Transfiguration of Our Lord – “Changing Lives” (Matt. 17:1-9)

A-26 Transfiguration (Mt 17.1-9)Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, amen. The text for the sermon this morning is the Gospel, which was read earlier.

It’s been a long time, hasn’t it? From the celebration of the Epiphany of our Lord to today, the Transfiguration of Our Lord, we have experienced something that we won’t experience again for another 27 years, or until 2038: we celebrate the entire season of Epiphany. That means we have heard some texts from Scripture that share more of what the Church was like at the time of Christ and shortly there-after: it was rough. It was ugly. It was not what we would think of the Church as being. During the time of Christ, there were groups who sought to put our Lord to death because He made what they thought to be heretical claims, such as being the Son of God and dying and rising from the dead three days later. For Paul, some 25 or so years later, we hear how the Church of Corinth was slowly tearing itself apart from the inside out, setting up faction against faction. Some of the other churches which Paul either visited or formed began to throw out the teachings of Christ and reverting to their previous ways, or accepting the worship of idols and the like as part of their worship. This was the Church, in all of its glory. Praise be to God that this was not a picture of the entire Christian Church, but it was a picture of what can happen when the Church moves away from Christ. But when the Church is firmly rooted in Christ, then it is life-changing.

Today in our Gospel reading, we experience an event that was life-changing. Our text begins: “After six days Jesus took with him Peter and James, and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light. And behold, there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him.”

Jesus had just begun to show His disciples that God’s plan for Him as the Christ will take Him to Jerusalem to suffer and die and rise to eternal life. Instead of taking all of the disciples with Him, Jesus chose to take with Him Peter, James, and John. Sometimes referred to as the Three because they were present with Jesus on special occasions, such as this and again in the Garden of Gethsemane, these men were present when a life-changing event took place. They saw the transfigured Jesus, that is, the Jesus who shone with glory “like the sun.” His clothes became white as light. What occurred to Jesus’ appearance and form was as drastic a change as a caterpillar becoming a butterfly or a tadpole becoming a frog. Here, in this moment, Jesus was allowing some of the splendor of His divine nature to show through.

Indeed, Jesus had told His disciples repeatedly that He was God, and He had demonstrated that fact through the performance of miracles. Yet, here He is making a very visible statement about His divinity. There, Peter, James and John stood before Christ in all of His divine glory. If the Three had any doubts before of who Jesus was, this was all the convincing they needed. But it didn’t stop there. Before their eyes stood Moses and Elijah: Moses, the man of God through whom the Law was delivered on stone tablets. And with him was Elijah, representing the prophets who foretold of the coming Savior, and who endured the worst of times among God’s people. And finally, to top it off, they were overshadowed in a cloud and heard the voice of God. Jesus’ disciples were not dreaming. They actually saw two individuals who had died centuries before this time. How Peter, James, and John were able to correctly identify these two people as Moses and Elijah we are not told. But these disciples were experiencing a little glimpse of heaven. Their lives were changing right before their eyes.

Peter, experiencing this life-changing event wanted to build shelters there on the mountain because he didn’t want the experience to end. Maybe he had the idea that eventually Israel and even the whole world could come to this mountain top and worship the Lord.  Peter did not understand that there was an even greater mountain top experience waiting in the future.

But that wasn’t the only life being changed on the mountain. The life of Jesus was being changed as well.

Within about nine months, Jesus would enter into the depths of His humiliation by being arrested, mocked, tortured, cruelly executed on a cross, and buried in a tomb. Above all this, He had told his disciples that He would triumph by rising from the dead. His transfiguration certainly authenticated that claim. His life would forever be changed at His Transfiguration as He begins to set His eyes to Jerusalem, where lives would forever be changed, including yours and mine.

As Jesus sets His eyes to Jerusalem, lives are about to change. The disciples’ lives would be forever changed when their Friend, their Leader, would be led to the cross and die. The lives of the Pharisees and Sadducees would be changed because Public Enemy #1 was no longer interfering in their lives and their teachings and so they could go back to business as usual. Your life would be forever changed because of the sacrificial act of Jesus Christ on your behalf.

