Luke 9:28-36
Please listen with me to a portion of St. Luke’s account of the transfiguration of Jesus, from chapter 9 of his Gospel, beginning in the 28th verse:
“[Jesus] took Peter, John, and James, and went up on the mountain to pray. As He prayed, the appearance of His face was altered, and His robe became white and glistening. And behold, two men talked with Him, who were Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory and spoke of His departure which He was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.”
So far our text.
The transfiguration of our Lord was a remarkable and truly extraordinary event. And in a remarkable and truly extraordinary way, the transfiguration demonstrated two important things about Jesus and his ministry.
First, it was a revelation of the mystery of Christ’s person: That he was not only a man, but was the Second Person of the Holy Trinity in human flesh.
During Jesus’ time on earth, the glory and power of his divine nature were usually hidden, as Jesus lived under the Law in the form of a man, according to the limitations and “ordinariness” of his human nature. But the transfiguration was one of those unusual occasions when the divinity of Christ was manifested.
St. Luke tells us that “As He prayed, the appearance of His face was altered, and His robe became white and glistening. ” In St. Matthew’s version – which we heard read a few minutes ago – we are told that “His face shone like the sun, and His clothes became as white as the light.”
The light of divine glory was not shining upon him, but was shining out of him: out of his face; and also out of his whole body, so as to cause his clothing to shine as well.
And second, the transfiguration of our Lord was a revelation of the deep and intimate connection that there is between Christ and the Old Testament, with its many types, foreshadowings, and prophecies: all pointing to him and his saving work.
When Jesus appeared in his transfigured state – so that Peter, James, and John could get a glimpse of his divine glory – a portal to heaven was also opened so that they could also get a glimpse of that supernatural world.
They saw Moses and Elijah, and heard them talking with Jesus about “His departure which He was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.” That is, they spoke of the impending suffering and death of Jesus: where it would happen, how it would happen, and why it would happen.
They no doubt spoke also of the Lord’s resurrection and ascension, which would follow his death in due course.
The transfiguration took place on a mountaintop. During the time of their respective ministries on earth, Moses and Elijah were closely associated with important events, and important encounters with God, that likewise took place on mountaintops: on Mount Sinai in the case of Moses; and on Mount Carmel in the case of Elijah.
The Book of Exodus reports that on Mount Sinai, Moses received the Law of God in the form of the Ten Commandments, to provide a foundation of unvarying moral law on which all the civil regulations for ancient Israel would be built. But these Commandments would also serve as a concrete testimony to all nations, of the standards of right and wrong to which God holds the entire human race.
At the very beginning of these Commandments, delivered to Moses on that mountaintop, the Lord said:
“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me.”
This uncompromising prohibition of idolatry, and this uncompromising demand for complete loyalty and obedience to God, were then unfolded into the nine commandments that followed. To break any of those succeeding commandments, would be to break the first one as well.
With respect to Elijah – the other person who appeared with Jesus in the transfiguration – the First Book of Kings tells us about the “duel” of sorts that took place on Mount Carmel, between Elijah – the Lord’s prophet – and the prophets of Baal. These false prophets of a false god were under the patronage of Ahab – the corrupt ruler of the northern kingdom of Israel – and his pagan wife Jezebel.
Previous to this event, Ahab had rebuked Elijah as the “troubler of Israel.” And Elijah had responded:
“I have not troubled Israel, but you have, and your father’s house, because you have abandoned the commandments of the Lord and followed the Baals.”
And then Elijah challenged Ahab to send the prophets of Baal to Mount Carmel, where – in the presence of a multitude of people – these prophets and Elijah would each prepare a bull for sacrifice: but would not set fire to the sacrifice. Instead, each side would call upon the deity they served to send fire down from heaven to consume the sacrifice.
The challenge was accepted, and on the day appointed the prophets of Baal went first. From morning until mid-afternoon, they attempted to call down fire from Baal, but nothing happened.
Then Elijah took his turn. But first, he saturated the bull that he had slain and the wood on which it rested, with water – which ran over to such an extent that it filled up a trench that Elijah had dug around the place of his sacrifice. Elijah then said this prayer:
“O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant, and that I have done all these things at your word. Answer me, O Lord, answer me, that this people may know that you, O Lord, are God, and that you have turned their hearts back.”
We are told that what happened next, was that “the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt offering and the wood and the stones and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench. And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces and said, “The Lord, he is God; the Lord, he is God.”
But that’s not the end of the story. The narrative continues:
“Elijah said to them, ‘Seize the prophets of Baal; let not one of them escape.’ And they seized them. And Elijah brought them down to the brook Kishon and slaughtered them there.”
What happened that day demonstrated God’s holiness and righteousness. In his holiness and righteousness, God received – by the agency of the fire that he himself had sent – the propitiatory sacrifice of the bull, which was offered to him in the stead of the people whose sins had offended him.
What happened that day also demonstrated the wrath of this holy and righteous God against all unrepentant idolaters who violate his Ten Commandments. Idolatry was also a crime in ancient Israel, according to the civil law as given through Moses.
So, in keeping with that law and its penalty for false prophets, those defiant idolaters were executed. Ahab had not been enforcing this Old Testament law, but Elijah certainly did enforce it that day.
