The Transfiguration of Our Lord
February 11, 2024
Pastor Tim Weiser
Text: Exodus 34:29–35 Other Lessons: 2 Kings 2:1–12 (alternate); Psalm 50:1–6; 2 Corinthians 3:12–13 (14–18); 4:1–6; Mark 9:2–9
Sermon Theme: Jesus lights up our lives.
Goal: That you are assured that Christ’s light will prevail over darkness in your lives. Rev. Robert A. Dargatz, Sermon.
Jesus is “the light of the world” (Jn 8:12)! In him we see both God and ourselves as we really are, for the Lord Jesus is both the light and the truth (Jn 14:6). Today, Transfiguration Sunday, we see this illustrated in a most dramatic way! We see in shining glory how
Jesus Lights Up Our Lives.
Light and truth tend to go together, as do the opposing concepts of darkness, deceit, and peril. All of us are aware of the problem of darkness. Most of us have stumbled in the dark and have a healthy and proper fear of the darkness—especially in unfamiliar situations and environments where danger can be anticipated. Scripture speaks of spiritual light and darkness and warns us: “In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (2 Cor 4:4).
Ironically, we can also be blinded by light. Television commercials try to sell us special visors and glasses that filter out the blinding glare that renders our sight useless in averting danger. The appointed Old Testament Reading for this Transfiguration Day deals with both of these conditions on the opposite sides of the spectrum—blinding and giving vision. Our text takes place almost a millennium-and-a-half before Jesus’ transfiguration. Was he lighting up the lives of God’s people already way back then?
God is omnipresent, that is, present everywhere. David affirms this in Psalm 139. Today’s Old Testament Reading recounts how Moses was given the privilege to come into the special presence of God and how it caused his face to radiate with a special bright light as a result of that encounter. Moses has been up on Mount Sinai receiving the Ten Commandments—for a second time, by the way, since earlier he shattered the two tablets of stone when he saw Israel shattering the commandments themselves by worshiping the golden calf. Moses has been face to face with God, and now, for the children of Israel, even this reflection of God’s glory on Moses’ face was more than they could look at with steadfastness. It might be likened to driving with the intense light of the rising or setting sun in one’s eyes.
So Moses put on a covering or veil to shield the people from the brightness . . . and also so that their appreciation of the God-given authority with which he spoke would not falter when the glow on his face would lose some of its luster over time, until it was “recharged” by another intimate meeting with God. In this and the other encounters mentioned beforehand, God is hidden and revealed at one and the same time. The light shines, but God must veil his glory so that the people not be blinded.
No human can look at God in the fullness of his glory. Thus God uses what Luther called “masks” to shield sin-ridden humans from his unapproachable light. They give us glimpses of what we can understand about God but hide that which is too profound for us to take in.
The Old Testament constantly points forward to the fulfillment of God’s great plan of salvation in the promised Messiah. While the picture of God’s plan of salvation is most clearly seen in its fulfillment in the person and work of Jesus, God’s gracious and redemptive work is already there to behold in the Old Testament sacrifices and prophecies of God’s spokesmen. Salvation has always been the work of our gracious God and fulfilled only through the atoning work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Moses wrote that God would not abandon his created people to be taken over by Satan and his evil angels, but that he would raise up a “seed of woman” (cf Gen 3:15) to overcome Satan (identified in Rev 12:9). That “seed of woman” was none other than our Lord Jesus, born of the virgin Mary.
So while it often seems that the Old Testament covenant was primarily a promise that God would grant his people blessings as a nation in this life if they lived under his Lordship, that covenant was actually already shining brightly the light of God’s eternal grace and love in Christ. Old Testament believers already had faith that God would raise them from the dead (Heb 11:17–19). Job, who belonged to the time of the patriarchs, beautifully expressed that faith that God would raise him from the dead when he declared familiar words, “I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another” (Job 19:25–27).
Of course, the reason this Old Testament Reading was chosen for Transfiguration Day is that Moses makes an appearance with Jesus in today’s Gospel. And here, in Jesus and his transfiguration, the light of God’s grace and love was shining even more brightly than it had through Moses.
Jesus knew what awaited him as he made his way to Jerusalem for the final time. He knew that it would jolt the disciples whom he had prepared for three years to broadcast the Gospel throughout the world. So he gave three of those disciples—Peter, James, and John—a revelation of himself that was unforgettable and spectacular. There, on the Mount of Transfiguration, Jesus’ appearance was suddenly altered—bright, shining white, “as no one on earth could bleach them,” Mark says (Mk 9:3). And standing with Jesus were Moses and Elijah. How the three disciples came to recognize Moses and Elijah is not explained in the biblical account, but to have such spiritual hall of famers support Jesus’ claim to be the one and only prophesied Messiah cannot be dismissed as anything less than stupendous. The glorious light that emanated from Jesus’ body and even his attire was absolutely remarkable.
People often struggle with what Luther called the “Theology of the Cross.” We naturally would prefer a painless “Theology of Glory.” Although Jesus explicitly told his disciples about the betrayal, persecution, and death that awaited him in Jerusalem, the disciples did not process that until after his resurrection. The three undoubtably told the rest of their colleagues about the transfiguration of Jesus they had witnessed, and in God’s perfect time they departed from Jerusalem to the uttermost parts of the known world—and turned it upside down.
Sometimes our light burns brightest to those around us when we encounter and endure hardship and challenges. But certainly the light of God’s grace and love will shine brightest of all when Jesus inaugurates his eternal kingdom.