The Transfiguration on this mountain points God’s creation to another mountain-top experience: Calvary. There, we see the extent of the love of God for us: the sacrifice of His one and only begotten Son, Jesus Christ. There, on the cross of Christ, your life was changed forever. At that moment, your sins became Christ’s sins and His righteousness became your righteousness. What should have damned us has been taken from us. That which is not deserved, that is, Christ’s holiness, was given to us.

Lives continue to be changed even today when we heed the words of God spoken to Peter, James, and John: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him. Why is it so important to listen to the words of Jesus? There are many other words that we could listen to that sound just as good. But we listen to the words of Jesus because of the promises which He gives to us. He gives to us great words of comfort when He says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” He gives to us the great promise following His resurrection: “And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Just as Jesus spoke to the Three, He speaks to us as well: “Rise, and have no fear.” There is no reason we should fear. We know that all of the promises made to us by God have been fulfilled in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

As we prepare for our journey to Calvary, we make ready for another mountain-top experience. On that mountain Jesus will express the inner most being of God in sweat and blood, pain and suffering, and, ultimately death and burial.  It is through that suffering and death on the cross that Jesus earned our salvation.  It is through that suffering and death on the cross that Jesus took away our sin and replaced it with His righteousness.  It is Jesus working through the cross who offers us forgiveness, life, and salvation.  It is Jesus who takes away the burden of our sin and makes it possible for us to stand in the presence of God.  It is the glory of Christ on the cross that gives the glory of eternal life to us, glory manifested at His Transfiguration and fully shown to us on the cross where He won for us the forgiveness of our sins. In Jesus name, amen. Now the peace of God which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds through faith in Christ Jesus, amen.

Seventh Sunday after Epiphany–“Christ is the Foundation” (1 Cor. 3:10-23)

A-23 Epiphany 7 (Mt 5.38-48)Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, amen. The text for the sermon this morning is the Epistle, which was read earlier.

Suppose that you’re building a house. The blueprints are done and the building is ready to begin. The next step is to find the builder. You have your own builder lineup, showcasing several builders. They each show you their best work. And now you have a decision to make: who do you select to build your house? The various builders have different skills and different abilities. Do you want Bob Vila building your house or do you want a person who has yet to build a house? You want the master builder! You want nothing less than the best to build your house.

Paul had founded the congregation at Corinth on his second missionary journey. He had laid the foundation for the congregation as an expert, a skilled master builder. Yet he does not claim special praise for his work, but gives all glory to God. For it was only by the grace God had given him that he was able to do anything at all. The factions in Corinth were forgetting about the grace of God and were boasting about the gifts and abilities of their leaders instead.

Apollos had followed Paul in Corinth and had continued to build on the foundation Paul had laid. But to others, who were using wrong building materials and false methods, Paul issued the warning, “Let each one take care how he builds upon it.”

The only way to build the church is to proclaim God’s pure and unadulterated Word, the Law in all its severity and the Gospel in all of its sweetness. Appeals to pride and an emphasis on man’s gifts and abilities do not strengthen the church, but weaken it. Paul’s warning is very much in place today. In our modern world with its emphasis on salesmanship and slick gimmickry, there is always the temptation to misplace the emphasis in our ministry. There is always the temptation to tell people what they want to hear instead of what they need to hear.

What is it that the people need to hear? We go back to what Paul said just a chapter before: “For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.” Paul gave the people what they needed to hear, not what they wanted to hear. We want to hear how we’re a good person. But we need to hear “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” We want to hear that we are born without sin and that sin is something which we can control. We need to hear “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.” We want to hear how everyone will go to heaven, but we need to hear that “the wages of sin is death.”

The emphasis that Paul has spent the last three chapters on is Jesus Christ and this doesn’t change in our text for today. He says, “For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.”

