands — His good and acceptable Will, which is summarized in faith and love toward Him, and in love for the neighbor — it is all fulfilled and accomplished in the flesh of Christ, in His Body crucified and risen.  That is where everything is accomplished.

This good work of Christ in the flesh, the voluntary sacrifice of His Body on the Cross, and the shedding of His holy, precious Blood — that is not simply the penalty of your sin, the undoing of what you have done wrong.  It is more than the Lord cleaning up after your mistakes.  It is the Lord your God doing what He intended from before the foundation of the world.  It is God loving as He does, because He is Love.  It is the Father giving His Son, and the Son submitting to His Father in holy faith and perfect love for God and man.  It is the pinnacle of divine glory in the flesh.

This is what the Law was always really about.  Not your fulfillment, not your self-righteousness, not your self-salvation, but rather the gift of God in the Body of Christ Jesus.  His works are the true keeping of God’s good and gracious Will for you.  The life, death, and resurrection of God’s Son in the flesh is the full realization of His divine glory for you, that you should live and not die.

So, when Jesus comes down from the Mountain of Transfiguration, He is not leaving His divine glory behind.  He is proceeding to the divine glory of His Cross and Passion.  But of course that  contradicts everything you think you know and understand.  It contradicts your experience, your wisdom, reason, and all your senses.  Even the disciples who were catechized by Christ Himself, who saw His glory on the Mountain, were confused and frightened when His true and greater glory was accomplished by His Cross.  Yet, everything hinges and depends on that Sacrifice of Christ.

The glory of the Law must give way to the glory of the Cross, by which the Lord establishes His own righteousness for you in His Body of human flesh and blood.  That is the righteousness with which you are justified, by which you stand before God the Father in heaven and are at peace.

So also, all of the miracles that Christ performs — and those of His Prophets before Him and His holy Apostles after Him — all of those miracles are gathered up into the Resurrection of His Body from the dead.  All of the life that He grants to both body and soul are accomplished and fulfilled in His Body, which is transfigured by the Cross into the glory of His Resurrection from the dead.

It is in that same Body of Christ Jesus — crucified for you under Pontius Pilate and risen from the dead forevermore — that you behold the true glory of God and are brought to Him in peace.

You cannot see it with your eyes.  Even here at His Altar you do not behold His flesh.  And if you could see His crucified Body, then, just like the disciples, you would likewise be confused and frightened.  But do as God has spoken, as He has invited.  Listen to this beloved Son.  Hear His gracious Words to you.  For His Words in your ears declare to you what this hidden Body of Christ really is, and what it does, and what it means for you.  It is given for you, as His Blood is poured out for you, for the forgiveness of all your sins.  And where there is forgiveness, there is life and salvation.  There indeed is the glory of God, which is given to you by His grace.  It is all right here.

The Word of Christ Jesus, that is, the Gospel of His forgiveness, that is how you hear and know, believe and trust that God is now your own dear Father in heaven, and that His good and gracious Will is not to crush you, condemn you, and kill you, but to save you for eternal Life with Him.

Thus, the highest Mountain of God is not Mount Sinai, where He gave the Law to Moses and established His Covenant with Israel.  Nor is it the Mountain of Transfiguration, where the glory of Jesus was manifested in expectation of His Cross and Resurrection.  No, the highest Mountain of God is Mount Calvary, where the Son of Man fulfilled the entire Law and established the New Covenant in His Blood by His death upon the Cross.  That is where He is lifted up to the heights of true divine glory, for that is where He saves sinners according to His mercy and compassion.

So, too, the true Mount Zion, where the glory of the Lord resides, and where His holy Name abides among His people on earth as it is in heaven, is not the Temple in Jerusalem, which has long since been destroyed.  The true Mount Zion is right here at this Altar, the Altar of the Holy Communion.  It is therefore to this place that the Word of Christ brings you in love.  It is here that you find life.

Here at His Altar is the center of Life, the very Body and Blood of Christ Jesus.  And here, by His Word, with His own Body and His Blood given and poured out for you — regardless of your age or education, no matter how much money you make or have, or what you have done in the past, or what you will yet do and accomplish — here God feeds you with Himself, His flesh for yours.

