Feast of the Transfiguration

​Rev. Shemwell
Matthew 17:1-9
1/21/24

Homily for the Feast of the Transfiguration

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. “When
Moses came down from Mount Sinai, with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand
as he came down from the mountain, Moses did not know that the skin of his face
shone because he had been talking with God. Aaron and all the people of Israel saw
Moses, and behold, the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come near
him.”
Dear brothers and sisters in our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, when our
forefather in the faith Moses returned from the summit of Sinai with the two stone
tablets of the divine law inscribed by the very finger of God, the Decalogue, also
called the Ten Commandments, in his human hands, Aaron and all the people of Israel
were afraid of him. Now it was not the law written in stone that terrified them—not
yet, anyhow—but it was rather the sheer majesty of the glory of God temporarily
reflected off of Moses’ own face. He had spoken with God in His very presence, you
see, and the power of God’s glory lingered on Moses’ skin for a little while afterwards
– and it shocked and unsettled the people. As we know from the Old Testament, when
a man witnesses the unveiled glory of God, the result is usually death. It is too
overwhelming for a mere mortal to observe and yet still survive. Even the residual
glory reflected from Moses’ own skin, that had seeped into his pores for period of
time, was too overpowering for the ancient Israelites – even in reflected form, God’s
glory was much too much for them to bear.

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And so we are told, Moses placed a veil over his face when he came back down from
the mountain, for the safety of the people of Israel, for their sake, so that they could
bear the law and also God’s glory in a suitable dose, so to speak. All that to say, from
Mount Sinai, Moses brought down the law to the earth. But on his face lingered the
radiance of the glory of that pure, incarnate Gospel Who was to come many centuries
later.
And this fitting human fear of divine glory is spoken of in our gospel lesson
from St. Matthew as well, isn’t it? At the summit of the mount where our Lord Jesus
Christ was transfigured before Peter, James, and John, when His glory shone forth and
that voice from heaven spoke with a glorious booming, we are told that the disciples
threw themselves on the ground and hid their faces, out of fear of the glory itself. In
that moment, and for just a moment, those disciples witnessed what Moses had long
ago seen. They witnessed through the slits of their hands, those trembling hands
covering their frightful faces, they witnessed the Second Person of the Trinity in His
profuse exuberance and His intense and irrepressible resplendence. They beheld
Christ’s awesome divinity momentarily unveiled – and it utterly overwhelmed them.
Though they had already been with Christ for quite some time at that point.
They had even hiked up the mountain with Him, with this man, in the blistering
middle-eastern sun, with the man Jesus, Whom they knew very well. They were not
then afraid though, for Christ’s divinity at that point was still veiled by His humanity
before they reached the mountain’s crest.

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However, when that same God-made-man, Christ Jesus in the flesh, Who had trekked
up the mountainside with them in the heat of the day, when that same God incarnate
was at the peak unveiled, when He was transfigured before them and His true divinity
shone forth unrestrained by His humanity, it struck terror in the hearts of the disciples.
And that was because of their grave sin, because of their fallenness. This was
the same God, by the way, the pre-incarnate Christ, Who once strolled with Adam in
the cool of the day. Man could once bear to witness God’s glory. In the garden, man
viewed God in all His wonder, without a seeming care in the world. But in sin, in
man’s fallen state, so tainted as he is in his exile from Eden, Christ’s unveiled glory
and bare divinity, it was too sublime – sublime to the point of striking dread in the
souls of men. And so those disciples at the Mount of Transfiguration threw
themselves down to the ground and hid their shamed faces, knowing that the
proximity, the very closeness of such divine glory with their own immense human sin,
with the depth of iniquity in their own hearts, could prove fateful.
And as St. Matthew writes: “Christ’s face shone like the sun, and His clothes
became as white as the light.” The One Who in the beginning said “Let there be light”
showed forth His luminous light to Peter, to James, and to John that day. The Son of
God shone as glaring as the sun in the skies to those select men. They were given the
gift of a glimpse of Triune splendor. They were allowed to experience the
Transfiguration of Christ the Lord, of the Second Person of the Trinity, with their own
senses, their eyes and ears. And this, friends, was the culmination of our Lord’s
Epiphany – it was the high point, the peak of His epiphany before men.

