The Feast of the
Transfiguration
Jesus into the Shadows
Grace, mercy, and peace
to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ! Amen. In today’s Gospel
Jesus glows brightly in divine glory for a moment. Then the glory passes, the
darkness
descends, and “they were coming down the
mountain.”
Dear
Christian friends,
Everyone
is a theologian. YOU are a theologian. Theology is merely what you have to say
about
God. Good or bad, everyone has something to say about God. Therefore everyone is
a theologian, including you.
Not
all theology has equal value. Some people are better theologians than others.
Some
people talk about God—that is, they do theology—by ignoring or rejecting the
Words
of God. Such people are not very good theologians. The quality of your theology
is NOT determined by your imagination or your personal opinion. Your theology is
not measured by the amount of air you exhale in speaking it. Your theology does
not improve simply because somebody might like to hear the sorts of things you
say. God says that false prophets gather people who have itching ears (2
Timothy 4:3). The quality of your theology is judged by your
faithfulness—faithfulness to the Scriptures of God. Your theology is at its
best when your words mirror and reflect God’s Words (as in the creeds).
In
today’s Gospel, Peter speaks a false and homemade theology. In today’s Gospel,
Peter’s theology rejects and ignores the Words of God. One short week before
today’s Gospel,
Jesus
began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things
from the elders and chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and on the
third
day be raised (Matthew 16:21).
What
is more, Jesus also declared to His disciples and to Peter that they themselves
would be included in the suffering of the cross.
Jesus
told His disciples, “If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself and
take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever would save his life will lose it,
but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it” (Matthew 16:24-25).
Peter
did not want a dead Jesus and he did not wish to experience his own personal
suffering. Peter wanted sunshine and light! So Peter traded the clear Words of
God for those things he could feel and see. Peter enjoyed the glow and the
splendor of the Transfiguration. He wanted to keep that happiness and cheer
alive. After all, this is the sort of God that Peter had in mind all along; not
a dead Jesus (Matthew 16:22), but “Jesus transfigured
before them, His face shining like the sun and His clothes white as light.”
Seeing
Jesus so transfigured, Peter began to do theology. Peter did his theology
poorly: “Lord, it is good that we are
here. If You wish, I will make three tents here, one for You and one for Moses
and one for Elijah.” Essentially Peter was saying, “Let’s keep this good
feeling going, Lord! Let’s find a way to continue the sensation of security and
glory and awe. Shine, Jesus! Shine! Fill this land with Your glory!”
Thankfully—mercifully—God the
Father intervened and put an end to Peter’s low quality, impoverished theology!
[Peter] was still speaking [still gushing] when,
behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This
is My beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to Him.”
With these Words, God the
Father was essentially saying to Peter, “Do NOT base your theology upon the
things you can see, Peter! Do NOT form your theology out of those things that
you
are enjoying and do NOT build it upon the foundation of how you think things
ought to be. Here stands My beloved Son in your midst. Do theology by listening
to HIM!”
Theology is nothing more
than speaking about God. We all are theologians because we all have something
to say about God. In today’s Gospel, God the Father would have each and every
one
of us to do our theology in only one way: by listening to Jesus. “This is My
beloved Son, with whom I am well
pleased; listen to Him.”
Today’s Gospel is a very
good Gospel for a congregation whose future might not be quite as bright as her
past. No matter how you feel about our current situation—and I certainly do not
wish to make the situation seem bigger than it is—perhaps we can all agree, at
the very least, that the glory days are behind us. Gone are the
· Vacation Bible
schools that were teaming with children from both congregation and community;
· Social clubs—the LLL
and the LWML and the youth groups—that once helped us forge deeper friendships
and perhaps made it easier invite our neighbors into our building.
· Easter Sundays
where seating was in short supply.
As we consider our
situation, we should keep one assumption in mind: Versailles needs our Lutheran
confession of faith, complete with our liturgical worship and our every Sunday
communion and our baptized infants. Even the children we hold in our arms speak
the faith of the Scriptures to our community. Even our babies do theology!
So now is NOT time for us to
do something so extreme as to contemplate closing our doors. Now is the time
for us to think differently about our situation and our future. It is time for
us to brainstorm and to discuss options that we might not very much want to
discuss. Perhaps it is also time for each of us (including the pastor) to think
again about what we can do to help the congregation out a little bit more—even
to
the point of making sacrifices somewhere else in our lives.
Above all, it is time for
us to do theology. We must do our theology well.
· It will do us NO GOOD
to look back over our shoulders at the warmth and glow of yesteryear and wish
we were there. Peter did that sort of thing in today’s Gospel, wanting to build
three shelters and remain on the glowing mountain. God found Peter’s theology
so intolerable that He interrupted “while
Peter was still speaking” (NIV).
· It will do us
equally NO GOOD to change who we are and become something we are not. It would
be vain for us to attempt accommodating the desires of the unbelieving world or
the heterodox (false teaching) Christians around us. Any departure from our
confession of faith and its historic practice (liturgy) would indicate unbelief
and lack of confidence in the power of God’s Word in our midst.
The quality of our theology
is judged by our faithfulness—faithfulness to the Scriptures of God. Our
theology is at its best when your words mirror and reflect God’s Words. Above
every other consideration, let’s do theology by continuing
· To hold fast to the
Words of our God; continuing to trust that those Words will not fail to
accomplish and complete everything they have promised us.
· To keep the
proclamation of forgiveness and life in Jesus’ name paramount in our midst.
Without
Jesus and His forgiveness in our midst, we have nothing and we are already dead.
· To walk with Jesus
in whatever direction He might go. Let’s even walk with Jesus into the shadows.
Let’s do it with a smile on the face and a song in the heart! As Jesus declared
in today’s Gospel, “Have no fear!”
In today’s Gospel, the
glory passes, the darkness descends, and “they
were coming down the mountain.” Who came down the mountain? The disciples
of Jesus came down, but they were not alone. The Lord Jesus walked with them
into the darkness. The glorious light departed, but their God did NOT! The
easiest
of their days were indeed over. Hardship loomed on the horizon. Nevertheless,
God’s Forgiveness, God’s Power, God’s Resurrection and Life matched their
stride,
walking with them and ahead them.
“They were coming down the mountain.” Whether our present situation
proves to be larger than we think or smaller than we think; whether it proves
easy to solve or impossible to overcome; let’s do our theology by shrugging our
shoulders, spitting on our hands, taking up our congregational cross, and
following
Jesus. Resurrections follow crucifixions.
_______________________________________________
Sermons mailing list
[email protected]
http://cat41.org/mailman/listinfo/sermons
