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Father, help us to see in your word the truths that you would have us to understand and to believe. Lord, reprove our hearts of our sin. Teach us to love and to serve you all the days of our life. We ask this in Christ's name. Amen. Sir Charles lay on his face, his arms out, his fingers dug into the ground, and his features convulsed in some strong emotion to such an extent that I could hardly have sworn to his identity. And the Hound of the Baskervilles, Dr. Mortimer, the friend and patient, the friend and doctor of uh Sir Charles Baskerville, is one of the first people called on the scene to see his body contorted with extreme fear, so much so that his face is unrecognizable to his friends. A heart attack has killed him, but we can easily say that the real reason that Sir Charles Baskerville died is that he was so incredibly afraid of the ghosts of his past that he couldn't face the snarling uh spectral dog in that story. And his disfigured, his face, his face was so disfigured by fear that he experienced in those last moments that, like I said, his friend and doctor couldn't tell who he was. Fear has this capacity to disfigure us, to make us sort of different people, and to control us in such a way that people have to tell us, don't be afraid. It's one of those common refrains of the scriptures, don't be afraid, don't be afraid. And yet, do you know one of the first times, maybe the very first time, that fear shows up in the Bible, do you know when that was? Adam and Eve in the garden, after breaking the law of God, they see and realize that they're naked, and shame comes on them, and they are afraid. And when they hear the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, they hide themselves and sow fig leaves together to cover up their nakedness. And so after breaking God's law, fear enters the world in a profound and life-altering way. And so from the fall in the garden in Genesis chapter 3, moving forward, fear and sin go hand in hand. Virtually no one has direct contact with God in all of the scriptures and not have to be told, do not fear. Because implied in the presence of God for a sinful human being is this abundant awareness that we are not worthy to draw close to God, and that if he comes close to us, it will undo us, it will destroy us. When the Israelites come out of the land of Egypt and are marching towards Sinai, they are led by the glory of God by night in this pillar of fire, and during the day by a pillar of clouds, so that the sun is kept off of them. They can travel day and night in a time with no electricity, because God is leading them by his presence, by his glory. But when they get to Mount Sinai, the people are absolutely terrified. Because as God bends his glory and his presence down to the top of that mountain, the mountain smokes. A mountain that wasn't a volcano, but looked every bit like one. And the thunder of God would sound out, and the ground was shaking, and the people were terrified. So that when we get to Exodus chapter 24, I think it's pretty curious that Moses tells the elders of the people, don't come up to the mountain. If you read all of Genesis, or Exodus chapter 24, and you read the first couple of chapters in Genesis, excuse me, I keep saying Genesis, Exodus 18 and 19 leading up to the Ten Commandments in Genesis, or man, that's really Exodus. Exodus 20.

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Jet lag.

SPEAKER_00 4:09

Jet lag, yes, indeed. So in the run-up to Moses going up to receive the Ten Commandments in Exodus chapter 20, uh, the people of God are so terrified of that mountain, they don't need to be told not to go up. Fear dominates their experience. And when Moses does go up the mountain and receives the commandments and he comes back down, the people are so afraid of God that they abandon the worship of the only true God and immediately craft idols for themselves, and God's judgment falls on them. Israelites are afraid to go to Mount Sinai. They're afraid of the presence of God, they're afraid of the judgment of God. And on Mount Carmel, when Elijah goes up, this is in 1 Kings, I'm probably not going to say Genesis with that one, but in 1 Kings, Elijah is doing battle with the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel. And the prophets of Baal are cutting their bodies and screaming and crying and wailing and trying to invoke Baal to come down and set that altar on fire that they have got set up there, and nothing happens. But on that waterlogged altar of wood and cut up bull pieces, the fear of God falls on the prophets of Baal because fire rains down from the presence of God and consumes all of those offerings. The glory of God comes and the presence of God is there, and the people are terrified. And then in our gospel reading, fear falls on Peter, James, and John when they behold the transfigured Jesus. At first, Peter is confused and doesn't know what to do, and so he opens his mouth and he suggests something, and I thought Father Josh chuckling there at that part in the gospel reading was pretty appropriate because you just shake your head. What was he thinking? But one of the overriding pictures of the glory of God as it comes close to mankind is this sort of laugh or cry mentality. He has nothing else to say, and his bones are shaking in the fear of the presence and the glory of God, and he makes a suggestion of building some tabernacles so that they can stay up there for a little longer. On the Mount of Transfiguration, Jesus' glory is revealed. Moses and Elijah come to prepare Jesus for his death. And then the Father speaks from the cloud, and the disciples experience the weight of the presence of God, and they lay as dead until Jesus comes and touches them. And rather than death-like fear, Jesus tells them to have no fear and to rise. And when they rise, the only person that they see is Jesus, their redemption. I think the transfiguration is a physical manifestation of three aspects of Jesus' identity. That he is the fulfillment of God's law, that he is the fulfillment of all the prophecies of the Old Testament, looking forward to a Messiah, to another Moses, another David who would come and bring reconciliation between God and man and who would restore the presence of God like they were in the Garden of Eden. So Jesus is the fulfillment of