Today’s sermon is entitled, “What is Jesus Doing Here?” But this question could be asking any number of things based on where we put the emphasis. For example, “What is Jesus doing here?” is asking for different information than the question, “What is Jesus doing here?” Furthermore, the word “here” is undefined in this question. We could be asking, “What is Jesus doing here on this mountain, as opposed to another mountain?” or instead “What is Jesus doing here on this earth at all?” Questions like these are raised not only because we are in the dark about their answers, but also because we have our own ideas about where Jesus should be and what He should be doing. Such ideas lead either to the babbling non-sense kind of statements that Peter makes or to the loss of words and silence with which the disciples left this mountain. But the Holy Spirit and St. Luke do not want us to leave this event in a fog. As Luke wrote at the beginning of his Gospel account, the things he records are written down for us, in order that we may have certainty concerning the things we have been taught about Jesus. The words of Scripture are written for our learning, so that we might know the truth about our Savior. But we must “listen to Him” in order to understand.
Listening to Jesus means putting aside our own ideas about Him, closing our mouths, and letting Him speak. Once He speaks, then we can talk about Him and confess back to Him what He has said to us. That’s faith talking. Faith is given what to say, as it listens to Jesus. This does not mean that everything Jesus says is understandable. Some of the things He says goes against what we consider to be rational or even possible. But listeners of Jesus don’t allow their own words to get in the way of Jesus’ words. He speaks; we listen, and we confess His words to be true, regardless of whether we understand them or not.
God the Father tells us to listen to His Son, Jesus. And so, turning to the text for today on the transfiguration of our Lord, in order that we might not be in the dark about who Jesus is and what He was doing there, we must be sure to listen to the words He speaks to us here. And that includes not only the words He’s quoted as saying, but also the words written here about Him. St. Luke’s words, breathed out by the Holy Spirit, are the words of Jesus. Luke was a listener of Jesus. Though he had not heard Jesus speak directly, he heard the Lord’s words delivered to him from the Apostle Paul (among others), including these three eye-witnesses (Peter, James, and John) who were with Jesus on this mountain. According to Luke, the words he writes he has investigated carefully from the beginning; therefore, they are faithful and true; we can believe them. So as we read and hear them, we also become listeners of Jesus, and we come to a knowledge of the truth. The more we listen to Jesus, the more we’ll understand His words, the more we’ll know what Jesus was doing there on the Mt. of Transfiguration, and by extension what He was doing here on earth, as well as what He would be doing on Mt. Calvary later on. So, let’s listen to Him.
By introducing this account with the words, “Now about eight days after these sayings...” Luke not only turns our attention back to what Jesus had said earlier, but also forward to something that He would do in the future. The sayings he refers to are Jesus’ words to His disciples that He would be going to the cross. He would suffer many things, be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, be killed, and on the third day be raised. The number eight in the Scriptures is a number used as a symbol for the new creation. Israelite boys were circumcised on the eighth day after their birth, which was a sign of the testament God had made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Eight people were saved in Noah’s ark, a symbol of the Church today. And so our baptismal fonts have eight sides. The eighth day was also the first day of the week, Sunday, the day that Jesus rose from the dead. With these opening words, then, Luke brackets the Lord’s transfiguration with His crucifixion and His resurrection, in order that we might understand that the One whose glory was revealed on this mountain would soon go to another mountain to be nailed to a cross, die, and be buried, only to show this glory again after His resurrection from the dead on the third day, the eighth day of the week, the first day of a new creation.
By way of His transfiguration, Jesus gives us a peak at His divine glory, revealed in His flesh, so that we might know who this is who would go to the cross for us, in order that we who believe and are baptized might be partakers of His glory. This glory is hidden now behind the suffering and cross-bearing we ourselves must bear in this life. But just as these disciples saw the Lord’s glory with their eyes on this occasion, we too who are His disciples today will see His glory with our own eyes, when we receive our glorified bodies and are taken to live with Him in His kingdom of glory forever.