Thus are you transfigured by the glory of God in the flesh of Christ.  Your body of flesh and blood is transfigured by His Body and Blood to live by faith in Him and with love for your neighbors.  Not by impressive deeds of glory and grandeur in the eyes and estimation of the world.  No, the glory of God transfigures your life in such a way that you go about your days in humble service and self-sacrifice.  And even if no one else notices, your Father in heaven sees you.  He beholds you in the very glory of His beloved Son.  As you are baptized into Christ, to you also He says, “You are pleasing to Me.  I love you and delight in you.  All of Mine is yours.  So, even though you die, yet shall you live.  And so shall you be raised in your body, glorified and perfect forever.”

The gracious Word of the Lord Jesus Christ, His Gospel of forgiveness, has clothed you in His garments of righteousness and holiness.  You are not condemned, you are forgiven, and you are set free.  You really are free.  Free of guilt and shame and condemnation and death.  Free to live.

Your flesh also is glorified by the flesh of Christ.  Not simply in your heart and head, but in your body, too, you live in love, both here in time and hereafter in the resurrection to Life everlasting.

By His Cross and in His Resurrection you are saved, as sure and certain as God Himself is true.  For Christ the Lord has in fact set up His Tabernacle on earth among men.  Not on a high mountain that you could never hope to climb, but right here in your presence, His flesh for your flesh, His Body for your body.  This is where He lives for you.  And as He lives, so shall you live forever.

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

The Glory of God in the Body of Christ the Crucified

The Transfiguration of our Lord follows six days after the first clear revelation of His coming Cross and Passion.  Simon Peter had just given his great confession, that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God.  Then Jesus explained what this would mean, that He must be handed over to suffering and death, and that He would be raised again on the third day.  At that point, Peter rebuked the Lord, insisting that He should by no means suffer and die; and the Lord rebuked Peter in return, for His Cross is according to the will of God.  Not only that, but those who would be disciples of Jesus must deny themselves, take up the Cross, and follow after Him.

Then Jesus went on to say that some of those who were standing there with Him would not taste death until they had seen Him coming in His Kingdom.  And six days later Jesus took three of those men, namely, Peter, James, and John, up on the high mountain, where He was transfigured before them.  And they beheld His Glory, though they still did not yet understand it.

The Transfiguration of our Lord is a confirmation of His coming Cross and Passion, which are the way He comes into His Kingdom.  And as such, His Transfiguration is a visible manifestation of the divine Glory that is otherwise hidden under the Cross in this valley of shadows, sin, and death.

It is thus appropriate that one of those two ancient fathers who appear with Jesus in His Glory on the mountain is the Prophet Elijah.  For he was also summoned, in his own day, to the Mountain of the Lord, to receive a revelation of the true divine Glory, contrary to all the wisdom and reason of his human feelings and experience.  Remember that story?  It was at a point when Elijah felt as though the whole world were against him.  He was suffering for the sake of the Lord’s Word, because of his faithful preaching of that Word.  And for all of that, in utter despair, Elijah finally sat down in disgust under a tree and prayed that he could just give up and die.

In response to that miserable prayer, the Lord took Elijah on a journey to Mt. Sinai, where the Lord had once met with Moses and established His Covenant with Israel.  There, on that holy mountain, the Lord reassured Elijah that he was not alone in his faithfulness and suffering.  There were still 7000 people in Israel who had not joined in the worship of pagan gods.  What is more, the Lord Himself was with His people — including Elijah — only not in the bombastic power and might of earthquakes and hurricanes and raging fires, but rather with His Spirit in the simple speaking of His Word.  His divine power and glory were manifested in such weakness.

So does Elijah witness, once again, the power and glory of God now manifested in the weakness of this Man, Jesus Christ, steadfastly set on His way to the Cross.  For He is the Voice of the Lord, the Word made Flesh.  So listen to Him, and pay close attention to His preaching and teaching.  Though His appearance is deceiving, by His suffering and death He will redeem the world.

This same divine glory and significance of the Christ-who-will-be-crucified is also witnessed and confessed by the Prophet Moses on the mountain with Jesus (and Elijah) this morning.  Just as he once beheld the Glory of God on Mt. Sinai in the Exodus, so does he now behold the Light of the Revelation of the Glory of God in the Face of Jesus Christ, the Son of Mary, on His way to die.