And now, in today’s story from the New Testament, Moses and Elijah – with these momentous mountaintop experiences in their background – are, miraculously, on another mountaintop. And in the glory of heaven, surrounded by the brilliance of the divinity of God’s Son, they are talking with that divine Son about his upcoming departure from this world.
That departure will indeed have some significant connections to the events that took place on Mount Sinai and Mount Carmel.
Jesus was talking to these prophets of old about his impending crucifixion. Like the sacrificial bull offered to the God of Israel on Mount Carmel, he was going to be the sacrifice offered to his Father in heaven for the sins of humanity.
St. John, in his First Epistle, declares that Christ “is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.” Jesus would be the pure and sinless substitute for the human race, offered in our place on the altar of the cross.
But from another perspective – God’s perspective – he would not be the sinless substitute for the human race but would become the bearer of all the sins of humanity. As Isaiah exclaims, “The Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.”
And then, on the cross, Jesus would place himself under the judgment of the Ten Commandments, against all the violations of those commandments that have ever been committed by any human being in any time or place: violations that had been imputed or credited to him by God, and that he – as God in the flesh – had freely taken onto himself.
Jesus would be condemned – in our place – on account of those sins. The Law that the Lord gave to Moses on Mount Sinai, which convicts us of the sins that we have actually committed, would also convict our divine-human substitute.
And just as the sacrifice that was offered to the Lord on Mount Carmel was received by the Lord – by which his anger against the sins of the nation of Israel was turned away – so too would Jesus’ sacrificing of himself on the cross turn God’s wrath away from the sins of all nations.
Jesus, on the cross, would be consumed from heaven. And in our place, he would feel and experience the spiritual horror of this. “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” he would cry.
The actual idolaters at Mount Carmel suffered the just punishment that their idolatry had earned so that their blood was shed in death. So too would Christ suffer the punishment that idolatry deserves – the human idolatry in all of its forms that would be smeared onto him.
Death was the punishment deserved by the prophets of Baal because of their violation of the First Commandment, and of the civil law of Israel that was built upon it. And death is the punishment deserved by you and me, because of all the times we have broken the First Commandment – together with all the times we have broken the other Commandments, which flow out from the first one.
Jesus would endure this divine wrath and this feeling of forsakenness until the full redemption price for our sins had been paid. And then, when this agony was over, he would say, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” And he would breathe his last.
But the grave would not contain him. On the third day, with the human sin that had been imputed to him for the cross now lifted off of him, the condemnation for those sins would also be lifted.
Jesus would instead now be vindicated and justified by his Father, in his resurrection, and ultimately in his ascension to the right hand of the Divine Majesty.
This is what Jesus, Moses, and Elijah were talking about. They were talking about mountaintop experiences – but not the kind of “mountaintop experiences” that people usually mean when they use that term. What they were talking about was not exciting and exhilarating, but serious and sober.
They were talking about God’s Law, the demands of God’s Law, and the threats of God’s Law against those who disobey it. They were talking about God following through on these threats: punishing sin and not ignoring sin.
They were talking about Jesus going down from that mountain, turning onto the road to Jerusalem, and making his way to that holy city of sacrifice and atonement – that city of reconciliation and forgiveness – so that all of these things would happen to him, for the sake of our reconciliation and forgiveness.
The reason why God is willing to forgive sin is not because sin does not really bother him. He is greatly bothered by it. He is deeply offended by it. The entire Old Testament teaches us this, both by what God says and by what God does, in its hallowed pages.
But God is willing to forgive sin. God does forgive sin. He forgives your sin and my sin because Jesus did bravely and lovingly follow through on the things that he had talked about with Moses and Elijah.
As you and I turn to him in fear and humility, in regret and repentance, we are able to receive the forgiveness that was earned and accomplished by Christ our substitute. On Calvary he allowed himself to be punished for our idolatry, and for all our sins; and on Calvary he there offered himself as a sacrifice to redeem us, to restore us, to justify us.
St. Paul writes in his Second Epistle to the Corinthians that “For our sake [God] made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
Jesus, as it were, descends from the mountain today: the day of the Transfiguration of Our Lord, which is the last Sunday in the Epiphany season. And as the seasons of pre-Lent and Lent are about to begin, he begins his journey to Jerusalem.
We, too – according to the discipline of the church year – will likewise soon begin our liturgical journey to Jerusalem with him. In Lent, we will travel on the pathway of repentance and faith, to the cross of Christ.
There, at the cross, we will watch him die. We will watch him die for us.
That’s not the end of the story, of course. And that’s not the whole story. The joy and victory of Easter will also come. And the glory of the Ascension will follow.
All the things that Moses and Elijah were talking about with Jesus, will come to us, and will be made to be very real for us: in the readings from Scripture that we will hear, and in the hymns that we will sing. In the words of this Sunday’s Preface, we as his modern-day disciples can and will say and confess, today and in the weeks to come:
“Jesus Christ our Lord…at his transfiguration revealed his glory to his disciples, that they might be strengthened to proclaim his cross and resurrection, and with all the faithful look forward to the glory of life everlasting.” Amen.