God's law, he is the Messiah, he is God's promised one, and he is the incarnate, eternal Son of God, all coming together in one person. And in the meeting of these three identities, Jesus brought hope to the disciples. And it's interesting that we call this Sunday Transfiguration Sunday. We commemorate the transfiguration in which Jesus' body is transformed. And yet I think in Jesus Christ, we are the ones who receive a transfiguration. Our fears are turned into an eternal hope in Jesus Christ, who is our Lord. In Genesis, or excuse me, in Matthew chapter, I'm doing that all the time. Genesis is in one of our readings this morning. It's just amazing. In Matthew chapter 17, in our gospel reading, Jesus and the disciples are said, six days after a previous event, they go up to this mountain. Well, six days prior, Jesus and his disciples are walking through Caesarea Philippi, and they're looking at all of this architecture that's being built up there, and Jesus asks the disciples, who do men say that I am? And they say, Well, you're some people say you're uh you know John uh raised from the dead, you're Elijah, uh there are people thinking you're a prophet. And Jesus turns and he looks at the disciples and he says, Who do you say that I am? Not who does the world say that I am, but who do you say that I am? You're my disciples, you should know. And Peter uh confesses that Jesus is the Lord, the Son of the living God. And his confession, uh, he's the Christ, the Son of the Living God. That confession is blessed by the Lord Jesus, and he says that flesh and blood hasn't revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. God has revealed this to Peter, and Jesus explains what his his sonship and uh being the son of the Father, what that's going to mean for them, what he's his messiahship, his Christhood, whatever that's going to mean for them, is that he is going to be betrayed, he is going to be turned over to the Romans, and he is going to be killed and ultimately resurrected. And Peter doesn't like that. If you read the end of Matthew chapter 16, Peter pulls Jesus aside and he says, That's not going to happen to you, Jesus. You're surely not going to go die. And he gets that get behind me Satan moment with the correction that Jesus offers him there. And so six days after the first time that the disciples hear about Jesus' death, six days after this high moment of this confession about who Jesus is, they go up this mountain. And Jesus is transfigured before them. And transfigured here, I think we could probably get a little bit, you know, claustrophobic with all the different ways we could try to figure out what this could mean. But at the very least, it means that Jesus' body is transformed in front of them in such a way that the glory of God, that his by nature, is revealed to them in just a few moments. His face is shining like the sun, and his clothes are shining and is so bright and so bright and white that no one could have bleached them as white as they were. Jesus' glory is shining in front of them, and Moses and Elijah show up on top of this mountain. Now, who are Moses and Elijah? Moses, of course, represents the law. That's what we read about in Exodus. Moses goes up that mountain to receive the tablets, the law and the commandments of God. And the law that we the law that we've heard about over and over again in recent weeks especially is a law that condemns. The law of God comes to us and it doesn't offer us, you know what, if you just do these things, you're going to be safe. If you'll obey all of these commandments perfectly, then you're going to find nothing but blessing. And you could be confused about the meaning of the law, because if you read in the Sermon on the Mount and you hear all the blesseds, blesseds, blesseds, you could probably think to yourself, you know what, I'll just really work really hard at being poor in spirit. I'll work really, really hard at making sure I keep every jot and tittle of the law so that God will be pleased with me. But if you've ever tried, even for a moment, to pull that off, you know how far short you fall. But the Israelites had it viscerally right in front of them of how far short they were going to fall, because the glory of God was literally stooping down on that mountain, and they were terrified of God's presence. And Moses was going up on that terrifying mountain to receive the law that would come down to them and govern their, cover their country, govern their people as they wandered through the wilderness for 40 years. And yet the law was not coming to give them life, but to coming to reveal to them and show them the depth of their corruption and sin. And Elijah is there on this mountain with Jesus as he's shining, transfigured before the disciples. Moses comes as this representative of the law, the receiver of the law, and Elijah comes as this herald of all of God's promises. Elijah is on this mountain as a representative of all the prophets in the Old Testament. And all the prophets in the Old Testament have this twofold purpose. Call the people to repentance, because the law is condemning them. And then to call the people to look forward to a day when God's own anointed one will come and bring peace between God and man. There will be a suffering servant, Elijah, or excuse me, in Isaiah, the suffering servant is depicted over and over again as this one who goes in the gap between God and man and lays down his life for sinners. And Elijah is there, one of the few people in the Bible who doesn't die, who gets translated from this life on into the next. Elijah is there as this prophet who foresaw the redemption from the curse of the law. And the disciples are present. And their presence there with Jesus is a confused one. We've already sort of joked about Peter compelled to speak. He's got kind of no real idea of what he ought to say. And if you go into Mark's gospel and Luke's gospel, the other retellings of the story of the transfiguration, Peter it says very explicitly, Peter didn't know what to say. But he was moved by such a strong emotion. Even though he was so thoroughly perplexed, he was moved by such strong emotion that he suggests that they build tents there, tabernacles for them to dwell on that mountain and honor. And yet the status quo doesn't stay the same for very long. Moses and Elijah are there encouraging Jesus as