An Explosion of Images

[00:00:00] In the name of Jesus. Amen. [00:00:04] The Gospel reading this morning is the transfiguration. [00:00:11] It's an explosion of images. [00:00:13] There are just so many aspects of it. And then, like, very little explained. [00:00:20] It just flies by us in a few verses, but leaves us with all kinds of images to contemplate and really. [00:00:30] Well. So for one thing, it takes us to Mount Sinai. You saw the parallel in the Old Testament reading, right? [00:00:41] The six days and then the seventh day. [00:00:44] Did you catch that? [00:00:49] For seven days, the mountain is covered with this cloud. [00:00:53] And then in the Gospel reading, after six days, then they. On the seventh, they go up, that kind of thing. And it's like Moses going into the mountain. [00:01:02] There's the cloud, right? In the Old Testament reading, it said that the cloud covering the mountain was like a burning fire. [00:01:13] And then here we have this, like a shining cloud, a bright cloud. [00:01:19] Kind of interesting. [00:01:21] So we've got the cloud, the covering of the mountain, the tents. [00:01:27] Like, what do you make of the tents? Peter says, let's make. Like, how about I make three tents, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah. [00:01:36] Like, tents recall all kinds of things, like the tabernacle, right? But especially the feast of tabernacles. [00:01:45] Tabernacle is an Old Testament word for tent, the feast of tents. [00:01:53] We've got a mountain. There's an image. [00:01:56] So all these things just converging and more things than that. [00:02:01] But they're recalling. Well, Moses and Elijah, they recall all kinds of Old Testament stories. Just got all this stuff converging and. And exploding in images for us to consider. So we're going to consider a few. [00:02:16] All right, but let's start with the first one. Jesus and a few disciples climb up a mountain. [00:02:28] Now they're ascending a mountain, not unlike the mountain that the Olympians ascend, who win, right? [00:02:42] Right now in Italy, those athletes who have reached the peak of their discipline, right, who have competed and competed and competed and gotten higher and higher and higher in their discipline. Right now they're at the top. They're there in Italy, and there's just one more little stair to ascend. [00:03:03] When they win gold, There they go, you know, up they ascend to the peak of the mountain. [00:03:09] And there they are, shining for everybody to see. They're on international television, all the eyes of the world on them. [00:03:20] They're playing the national anthem for them. And there they are, the center of attention. They're shining. They're on the mountaintop. [00:03:31] It's the mountain of glory for the Olympian. [00:03:36] That's what's happening There, when Jesus is there, shining on a mountain in all his glory, there we see him with glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. [00:03:52] So he's shining on the mountain. [00:03:56] And the disciples are stupefied. [00:04:02] They don't know what to say because he's shining. [00:04:07] And Peter has a bright idea. [00:04:10] Let's make tents. [00:04:14] Let's delve into that image just a little bit. [00:04:19] Peter and James and John had grown up camping. [00:04:27] Yearly. They had this yearly camping trip. They didn't go far. I think they just camped in the city. [00:04:34] But the Feast of Tents, the Feast of Tabernacles, that happened every year. [00:04:40] It was a week long. [00:04:43] Well, camping trip, camping experience. [00:04:46] They would set up tents and live in them. Temporary shelters. Sometimes we call them booths, right? But they're just tents. [00:04:54] Set up tents and live in them for a week every single year. [00:04:59] What's more, God told them to do that. [00:05:02] You guys are going to live in tents for a week every year. [00:05:06] It happens right after the harvest. [00:05:11] So they get their harvest and they're like, all right, we're set. We're ready to hunker down for the winter. We've got everything we need. [00:05:19] We're stable. [00:05:21] And God says, well, why don't you live in temporary shelters so that you remember your time in the wilderness when you didn't have a home, when you weren't stable or established, when you didn't have the food and I provided it for you. [00:05:40] Have a little insecurity for a week and