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Christ was revealed to the venerable old Simeon in the Temple, remember? Just a few
weeks ago. He was then revealed to the worshipping magi. He was likewise revealed
at His baptism by John in the River Jordan. And then, in this majestic moment we
hear about in our lesson this morning, He was revealed in the fullness of His glory.
Those three disciples laid eyes on God made man with His divinity unveiled and His
grandeur wholly exhibited from on high.
And again, what did the disciples do? They threw themselves to the ground in
response. They hid their poor faces. That’s all they could think to do. Adam once had
the privilege of comfortably witnessing God’s glory in the garden. However, with the
weight of sin, God’s glory had become too burdensome for any fallen man to bear.
Therefore, the disciples hid their faces. They prostrated themselves all the way to the
ground, in the dust, in humility, and for their own spiritual and physical welfare.
And so you, too, should throw yourselves down before your God, dear faithful,
for you also have sinned. You have sinned in thought, word, and deed. You are a
sinner by nature. Don’t kid yourself. You have fallen short of the glory of God – and
your own sin cannot withstand divine glory. You have cheated your neighbor out of
good will, you have stolen time and attention from your loved ones, you have looked
lustfully upon a sister or a brother in the Lord, you have thought little of the Word of
God on occasion, you have missed church and have taken God’s power and glory and
goodness for granted – and you know it. You have failed to fear, love, and trust in
God above all things. That is a fact. And with this sin in your hearts and heavy on
your shoulders, your only secure, sensible posture is one of full prostration before the
Almighty and Merciful God, our Father in heaven.

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You should throw yourself before His grace, before the glory of God, before His Son
and His eternally consequential and beneficial atoning sacrifice. That is what a
repentant Christian does. That is what repentance looks like – prostration and fear.
And so you already have. This morning. You’ve done just that. You have
confessed your sin here together. The law long ago brought down from Sinai has
terrified you, it has crushed you under its weight, it has left you dead in your
trespasses before its dread. And recognizing your helplessness with respect to it, you
have entered through those church doors, you have boldly confessed your sin together
as a congregation and have sought the Lord’s mercy and forgiveness. And insofar as
you truly are repentant, God grants His forgiveness to you freely.
That day centuries ago on the mountain when the disciples threw themselves to
the ground, Jesus, the One unveiled, then instructed them in His soft but stern voice:
“Arise, friends, and have no fear.” These were His consoling words to those petrified
men. The disciples then stood up and saw Jesus standing all alone, like He had once
been. Christ, their sole salvation, was all that remained at those heights. And then they
all descended the mountain together, just as they had shortly ago ascended it. These
men survived the ordeal; they endured an encounter with the tremendous radiance of
God’s glory, as few men up to that point had. And they lived to tell the tale, but only
after Jesus’ resurrection, only after the Son of Man was raised from the dead on the
third day, per His own command. These eyewitnesses to God revealed in the totality
of His glory recorded their experience for our spiritual benefit.

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And so it is inscribed by the very finger of God in the inspired Holy Word to this day
– in the immovable, unalterable, permanent and inflexible solid stone of the infallible
and inerrant Holy Bible – and thanks be to God for it.
Jesus told His disciples not to speak about His profound glory until after His
death and resurrection had passed. And as they descended the mountain together that
day, our Lord’s still-brilliant face was turned right there – toward Jerusalem – toward
the place of His passion, toward His own unjust-but-necessary death. As He headed
down the mountainside with His disciples, His tragic fate at Golgotha awaited Him, it
hung over His every waking moment. The radiance of His glory on the mountaintop,
when eternity broke through into time, where heaven intersected with earth, that same
bright radiance later had to be briefly eclipsed by three hours of the purest darkness in
the valley on a cruciform instrument of torture and execution.
What came down from Mount Sinai millennia ago, the law on two stone
tablets, this law still accuses you, dear faithful. To this day, it reveals to you your sin
and your deserved death, your transgression and the wrath it incurs, by pointing you to
the death of God on a cross, and by directing your face to look upon your pride and
lust and greed and envy that nailed Him there. This law puts you to death,
figuratively, and in time, literally.