he's on his road to Jerusalem and to the cross, and then a cloud overshadows them. And a cloud overshadows them, but it's a reverse cloud. This is an interesting, a bright cloud overshadows them, so much that they are like St. Paul on the road to Damascus, blinded by what they see. And the glory of God is overshadowing Peter and James and John and Jesus and Moses and Elijah on the top of this mountain, and a voice speaks from that cloud, declaring the identity of Jesus Christ. This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Listen to him. And six days after the triumph of his confession, Peter is face down in the dirt. What do we do with all of our successes in life? What are your successes? Where do you count them? How do you count them? How do you count all the good that you've done in your life? Where do you stack up all of your all of the best efforts and the best things that your body or your soul or your life has produced? I think that's the question that St. Paul is wondering about, or trying to get the Philippians to think about in Philippians chapter 3. In the verses preceding the ones that we read, Saint Paul is talking about his heritage. He was this great Pharisee, he had extended, or he had not, he had gone beyond everyone else's success of his own age group in terms of study and personal holiness and devotion. He was a persecutor of the church, he was a Pharisee of Pharisees, circumcised on the eighth day, all of those things. He had every mark of success in life. And yet, when you read our passage in Philippians chapter 3, St. Paul says he counts it as rubbish. And other translations give colorful explanation of what he means by that rubbish. He counts all of the good of his life as useless. He gives up his identity, he gives up who he is to draw close to Jesus Christ, to be found in Christ. The best that we can accomplish, either in our flesh or by our works, is worth nothing when we compare that to Jesus Christ. The transfiguration shows us in just a glimpse how truly amazing, how truly glorious, how powerful our Lord Jesus Christ is. And that face that shines like the sun and his clothes that are shining whiter than anyone could ever bleach anything, in the face of Jesus, a new light dawns on us. The law and the prophets are fulfilled. And they are transfigured into a gospel for us, into good news for us. Because in the death, resurrection, ascension, and session of Jesus Christ, we are redeemed. Jesus, at the end of the passage in Matthew chapter 17, comes close to the disciples who are on their faces like they're dead in the dirt. And he touches them. And he says, Rise and have no fear. Jesus comes close. He speaks life. And resurrection, a new life comes. Fear. The fear of, are we going to be worthy? Are we going to live up? Are we going to be good enough? I think that's a common fear that everyone in this room has felt at one point in their life. Am I going to do the things that I need to do in order for God to be happy with me? For me to be accepted by Almighty God. That fear is relieved in only one place in the face of Jesus Christ. When they lifted up their eyes, they saw no one but Jesus only. Peter and James and John had an opportunity to see something that no one else saw prior to the resurrection. The unveiled glory of Jesus Christ. And they got a glimpse of it on that mountain, and they were terrified. They were perplexed. They wanted to build tents. They wanted to do whatever they could do to make any of that make sense. And then they find themselves in the dust until Jesus comes and gives them life. And the life that they see from their newly resurrected eyes are life that only has eyes for Jesus Christ. And when St. Paul says of his life that it's all rubbish prior to knowing Jesus Christ and all of the things that he could have hoped for in life is all rubbish compared to possessing Jesus Christ. He says that I don't pretend to have already possessed all of this. But I want to attain to the resurrection. I want to attain to the life of Jesus Christ so much that I'm going to forget everything that lies behind. And I'm going to go to Jesus. Jesus is our only hope. And on this Transfiguration Sunday, our eyes only have one place to go, and that's our Lord Jesus Christ. I don't know how often you think about the weekly observance of the Lord's Supper here. We say the same words. I don't know if you've noticed, but we say the same words every week. It kind of gets maybe mundane for some of us. We think, ah, you know what? This is the same thing we've heard day, week in and week out. Maybe it's getting a little boring, maybe it gets a little trite. Well, we mix it up a little bit. But when you think about what occurs when we draw close to the Lord in this way, when we come forward to receive the promises of God's presence, of his forgiveness, of his love and mercy towards us, as we as we think about the significance of Christ's presence with us, and as we feed on him in our hearts by faith with thanksgiving, we take into ourselves our Lord and our Savior Jesus Christ week by week. When you think about that, it's it's it is sort of a miracle that happens before us. And you don't get tired of seeing miracles, I think. And I encourage you today as we draw to this, as we draw close to Christ through bread and wine, as we draw close to Christ through our observance of the Lord's Supper this morning, I I encourage you to sort of think about the depth of his love for us, to think about how he's on that mountain, having declared to the disciples that he is about to go die, that he's up on that mountain, revealed as the Lord of glory himself, and he walks down from that mountain and straight to the cross so that he can save us. I encourage you this morning to carry all of the burdens of life to Jesus Christ so that as you receive today, you'll have eyes that only see Jesus. Let's pray. Almighty God, you could have wiped us clean out of the world. But in your rich and abundant mercy, you sent your beloved Son to break the curse of the law and the power of sin by his death and resurrection. Help us to rest in the peace brought by our Savior Jesus Christ, and that by your Holy Spirit might enable us to run the race of this life without fear. Through Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with you in the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.