You have heard the Old Testament story.  At the foot of the mountain, Moses sealed the Covenant between the Lord and His people by the sacrifice of oxen to the Lord, the blood of which he sprinkled first on the Altar and then on the people.  Then Moses and Joshua, Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel went up the high mountain, where they saw the Lord their God, and they ate and drank in His presence.  Then Moses went further up the mountain, with no one else but Joshua (the Old Testament “Jesus”), and the cloud of the Glory of the Lord covered the mountain.  Six days later, on the seventh day, the Lord called Moses into the midst of that cloud, which was the visible manifestation of God’s gracious presence among His people.

It was in that glorious divine cloud on Mt. Sinai, for the next forty days and nights, that the Lord revealed to Moses the detailed and precise instructions for the construction of the Tabernacle, for the institution of the Old Testament Priesthood, and for the Sacrifices, all of which pointed forward to the coming of the Christ and His Sacrifice for all people as our merciful and great High Priest.

When the Tabernacle was completed — and the Ark of the Covenant was placed in the Holy of Holies in the Tabernacle — the cloud of the Glory of the Lord filled the Tabernacle, which He provided as the way and the means of His gracious and abiding presence with and for His people.

It is that same bright cloud which covers the Mountain of Transfiguration this morning, identifying the New Testament Jesus, the incarnate Son of God, as the very Tabernacle of God on earth as it is in heaven.  He is both the Priest and the Sacrifice, and by His Cross, with His own Body and Blood, He becomes the Covenant between the Lord and His people, even to the close of the age.

This fact sheds some light on Peter’s well meant but misguided proposal to build three tabernacles there on the mountain, one for Jesus, and one each for Moses and Elijah.  For it was in the cloud on the mountain that Moses had received the Lord’s instructions for the Old Testament Tabernacle, and again, the same cloud filled the Tabernacle when it was finished.  What is more, the Lord subsequently instituted the Festival of Tabernacles, which was celebrated a week after the Day of Atonement each year, and lasted for a full festive week.

Throughout that week, the people would live in little tabernacles, just as the Lord had chosen to dwell among the people in His Tabernacle in the wilderness.  Even after the people had settled in the promised land, the Festival of Tabernacles was an annual remembrance of the Exodus from Egypt, of the Covenant at Mt. Sinai, and of the wandering of the people in the wilderness.

So, it made a certain kind of sense for Peter to suggest the construction of three tabernacles there on the high mountain.  But he did not understand, yet, that the Tabernacle (and the Temple) and the cloud of God’s Glory were being fulfilled and superceded by the flesh and blood of Jesus!

Peter was still in mid-sentence when the Father clarified the point.  There was no need for any further tabernacles, because here now was the cloud surrounding Jesus.  This Man, Jesus, is the beloved Son of God, with whom the Father is well-pleased.  There is no need for anyone or anything else.  Rather, listen to Him; hear and heed what He says, and believe His Word.

This is the Father’s explanation of the First Commandment: “I Am the Lord your God, and you shall have no other gods before Me.”  What does this mean?  “You shall acknowledge and worship and believe in this Man, Jesus Christ from Nazareth, who is My beloved Son in the flesh, and you shall listen only to Him.”  You have no Lord, nor Father in heaven, nor Holy Spirit, except in this Man, Jesus, the incarnate Son of God, who is to be crucified, dead, and buried.

There is no other God than this only-begotten Son of the Father, who has been made Flesh and tabernacles among us; who has indeed been crucified for us men and our salvation.  For the Lord our God reveals Himself and gives Himself to you in the flesh of Jesus Christ, and God the Father speaks to you by the Word of this Son, who is Himself the incarnate Word of God.

It is in His suffering and death, in His Cross and Crucifixion, that He manifests God’s gracious presence and power to save.  That is His divine Glory, for it is by His Cross and Passion that He forgives sin, and saves sinners, and establishes the New Covenant between God and man.  And it is from His Cross that He gives Himself, His Body and Blood, His forgiveness, life, and salvation, to His people in the Temple of His Body, the Church, in which you also now live by His grace.

Because you are forgiven by and from His Cross, and because your life and salvation are in the flesh of Christ the Crucified, your Christian faith and life are defined and shaped by the Cross of Christ.  So do you carry His Cross and live under His Cross in all of your relationships, and in all of your love and service to your neighbor in Jesus’ Name.  His Cross is your glory as a Christian.