don't get too settled. [00:05:47] The Feast of Tents was. [00:05:49] It was unsettling. It was a time to go into the wilderness, essentially back into the wilderness with their forefathers for those 40 years and to remember what it's like to wander. [00:06:04] So there they are. [00:06:06] There they are on the mountaintop. And they've been shaped since childhood by this liturgical experience, this ritual remembrance of their dependence on God and of their time of wandering. And here. Well, here's Moses. [00:06:23] Like, he's the guy who did it for real. [00:06:27] Like, he lived in a tent for 40 years with the Israelites. And we've just been kind of acting this out all our lives. Well, here's Moses. [00:06:38] Let's do it again. Let's remember the wilderness wandering together. [00:06:44] This will be special. [00:06:47] Of course, Elijah comes later. [00:06:50] After the wilderness wandering, he did his own wilderness wandering. [00:06:54] He fasted 40 days and nights, went to Mount Sinai, just like Moses. So he's just kind of part of the pattern there. Wouldn't this be special? [00:07:03] Plus, there's A prophecy that says that Elijah's going to come back, right? [00:07:10] When the Savior. When the Savior comes. So anyway, all of this is, it's like, okay, this is happening. [00:07:18] Well, let's really celebrate the, the Feast of Tents, right? But they don't know what they're saying. [00:07:29] And then here's Jesus in the middle of it all, shining, and he's the one who came and dwelt among us. [00:07:41] You know, in John 1, that word is tented among us and the Word became flesh tented among us. [00:07:51] We have seen his glory, Jesus. [00:07:58] Jesus who has it all, who is the very Son of God, come from the Father, Jesus, through whom all things were made. Jesus, who's the image of the invisible God, the exact imprint of his nature. [00:08:14] Jesus who has come from heaven. [00:08:18] Jesus, who alone has seen God and comes to make him known to us. [00:08:24] Jesus entered our instability, entered our wilderness. He came to wander among us. [00:08:33] He came and tented among us and we've seen his glory. Like, here's the guy who took on our flesh like the tent in order to take us to eternal dwellings. [00:08:53] Peter wants to set up tents and celebrate. [00:08:59] Well, the wilderness is coming and Jesus is about to enter the wilderness, just like we're about to enter the wilderness of Lent, right? Remember, Lent is 40 days and it's patterned after the wandering in the wilderness. See, this is interesting. Like the Feast of Tents and all of that. Like, well, we're about to remember the Israelites time wandering in the wilderness. [00:09:31] We're about to live in the same pattern during Lent. [00:09:37] Just like Jesus did when he went into the wilderness and fasted for 40 days before his temptation in the wilderness by the devil. [00:09:48] We're entering that same pattern and Jesus is doing the same thing. He's. He's going to descend the mountain and turn to the cross. [00:10:00] He's going to be on his way to Jerusalem in order to be crucified. [00:10:07] Like the real wilderness, the ultimate wilderness where he loses all things, including his honor and his well being. He's going to lose his life. [00:10:23] He's going to give it all up on the cross. [00:10:26] That's what the Israelites have been practicing by celebrating the Feast of Tents. [00:10:32] That's what Peter and James and John have been celebrating in a ritual way by camping every year with their families. [00:10:45] For that week they've been practicing giving up their stability, their harvest, their home. [00:10:57] But now Jesus is doing it for real. [00:11:00] For real, for real. See, celebrating with Moses and Elijah in tents that still would have been pointing toward the real thing. [00:11:10] But now Jesus has come to tent among his people and to really live the wilderness. Jesus has come to lay it all on the line. To suffer for us, to give himself up, to suffer and die, to be crucified. [00:11:30] And he calls us along. [00:11:33] He says, come, follow me. [00:11:36] And then he says, if anyone would follow me, he must take up his cross. If anyone would come after me, he must take up his cross and follow me. [00:11:48] Peter's not ready to do. He's still thinking of the tents. [00:11:55] He's ready to practice this ritually. [00:11:58] But when it comes to the cross, he's