That Moses and Elijah were both there with Jesus teaches us that they, as representatives of both the Law and the Prophets, spoke of Him and pointed to Him as the Savior of the world. Jesus Himself says that the Scriptures speak of Him. We will misunderstand the words of Moses and the prophets, if we don’t see them pointing us to Jesus. Without Jesus, the key to understanding the Word of God, the Bible remains a closed book. In addition to writing about Jesus, these two men both wanted to see God’s glory. God had told them, however, that no man could look upon Him and live. So God hid Moses in a cleft of rock on Mt. Sinai and covered him with His hand until He passed by. And when God’s glory passed by Elijah years later, as he stood on that same mountain, Elijah covered his face with his cloak. But now here on the Mt. of Transfiguration these two men are given the privilege to look upon God face to face in His glory, as they see and talk with God in the flesh.
What they were talking to Him about was His “exodus.” Our translation reads “departure.” But the word “exodus” reminds us of the exodus of the Jews from their slavery in Egypt. Through Moses God had delivered His people, saving them through the waters of the Red Sea, while drowning the Egyptians when they attempted to cross it. But the exodus not only meant leaving a place of bondage, but also entering into the land of promise, a land flowing with milk and honey. By talking about His departure at Jerusalem as an exodus, Jesus is telling us what He was about to do for us there. He would be the new Moses, delivering us from our bondage to sin, death, and the power of the devil, by conquering these foes for us through His own death, resurrection, and ascension. Just as the people of Israel followed Moses through the desert, so our Savior leads us now through the desert of this present evil age, feeding us on the true manna of His Word and His body and blood, until He brings us into the promised land of heaven and the life of the world to come. Jesus’ exodus is our exodus. Where He goes, we go. And though the cross must come first, the glory will follow.
The Father’s words, spoken from the cloud, inform us further about who this Jesus is and what He’s doing here. They draw us back to the words He spoke at Christ’s Baptism. With His words He confirms that Jesus is His Son, His chosen one. By calling Jesus His Son, the Father reminds us of another son, Abraham’s son Isaac, who was to be offered up as a sacrifice to God. But just as Abraham was about to kill his son, God intervened and provided a substitute, a ram, instead. But God’s Son would not be spared. He would be the substitute sacrificed in our place, so that we might be spared. That He is called God’s chosen one informs us that this is the One whom God chose from the beginning to be the world’s only Savior. He is the One of whom David writes in Ps. 2, “Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD and against His anointed one...” Jesus was anointed by the Spirit at His Baptism to be the Suffering Servant of the Lord, of whom God spoke through Isaiah, saying, “Behold my Servant, whom I uphold, my Chosen One, in whom my soul delights; I have put my Spirit upon Him; He will bring forth justice to the nations.”
And so the Father tells us to listen to Him. The author of the book of Hebrews echoes this when he writes, “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days, He has spoken to us by His Son, whom He appointed the heir of all things, through whom also He created the world.” Moses and Elijah have nothing more to say. Their words point to Jesus and have been fulfilled by Him. He was on the Mt. of Transfiguration showing Himself to be the One of whom they spoke, the only-begotten Son of God the Father, chosen to bear the sin of the world on another mountain, Mt. Calvary, so that we might be spared God’s wrath and instead participate in His glory ourselves. By way of His exodus through death, resurrection, and ascension, Jesus leads us through the same, that we might be delivered from this present evil age and enter into the joys of heaven, where we too will behold God face to face in His glory.
Jesus has the words of eternal life. And with His words He forgives our sins and speaks us righteous. And so, we are given this sneak peak of His glory now through this account of His transfiguration recorded for us by St. Luke, so that as we travel with our Lord through the season of Lent, going from this mountain to Mt. Calvary, we might know who Jesus is, what He is doing here, and why He came, as we listen to His words which give us life. Amen.