If that seems inside-out and upside-down, consider that the sort of glory you might think you want or need, would bring you to your knees and crush you and destroy you, because you are a sinner who deserves nothing else than temporal and eternal punishment.  But, Christ be praised, that sort of power and glory is not the height of divine Glory.  No, the true Glory of God is chiefly made known in His Self-sacrificing love and mercy toward sinners, in His forgiveness of sins, and in His gracious gifts of divine life and salvation.

The height of divine Glory is found, therefore, precisely in Christ Jesus, the Crucified One, in His sacrificial flesh and blood.  Not at the top of the high mountain, but first of all lifted up and nailed to the Cross, buried in the tomb, in the dust of the earth, and only then resurrected and ascended to the Right Hand of the Father in heaven; all for the sake of redeeming you, a lost and condemned creature, and bringing you with Himself into eternal life.

There is no shortcut to this divine Glory — not for Jesus, nor for His disciples whom He saves.  No, the true divine Glory is found only by way of His Cross — the Cross of Christ the Crucified — which you share by virtue of your Holy Baptism, and the fruits of which you receive in the Holy Communion of His Body and Blood.  But thus do you also share His Resurrection and His Life.

That’s why Peter was wrong for wanting to remain on the mountain, as though to savor the glory of Christ without the Cross.  Just as Peter was quite wrong the week before, when he tried to prevent the Christ, the Son of the Living God, from going to His necessary Cross and Passion.

In contrast to St. Peter’s misunderstanding and misguided zeal, Jesus actually forbids the disciples even to mention His glorious Transfiguration until after His Resurrection from the dead.  Why?  Because the divine Glory of the Transfiguration is accomplished in the Body of Christ Jesus, for you and for all people, by His innocent suffering and death.  He is transfigured by the Cross for your salvation, that you might be conformed to His Image and die and rise with Him in His Glory.

Thus are you called, as a disciple, to see and hear no one but Jesus only: specifically, this Jesus of frail flesh and blood, who goes to the Cross to suffer and die.  It is the Glory of His Cross that you are invited to share.  It is His Word of the Cross that you are commanded to hear and to heed.  It is with the Body and Blood of His Cross that He reaches out to touch you, to raise you up in His Resurrection through the forgiveness of your sins.  And it is the Cross of Christ that you are given to bear and carry from the waters of your Baptism unto the death and resurrection of your body.

It is by this Cross of Christ that your own flesh and blood, your own body and life, are transfigured into the divine image and glorious form of Christ the Crucified.  That image and form are utterly despised and hated by the world — and by your own sinful flesh — because they are the likeness of the Cross and Crucifixion of your Lord.  Yet, they are nevertheless an image and likeness that will finally be revealed in all their beautiful Glory at the last, when the Lord shall raise your lowly body of humiliation from the dust of the earth to be glorious like unto His own glorious Body.  And then you shall be like Him, shining like the Sun in His righteousness and purity forever.

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

Entering into Glory by the Cross of Christ

This is what such baptizing with water indicates, what it means, and what it does for you.  It bears the Glory of God and bestows it upon you in the Body of Christ Jesus.  It opens heaven to you and brings you into the presence of the Holy Trinity.  It makes of you a beloved child of God.

All of this is yours by your Baptism into Christ.  And it is all by the way of His Cross.  It is through suffering and death that you enter into His Glory.  And to that end, your Baptism has set you on a journey, on a pilgrimage through the wilderness into the Paradise which the Lord has sworn by His own Name to give you.  It is a pilgrimage of repentance, a journey through death into life.

As you make your way on this trek between the Red Sea and the Jordan River, bearing the Cross upon your forehead and your heart, upon your body and your soul, hold fast the hope that is set before you in the Body of Christ Jesus, and do not lose heart.

Consider this Lord Jesus, who has called you by Name to be His own, to bear the Cross and follow Him both up and down the Mountain.  He is the Christ, as St. Peter has so recently confessed by the revelation of the Father and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.  But what does this mean?

He is anointed by the Father with the Spirit for the Cross.  For it is necessary that the Christ should suffer all these things and thereby enter into His Glory as the Savior and Redeemer of Israel and as the Light of the Revelation of the Glory of God to all the nations.  It is by His Cross and Passion that He will accomplish and fulfill His Exodus in Jerusalem and liberate all of the people of God.

Make no mistake about it, He is greater even than Moses and Elijah and all of the Prophets, for He is the One of whom they preached, to whom they pointed.  He is the One who fulfills their words.