going to deny Jesus when it comes to the cross. [00:12:07] In the previous chapter, Peter tells Jesus, oh, no, you're not going to die. [00:12:13] No, he's going to die. [00:12:15] No, it's for real now. [00:12:18] This is the real wilderness. [00:12:20] And it's through the wilderness that glory comes. [00:12:25] Jesus giving it all up. [00:12:28] That's how he's glorified. [00:12:30] And that's the path for us too, following him. And he takes us along on the journey. He takes Peter and James and John along on the journey. And you know what? Peter ends up experiencing the wilderness in a way kind of similar to Jesus. [00:12:50] Remember, he died by crucifixion. [00:12:55] Peter, although he didn't feel worthy to die in the same manner as Christ. And so he had them crucify him upside down. [00:13:04] But Jesus took Peter right along with him to experience the wilderness. And he strengthened him for the wilderness right first time around. When Jesus did it alone, what none of us could do, what no one else could do, what he came to do for us. [00:13:22] When he did it, Peter couldn't handle it, want to be involved in it. [00:13:30] Tried to save his own skin. [00:13:33] But then Jesus came and gave him the Holy Spirit. [00:13:37] Breathed on his disciples and said, receive the Holy Spirit. [00:13:42] He remade them by the spirit of life and called them. He forgave Peter, united them to himself. [00:13:56] And then Peter did experience the wilderness. [00:13:59] And you and I do too. [00:14:02] That's our path. Here we are entering the season of Lent, and it's a time to experience the wilderness with Christ, to embrace the loss of all things, like St. Paul. To be content without, to go without. And so you can give something up. [00:14:23] You could try some fasting. [00:14:30] And those are kind of. [00:14:32] Well, those are practices for the real thing. [00:14:36] Training for our bodies in order to. [00:14:42] Well, to help our inner life be less encumbered by the desires and distractions of the body that pull us away from the real thing. [00:14:54] You and I have been called in Jesus Christ to offer our bodies as living sacrifices, pleasing and acceptable to God. [00:15:03] This is your spiritual worship, Paul says, and he means it for real. Because you and I have been united to Christ through baptism, into his death and into his resurrection. [00:15:17] We've been joined to him in his journey, following him and taking up our cross for the sake of one another, for the sake of the world. [00:15:30] How can we do it? [00:15:32] Well, only in Jesus, right? And that's what Paul says. Paul says. [00:15:38] He says, I've learned the secret of contentment. [00:15:41] I can go without food, I can be in need, I can suffer all these things. But then he says, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. [00:15:52] How can we endure the wilderness in Christ? [00:15:59] And then also we see Christ show sharing in our suffering, really taking our suffering, and we suffer with Him. [00:16:10] We endure suffering in Christ, but then we also see the other side of it. We see Christ's glory. [00:16:19] Peter and James and John, they catch a glimpse of his glory as he's shining there, lifted up as he's shining on the mountain. [00:16:27] His glory, our glory, just like his suffering, is our suffering. [00:16:33] He's taking us through suffering not for nothing, but to share his glory with us, which is incredible. [00:16:44] You see him shining on the mountain. That's a picture of our own shining, our own transfiguration. [00:16:53] That's why the prayer for today, it says this in the voice that came from the bright cloud. You wonderfully foreshowed our adoption by grace. [00:17:04] This is my beloved Son with whom I'm well pleased. [00:17:09] That's what he says to you and me. That's what God says to you and me. This is my beloved Son with whom I'm well pleased. [00:17:18] And then we prayed my mercifully make us coheirs with the King in his glory. [00:17:25] Coheirs with the King in his glory. [00:17:29] It's like you're standing up there with the Olympian who won gold, and that's being shared with you like, whoa, I don't belong here. [00:17:41] Well, we don't. [00:17:43] We don't deserve it. [00:17:46] The glory that's to be revealed in us, we just have it by grace. Jesus taking us along, taking us up into his own life, into glory by his grace, in Jesus name, amen.