Ask yourself this question: What is the basis of your foundation? Is the basis of your foundation Jesus Christ or is the basis of your foundation something else? For many, the foundation is Jesus Christ. But unfortunately for many, their foundation is something other than Jesus Christ. Their foundation is built upon themselves; built upon something of the world; built upon something that will ultimately fail. Jesus is the only foundation on which the church can be built. He is the cornerstone on which the church centers and lines up. His work of redemption is the heart of our proclamation. As the Bible reminds us, “And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” And as Jesus tells us, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

But throughout the ages men have tried to lay other foundations. They have tried to establish other ways to the Father. But those who have placed their hope in false gods, ancient or modern, will find their foundation to be sinking sand on judgment day. Those within the visible church who have tried to add human achievements or worth to that foundation will find that they have nothing left on which to stand when they appear before the judgment seat of God.

Our Lord spoke about foundations in Matthew 7 when He spoke the parable of building your house on the rock. There he showed what happened to those who built their house on the rock and when the rains fell, the floods came and the winds blew, the house remained. He countered that with the foolish man who built his house on the sand. When the rains fell, the floods came and the winds blew, the house fell. When asking the good Lutheran question, “What does this mean?,” this parable reinforces the message which Paul writes to the Corinthians: any foundation other than Christ will ultimately spell disaster.

There are many things and many people in which we could build our foundation upon. We could spend an eternity making a list of them, but at the end of the day, or rather, the end of our earthly life, they too will fail or pass away, leaving us with nothing. But when Jesus Christ is your foundation, there is nothing to fear, nothing to worry about, for Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

The promise which God made to Joshua, “I will never leave you nor forsake you” is the same promise that is made to us. The foundation of Jesus Christ is unmovable and unshakeable. The promises of Jesus Christ will never leave a person disappointed, because how can a person be disappointed by the forgiveness of sin won for them by Jesus Christ?

The final words which Paul speaks to the Corinthians are words which we all would be wise to hear and remember: “and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.” Going back to the beginning of this letter to the Corinthians, Paul speaks against the factions which the Corinthian church has set up. By their factionalism the Corinthians were robbing themselves of God’s gifts. By attaching themselves to one leader or another they were missing out on what the other leaders had to offer. God had sent different men to Corinth for the building up of the saints there. But the various groups in the congregation were making themselves poor by claiming to be the followers of one or another instead of enjoying all of them as God’s gifts. The gifts which the various men brought to the Corinthian church was Christ, for it is Christ alone who is able to save. For the Church then, the Church today, and the Church tomorrow, the foundation must be Christ, for it is Christ alone which gives to us what we need the most – the forgiveness of our sins. In Jesus name, amen. Now the peace of God which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds through faith in Christ Jesus, amen.

Third Sunday after Epiphany – “Divisions” (1 Cor. 1:10-18)

A-19 Epiphany 3 (Mt 4.12-23)Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, amen. The text for the sermon this morning is the Epistle, which was read earlier.

Imagine this scene: you’re sitting in a room full of people. One person is talking and everyone else is listening. After the speaker is done, there is applause. There is a sense of unity of the words just spoken. One thing that is missing is dissension. Everyone is in complete agreement of what was just spoken. Can you imagine this taking place? Do you know where this took place? Actually, this is fictional. This never took happened. The place where this happened is not a real place, but it should be. The place where this should take place is the Church. Unfortunately, this is not true.

Listen to Paul’s admonition to the Church at Corinth: “I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment.” Paul spoke these words when he should not have needed to. Of all the places for there to be divisions, the Church is not one of them. Unfortunately for Paul though, almost all of the churches that Paul either visited or wrote to had divisions. Some had false teachings. Some had the teachings of Christ, but added or subtracted to them. Some had teachings that were Jesus plus something else. All this and more Paul had to deal with. It was doubtful that in a single church that Paul visited was there a church without some sort of division.

Paul’s concern to the Church at Corinth was one of love for the people. Paul had visited Corinth on several occasions, at least 3 times on his missionary journeys. This was one of his churches to which he was the pastor of. He founded the church in the midst of Corinth’s reputation: sexual immorality, religious diversity and corruption. Paul shows a concerned, loving approach to divisive errors. There was a division over who they should follow. Christian unity depends on faithfulness to Christ, not chasing one’s own agendas or ideas. Unfortunately, not all of the Church at the time of Paul focused on the teachings of Christ and what He did through His life, death, and resurrection; namely, living to die, in order to give to us forgiveness of sins. There were those, as Paul said, who followed Paul, Apollos, Cephas and Christ. The problem that the Corinthians faced was that they were following others rather than Christ and accepting teachings other than Christ’s teachings. By creating factions in the names of these men and in the name of Christ Himself they were actually undermining the work of Christ’s church.