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However, what came down from the mountainside that day with Peter, James, and
John, Christ Jesus in the flesh, He is the Gospel incarnate, the good news in body and
blood, Who descended the mountain and willingly mounted the cross in the valley for
your sake, for your forgiveness, for your unearned absolution, to withstand the hellish
burden of your failure before God’s good and perfect law, to transfigure your eternal
fate, out of an immeasurable love for you and all for whom He suffered. In Moses’
hands, death came down the mountain with the law and its terror. But in Christ’s body
though, life came down the mountain with the Gospel – which after those three hours
of pitch black poured forth from His pierced side as the elements of like, as water and
blood, Holy Baptism and Holy Communion, flowing forth sacramentally down the
mountainside like a waterfall to this very hour into the font and the chalice here at
Bethlehem.
At the mountain’s summit, the disciples were afraid and hid their faces. But
after the resurrection in the valley, they had no reason to fear any longer. Redemption
was won. Victory was had. They were even allowed to feel that victory in the holes in
their Lord’s own hands and side. And so, knowing His victory to be true and sure,
they told the whole world the good news of triumph in Christ’s death and resurrection,
the saving Gospel of the empty tomb. They preached this Gospel of glory hidden in
the horrible shape of a cross, even risking their own lives to do so, with most being
martyred for it. And taking their cue, we, too, should continue to tell the world this
story, no matter the consequences to us, nor to our reputations.

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Proclaim the Gospel to the ends of the earth, friends – or if nothing else, tell at
least one person every day of your life. What could it hurt? Tell others about their
need for repentance, about their need for redemption, about the Redeemer’s raised
body and the promise of life without end in His name alone. And encourage others to
come here, to have the opportunity to witness His glory face to face, to be drenched in
His baptism, to taste for themselves of His own true body and blood in this holy meal.
In the light of Christ, there is no more room for the darkness of fear and dread. When
a person is repentant at heart and feels sorrow for their sin in the depth of their soul,
he or she can then stand erect before God, staring Him face to face, and can bear to
witness His glory under the salutary veil of Word and Sacrament.
The law from Sinai accuses us, but the blood of Christ vindicates us. All praise
be to God for it. This is the Gospel. For you. For others. For all. The law kills us, but
we faithful never remain dead, since all death for the believer is only temporary. The
law puts us to death in our sin, but Christ has already paid the price for our failings
and raises us again, time after time, week after week, sin after sin. And in that grace
won there at Golgotha on a cross so long ago, and by the grace poured out for us in
Word and Sacrament here and now and perpetually, we are strengthened, indeed
quickened and enlivening, so that we may glance upon the glory of God in this
beautiful place.
And the grace we witness here transforms us, brothers and sisters. Make no
mistake: every week you are being transformed, you are made different, you are being
sanctified. If you don’t feel it, just trust me – I can see it; I know it to be true.

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For as St. Paul says in his second letter to the Corinthian church, all us believers,
“with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being
transformed into the same image from glory to glory.” We, too, are being
transfigured, made like our Lord over time. In Christ, the glory of God no longer
threatens us – it no longer terrifies us. Because our sin has been washed away. So long
as we remain repentant, so long as we abide in forgiveness, here in this church, here in
the Word, here in the Sacraments – so long as we dwell firmly in Christ Jesus our
Lord, we, too, can stand erect before God’s throne and behold His majesty, now
through a glass darkly yet one of these days altogether clearly. Covered in the blood
of the Lamb, we live now and forevermore, becoming more and more like that
precious Lamb as the end draws near.
And in this holy life we live, in our lives as Christians in the world,
transformed and transfigured from one glory to another, God’s own glory reflects
from our faces, too, not unlike our forefather Moses in those few moments following
his descent from God’s presence at Sinai. And to be sure, dear flock, the radiance of
this reflected divine glory we receive here Sunday after Sunday may sometimes strike
some fear in the hearts of the unbelievers whom we encounter throughout the week
out there in the world. They may not comprehend the light, as St. John once put it –
and that might well confuse and scare them. They may feel triggered, threatened,
unsettled by the Word of God itself – by God’s law and its accusation. That is no
surprise. The Word and the world are so often at odds.

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But we pray always that that fear strongly felt might eventually beget repentance for
them, too, so that all who hear the Gospel and read it on our faithful faces, and witness
it in our many Christian deeds, might be saved.
You are forgiven, dearly beloved. You are healed. So as our Lord once said:
Rise, and have no fear. Ascend these steps, this mountain here. Prostrate yourself and
kneel before your God at the summit of this rail. And receive His glory onto your
skin, upon your lips, into your very soul. And let that glory which becomes a part of
you here in this place, which seeps into the countless pores of your everyday life, let
that glory reflect far beyond these walls for the days to come. Just know that I
encourage this with all my breath, as your shepherd. May it be so this day and
tomorrow and especially the day after. In the most holy name of our transfigured
Lord, in Jesus’ name. Amen.