Moses performed great signs and mighty wonders against Pharaoh and in the presence of Israel, all in the Name of the Lord.  So do the Holy Scriptures testify.  He led the people out of Egypt, through the Red Sea, across the desert, unto the Mountain of God.  And he was the minister of the Lord’s Covenant with Israel.  That is no small thing.  Indeed, he alone in days of old spoke with the Lord face to face and taught the people the Word that he heard from the very mouth of God.  By his hand, God gave to the people His holy Ten Commands.  And of supreme significance, it was Moses who constructed the Tabernacle in the wilderness according to the pattern revealed to him on Mt. Sinai, by which the Gospel and Glory of the Lord dwelt in the midst of His people.

Yes, Moses was faithful in all God’s House as a servant, and he served that way for many, many years.  But in his frailty and weakness, and by the judgment of the Law that he himself taught, he was not permitted to enter the Land that God had promised, nor would he lead the people into it.

It is Jesus, the new and greater Joshua, who brings the people out of the wilderness through the Jordan River into the Promised Land.  No other creature in heaven or on earth could do this thing, no other prophet, priest, or king, but the Lord Jesus Christ and He alone has done so.

By His Baptism He brings you and all His people out of slavery into freedom, through death and the grave into the Resurrection and the life everlasting.  For He is the true Passover Lamb, who not only takes upon Himself and takes away the sins of the world but also feeds you with His own flesh and pours out His Blood for you as the New Testament.

By His Cross and in His Resurrection, His Body has become the true and permanent Temple of God, the Tabernacle of God among men.  He bears the Name of God in His own flesh and blood; the Holy Spirit rests and remains upon His Body; and the Glory of God abides forever in and with Him, that is, the divine Glory that you receive and share with Him in His crucified and risen Body.

The Lord Jesus has accomplished this great Exodus, for you and for the many, by bearing all your sins, your death and damnation in His own Body to the Cross — in order to atone for your sins, to release you from death and the grave, and to bring you in and with Himself, in His Resurrection and Ascension, up the Mountain to His God and Father in heaven.

In this He is greater and more glorious than Elijah, also, who precedes Him and points to Him but is not able to achieve or accomplish what only Christ, the Son of God, could ever do.  For that holy Prophet did not pass through death into the life everlasting, but in the righteousness of faith he was taken instead by a whirlwind into the presence of God.  But the Lord Jesus, by His Sacrifice for you upon the Cross, entered into that darkness of death in order to bring you out, to save you by His grace alone.  This, indeed, is the great Glory of God, that He lays down His life in love for you.

He is the Apostle and High Priest of the faith.  He is the One who goes before and follows after, your Pillar of Cloud by day and your Pillar of Fire by night.  He is the One who does it all.  He is your hope and your salvation, your strength and your song, upon whom the Father has set His seal.

He is sent by the Father to preach to and from the Cross, to and from the Resurrection.  He is sent by the Father to be baptized; to be tempted in every way that you are tempted, save only without sin; to live by faith as the true Man; to fast and pray in the Spirit, in the confidence of the Father’s pledge and promise; to suffer, die, and rise again for your forgiveness and justification.  So has He done.  And so does He ever live to intercede for you before the throne of His Father in heaven.

By His Sacrifice of Atonement, and by His prayer and intercession as your merciful and great High Priest in all things pertaining to God, you also pray and come to His God and Father through Him — by virtue of your Baptism into Him, and as a disciple who follows after Christ in holy faith.

Beloved of the Lord, listen to Him.  Trust His Word, and live according to it — in faith and love.

Take up the Cross that you have received in Baptism, and follow Christ Jesus through suffering and death, through the wilderness, into the Glory of His Resurrection and His Righteousness.

Do not be overcome by the weariness of the journey you are set upon, though it is long and hard and you are tempted to give up.  Wake up from your sleepiness.  Watch and wait upon the Lord.

Do not speak in your own ignorance and confusion, for your reason is fallen, your senses are befuddled, and your opinions are not the will or wisdom of God.  Rather, hear and heed the Word of Christ, the Son of God.  For by His Word alone are you given the mind and Spirit of the Lord.  And then speak the Truth of God by speaking as you are spoken to.  That is to say, confess and pray the Word that God the Father speaks to you by His Son, by the preaching of His Gospel.

Find your house and home and family in Him, in His Body, and hold fast the confidence of your hope in Him.  That Hope shall not disappoint you, and you shall not be put to shame in Him.