Paul’s overarching concern was the division happening over following other’s teachings. It was something so divisive that it could split the Church at Corinth, and if left unchecked, it could split the entire Christian Church. So what choice did Paul have other than to address the issue at hand?

We all know the saying, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” That same saying applies to the Church as well. The message which Paul is giving to the Corinthians is one of unity, not of division. Under the heading of religion these people think there is room for doctrinal variety, as if the Lord allows two diverse understandings to be true at the same time! That may apply to the philosophy and human ethics of some, but not so with our Lord. He is a God of order. There is only one way that is God’s way. There is only one doctrine and that is what is found in the Word of God. We can try to make our own doctrine. We can try to make the Word of God say what we want it to say, but in the end it remains the Word of God. The Word of God doesn’t change. It has been the same Word of God for 2000 years and will continue to remain the Word of God long after us.

It’s understandable why Paul was taking such a vested interest in the goings of the Church at Corinth. Paul was the pastor of the Corinthians. They were still relatively young as far as the Church went. In their early days of formation, now they are coming apart at the seams. The people were not getting along with each other. They were dividing into competing groups, based on which apostle led them to faith and that determined who they would follow. There is unity in Christ; there was only disunity and division.

Paul could see that the future of that congregation, set within the turbulent environment of bustling Corinth, was threatened. Paul was not just offering some sound advice, but was calling upon the authority of Christ Himself to set things right. It was immaterial who baptized them; the overriding truth was that they had come into a new kingdom of love and grace, and this determined that they should live in peace and harmony with each other in the name of Jesus Christ.

When we look at the history of the Christian Church from Paul to present day, nothing has changed all that much. There are many and various Christian denominations. These are largely based on doctrinal issues, though not always. When one takes a hard look at the doctrinal issues, they all go back to the teaching of Christ and the teaching that is found in the Holy Scriptures. What is the sole source of doctrine in the Church? It is the Bible and the Bible alone. God’s Word is the pure fountain and source of God’s truth.

Whenever the Church deviates from the Bible, then that is when the Church will have trouble. The Church at Corinth began to face troubles because they began to deviate from the teaching of Christ. Paul sought to bring them back to what the Church is founded upon: Christ and the Gospel.

Why is it so important that you and all God’s people throughout time continually hear one and the same message from Jesus Christ? Only from Jesus Christ do we receive forgiveness of our sins, accomplished for us by His death on the cross and His triumphant resurrection from the dead. No other teaching can give to us what Christ has given. In the case of Corinth, the teachings of Paul, Apollos, or Cephas could prove to be devastating should those teachings be different than the teachings of Christ. The young Corinthian congregation could have been torn apart by conflicting teachings of doctrine that may or may not have been centered on Christ and His teachings. Unfortunately, that same concern is very much present today. How a church body interprets Scripture; how a church body views Christ; how a church body views teachings of man in relation to the teachings of Christ – all of this can lead to the devastating destruction of the Church of Christ.

The question for Paul and the question for all of us is this: “Is Christ divided?” Paul set out to make sure that the answer to that question was no. So it is today. We as the Church seek out to answer Paul’s question, that no, Christ is not divided; for Christ is still the head of the Church and His teaching still reigns as the only rule and norm of the Christian faith. The Church continues “to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.” Whenever Christ is not proclaimed, whenever Christ is diminished, then Christ means nothing. But when the Word is God is proclaimed and upheld, then it is the power to save.

For those who are resting securely in Christ’s forgiveness, given to us through His life, death and resurrection, given to us at our baptism, given to us through Word and Sacrament, Christ cannot be divided because it is Christ and Christ alone who saves. In the name of Jesus, amen. Now the peace of God which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds through faith in Christ Jesus, amen.