Christ Himself is your Tabernacle in the wilderness, and His Body, the Church, is your place of Peace and Rest, in anticipation of the Paradise He has prepared for you in the Resurrection of all flesh.  For He has come down from heaven, and He has come down from the Mountain, in order to be and abide with you here, that you should thus abide with God the Father in Christ the Son.

He has become like you, and He has borne your sin and death in His own human flesh and blood, that you should become like Him; that you should bear His Cross and so also share His Glory.  As He was transfigured by His Cross and Passion into the Glory of His Resurrection and Ascension, so are you also conformed to His Image by your Baptism into Him.  And as you are a member of the Body of Christ, a son or daughter of His Father, so do you also partake of His Holy Spirit and share in the fellowship of His Holy Altar, in which you are given a foretaste of the Feast to come.

Listen to Him, and hold fast the confidence of your sure and certain hope in the Ministry of His Holy Gospel.  It is sure and certain, because He has fulfilled His Exodus for you in Jerusalem.

Behold the Glory of His Kingdom by faith in His Word, in the Fruits of His Cross, in the pledge and promise of His Resurrection from the dead.  Hear and receive the Glory of His Kingdom in His preaching of forgiveness, in the waters of your Holy Baptism, and in His Body and His Blood, which are given and poured out for you to eat and to drink with thanksgiving.

Bear His Cross in peace and joy, knowing that you enter into His Glory through suffering; you pass through the long, hard wilderness into Canaan.  For heaven has been opened to you in Christ Jesus by His Baptism, even unto death, and by your Baptism into His Cross and Resurrection.  It has been opened to you in Him, and as surely as He is risen from the dead and lives and reigns to all eternity, so shall it never be closed again.  You cannot see it from here, but you enter it by faith.

It is the Word of God, in and with the water, which does these things.  And that Word remains.

Even now, within His Church on earth, the Father speaks to you and pours out His Spirit upon you in the Body of Christ Jesus, the beloved Son.  And here by His Gospel He clothes you — neither in fig leaves nor with animal skins, but with the Glory of the holiness and righteousness of Christ.  For He has chosen you in Him, and He loves you in Him with an everlasting Love that never dies.

For now, it is not yet visible to your eyes.  Indeed, it is hidden under the trial and tribulation of the Cross, and all that you can see in this valley of sorrow is the shadow of death.  But the salvation that Christ has accomplished is already yours, and it is ready to be revealed at the proper time.

In that Day which has no end — in that eternal Eighth Day of the Resurrection — in the dwelling place of Yahweh Sabaoth, in the Holy of Holies made without hands, eternal in the heavens — there shall you see the Lord who loves you face to face, and you shall know Him as you are known, and you shall be glorious with His own Glory in both your body and your soul, forever and ever.

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

The Glory of God in the Face of Jesus Christ

Jesus comes down from the mountain, in order to bring you up the High Mountain to God.

Generations earlier, Moses had also come down from the mountain — with the two stone tablets of the Testimony — and, having spoken with God on the high and holy mountain, he commanded the people all that God had told him.  By this Word, the Lord established His Covenant with Israel, that He would be their God and they would be His people.  The Ten Commandments defined the character and content of that relationship, comprising faith in Him and love for Him and others.

There was also given, in great detail, the Lord’s instructions for the Tabernacle and its furnishings, the Priesthood and its vestments, and the foundations of the sacrificial means of grace, by which the Lord would abide with His people and cause His Name and His Glory to dwell among them.

As the instrument and minister of this divine revelation, the face of Moses shone with the Glory of the Law.  It was transfigured by his speaking with God, so that it radiated the light of the Lord.  That frightened the people when they saw it.  They were threatened by it, as by the thunder and lightning, fire and smoke of Mt. Sinai.  But it also enticed, intrigued, and impressed them, quite rightly, for it demonstrated that what Moses spoke to them was the Word of the Lord their God.

He veiled his face afterwards, each time, until he next went in before the Lord to speak with Him.  And St. Paul tells us why: namely, so that the people would not see the fading away of that Glory.

The Glory faded from the face of Moses, because Moses himself was fading away.  Though he was faithful in all God’s house as a servant, he too was from the dust and returning to the dust in his sin and death.  The mortal flesh of fallen man is not able to bear or sustain the Glory of God; not even that of great Moses, the Lawgiver.  Indeed, the Law itself brings death to sinful man.

The Law is not fulfilled in Moses, nor in the ancient people to whom it was given at Mt. Sinai.  Thus, the Glory of God does not remain with them forever, but fades away, time and time again.  It must be restored — and it can only be restored — by the preaching of the Word of the Lord.

But, apart from Christ Jesus, the veil remains, hiding both the true Glory of God and the sin and death that it exposes and exacerbates.  Minds are blinded and hearts are hardened against the Law, so that it is either misused or abused: ignored, or disobeyed outright, or else relied upon for life all the while it destroys you.  In your sin you can neither fulfill nor escape the holiness of the Law.

In Christ Jesus, though, the veil is removed.  The Light of the revelation of the Glory of God shines upon us in His face and does not fade away.  For though He takes upon Himself and suffers the full burden of sin and death in His own Body of flesh and blood, He does not relinquish or let go of the divine Glory, but fulfills and completes it in perfect faith and in holy love for God and man.

The Glory of God is established and revealed in the Body and Blood of Christ Jesus, first of all by His Incarnation, conceived and born of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and then also by His Holy Cross and Passion, His innocent suffering and death.  That is where and how the veil is removed.

But what you see in the flesh of Christ is scary, isn’t it?  Overwhelming and confusing.  As it was for Peter, James, and John on the Mountain of Transfiguration; and as it was for all the disciples when they saw the Lord Jesus arrested, hauled away, condemned, beaten and mistreated, and cruelly put to death upon the Cross.  His Glory confronts you with the Cross that kills you, and it reveals that fulfilling the Law is not only beyond you but is altogether other than you supposed.

The Glory of God is good and right and wise, but, precisely so, it brings to light all the ways that you are not.  And it has already been established that the true divine Glory of the Law is, in fact, a ministry of death for you and for all who are not holy and righteous but sinful and unclean.

Removing the veil to reveal the righteousness and holiness of God — in the face of Jesus Christ, in His Body and His garments — exposes all the dirt and filth that fill your heart and mind, infect your perishing flesh from the inside out, and stain your garments with all the damn spots of your thoughts, words, and deeds.  Removing the veil uncovers the nakedness and shame of your sin.

As painful and scary as that is — and, make no mistake, as devastating as that is to every pretense of self-righteousness or do-it-yourself-ness — it is not the whole story, but only the beginning of that which is perfected in Christ Jesus.  For He is not another Moses or Elijah, but He is the One to whom they have pointed and for whom they have waited in hope, as do all the people of God.

He does not simply speak or reveal the Word of the Lord, but, as you know, He is the very Word of God, who has become flesh to dwell among us, to reveal the Father to us, to shine upon us in Love with the Light and Life of the Holy Trinity.  He is not “on par” with Moses and Elijah, but far above them, residing from eternity in the bosom of God the Father, though He has also come down from heaven for all of us and our salvation, in order to fulfill all the Law and the Prophets.

Jesus does not simply preach and teach the righteousness and holiness of God, nor simply reveal the Glory of God, but He is all of these things, and He embodies them all in His own flesh for us.

As such, He removes the veil which covered the divine Glory and darkened the hearts and minds of man, by submitting Himself to the Law’s “Ministry of Death” in your place and on your behalf.

He bears your dirt and filth and stain in His own flesh and blood, as though all of it were His own; as though He were the One (the only One) who had done what He should not and failed to do what He should; as though He were the Guilty One.  He is publicly exposed and put on display before God and the whole world in your naked shame upon the Cross.

And here is the wonder of all wonders: His divine and holy Body is transfigured by His Cross and Crucifixion, so that He thereby enters into Glory — with our human flesh — by way of His death.

The indestructible Power and Glory of His Resurrection, anticipated here in His Transfiguration, is the divine Glory that He accomplishes and establishes for you and for all people by His Cross.

Which is why it cannot be preached or even told until after the Son of Man has risen from the dead.

In this light, therefore, are at least two reasons why Peter’s confused suggestion is misguided and wrong, no less so than when he took it upon himself to rebuke Jesus and refute His coming Cross:

First of all, Jesus does not need anyone to build a tabernacle for Him to abide with His disciples, because He is Himself the Tabernacle of God among men.  And, second, He actually becomes that true divine Tabernacle in His human flesh and blood — for all who believe and are baptized into Him — by coming down from the Mountain and going the Way of His Holy Cross and Passion.

He is the Tabernacle, the Temple of God, the merciful and great High Priest who remains forever, and the once-for-all Sacrifice for the sins of the whole world, because He lays down His own life and sheds His own holy and precious blood for the salvation of all the children of Adam and Eve.

As the one perfect Mediator between God and Man, because He is both true God and true Man in His one Person, the fullness of the Godhead dwelling bodily among us in His own flesh and blood, He comes down from the Mountain — as He has come down from heaven, and as He went down into the waters of His Baptism, even to death and to the grave.

He comes down to offer Himself up, in order to raise you up with Himself from death unto life.  For in His bodily Resurrection from the dead, the Glory of God in His face and in His flesh shall never fade away.  He has satisfied the Law completely, both meeting its demands and suffering its punishments for the sins of the world.  And having risen from the dead, He is never to die again.

What He has thus accomplished and achieved in Himself, in His own Body and Soul, in all His thoughts, words, and deeds, He now also gives to you, and bestows upon you, and makes it your own by His grace, through His Word of the Gospel, which is a Ministry of the Spirit and of Life.  By that Ministry, by that New Covenant in His Blood, you receive His mercy and forgiveness.

Through your Baptism into Christ, into His Cross and Resurrection, you have passed through death into life, and you have entered into the Glory of God with your body and soul and all that you are.

To be sure, it does not yet appear what you shall be, but everything that Christ Jesus has received in His Body of flesh and blood, in His Resurrection from the dead, is now also yours in and with Him.  Therefore, when He appears in all His Glory for the Judgment of the living and the dead, then you shall see Him as He is, and you shall be like Him: Radiant, glorious, and beautiful.

As the veil has been lifted by the Cross of Christ, for now you behold the Glory of God precisely in the Cross: Not only in the Gospel of Christ — in the preaching of His Cross, and in His Body given, His Blood poured out for you — but also in yourself, bearing the Cross as a disciple of His.

That is the part that is still so difficult and hard to understand, but you are not left to yourself, to figure it out or handle it on your own.  You are catechized and cared for by the Word of Christ, and by the care and catechesis of His Church, which He has established on earth as it is in heaven.

The crucifix above the Altar artistically confesses and declares the Body and Blood of Christ that are given and poured out for you upon His Altar.  Historically, that is why Lutherans have always preferred the crucifix, that the body of Christ on the Cross should confess His Body in the Supper.

This, indeed, is the majestic Cloud that now surrounds you, the Pillar of Cloud by day and the Pillar of Fire by night, in which you behold the glorious power and presence of God among us.  For the Body of Christ, crucified and risen, and given for you to eat, His Blood for you to drink, truly is the Tabernacle of God among men.  Here is where and how Immanuel is God-with-us.

And this Sacrament of Christ is the mirror by which you are given to see the transformation — the transfiguration — of your own body of flesh and blood into the same Image of God, from Glory to Glory.  For the Cross that you bear and suffer in the Name of Christ Jesus, the blessed Fruits of which you here and now receive, is a participation in the divine Glory of the Lord, as well as the means by which you are being transfigured with His Glory unto the Resurrection of your body.

Here is mercy for you in the one Lord, Jesus Christ.  Therefore, do not lose heart, but rest in Him.

Already now, though you cannot see it, you are clothed with His radiant garments of righteousness and holiness, pure and clean like no bleach or laundry soap on earth could ever hope to manage.  As He has taken the stain of your sin, your nakedness and shame to be His own, so are you covered with Christ Jesus and clothed with His grace and His Glory by His Gospel of forgiveness.

So, too, as He feeds you here with His Body and His Blood — transfigured by His Cross, unto the Resurrection and the Life everlasting — so does He gather you up, both body and soul, into His Body of flesh and blood, and bear you up the High Mountain to His God and Father in heaven.

Thus do you behold by faith the true divine Glory in the Fruits of His Cross, given and poured out for you and for the many.  You eat and drink in His presence, and you do not die, but you live.

Dear Christian, listen to Him, and hear what He says:  Take and eat this Bread.  It is My Body, which is given for you.  And drink from this Chalice, which is the New Testament in My Blood.  It is poured out for you, for the forgiveness of all your sins.

Come, find your peace and rest in Him, and receive your inheritance, which shall not fade away.

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