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This Week's Sermon THE TRANSFIGURATION of OUR LORD 14 February 2010 "The Real Glory of God Is the Death of Jesus Christ" Luke 9:28-36 LSB Series C Pastor Philip G. Meyer Soli Deo Gloria!

The full title of this sermon was a bit long for the space in the bulletin. The full title seems to be a strange statement: "The real glory of God is the death of Jesus Christ."

Glory in death? Perhaps the closest we get is when soldiers die a hero's death, that is, a selfless death. But even this is tinged with regret and sorrow. I remember a scene in one of my favorite movies, Patton, where General Patton laments the advance of technology and how machines will do much of the fighting. He complains that there will be no heroic deaths, no hand to hand combat with victors. He lamented that battle would be impersonalized and, therefore, no glory in death.

We have adopted many euphemisms for death rather than simply say, "He died." "She has passed away," is one of them, but it begs a further question, "Where did she go?" The same is true with "He passed on." Again, one wants to ask, "Where did he go?" I found a list of euphemisms for death in addition to these. Some are funny, but all are a way of avoiding the word and idea as much as possible.

Even Christians use euphemisms to describe death. "He had passed into glory." Or, "She has gone to be with the Lord." Even the Apostle Paul used them, "to be with the Lord," or "asleep in the Lord." Obviously, these are much more acceptable than most because they do describe a certain reality. But mostly, we avoid a head-on confrontation using the word "died" or "dead."

Yet, that is what Transfiguration does. It speaks of the death of Jesus as the reason for his earthly ministry. Luke calls it his Exodus, a euphemism to be sure, but one with a particular meaning. Exodus is a word that you already know because the second book of Moses is called Exodus and refers to the great saving act of God in the Old Testament, the rescue of Israel from slavery in Egypt and there is death connected with it, the death of the Passover Lamb. The blood of that lamb caused the angel of death to pass over those who had smeared this blood on their doorposts. Jesus' Exodus is his death for all mankind, the death which would free us from sin, death, and hell forever. Jesus is the Passover Lamb.

It seems strange to say that "The Real Glory of God Is the Death of Jesus Christ." Don't we think of God's glory as reflected in the handiwork of his Creation? Doesn't the Psalmist exclaim,

"The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork."? (Psalm 19:1, ESV)?

Indeed, the scriptures do speak that way, often, but it is only in the death of Jesus Christ, God's only begotten Son that the real glory of God is revealed. Anyone can see his glory reflected in the creation, writes Paul to the Romans:

"For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse." (Romans 1:20, ESV)

Yet, that knowledge alone is not enough. God must reveal more, and that is exactly what the Transfiguration of Our Lord does. It reveals the real heart of the Father. Here he identifies Jesus as his Son, his Chosen One. Chosen for what? For the work of redeeming the world by means of his death, his exodus. Another way of saying chosen is to used the word anointed. To anoint someone was to choose him for a specific task. The name Christ means precisely that. It means "the Anointed One," "the Messiah." Just before the Transfiguration this exchange between Jesus and the Twelve took place. Jesus asked them:

"But who do you say that I am?" And Peter answered, "The Christ of God." (Luke 9:20, ESV)

What was to take place in Jerusalem would be offensive to the disciples. They would not understand that the Christ must suffer, be crucified, and on the third day rise from the dead, yet, that is exactly what Jesus told them on three separate occasions. In spite of that, they had a hard time grasping it. Jesus was not the military conqueror that they thought he would be. The Transfiguration could be misunderstood at this time by the three. That is why Jesus told them not to tell anyone what they had seen and heard until he had risen from the dead. He must die.

The real glory of God is the death of Jesus Christ. How can there be glory in humiliation and shame? Indeed, this is the chief stumbling block of most people in the world, particularly among Muslims. A true prophet, they say, cannot fail in his mission, and Jesus is said to have failed by being crucified. A strange contradiction appears in Islam about Jesus. He is revered as a prophet, but not THE prophet whom Moses foretold because he was crucified. Or, they say, he did not really die. So on the one hand they deny his death on the cross and on the other he is considered a prophet. But as far as they are concerned the real prophet of God must succeed by all worldly standards. This includes military conquest, which helps explain why Islam is set on world conquest and domination. It has been from the very beginning. It has always had "bloody borders" as one historian put it. Islam expects to see in history, progressively and over ever-widening stretches of the earth, the establishment of a divine society as Islam understands it. Without domination, all seems failure. Bishop Stephen Neill said this back in 1961:

"We have not been promised any kind of success-story. The Church will be to the end of time a persecuted Church' the purpose of God will be fulfilled slowly and obscurely, through many disasters and defeats. Accepting weakness and frustration as part of its earthly destiny, the Church does not expect to see the glory until the final manifestation of the Son of man. Very different is the outlook of the Muslim. He has been brought up on a success story." [Christian Faith and Other Faiths, Oxford University Press. 1961. p. 41].

W. Cantwell Smith, wrote in Islam in Modern History [p. 112]:

"The new challenge of the Arab world is in the fear of the recognition that the dream may be invalid . . . the fear that Islam itself even in its ideal form, even if implemented, would-the very idea is blasphemous-be too weak in the world of today." [quoted in Neill, p. 44].

Death equals weakness in the eyes of the world, but that is what the Christ is all about. He came to die as the sacrifice for sinners. To say that sinners need someone to rescue them is blasphemous to the sinner's corrupted thinking. He can save himself, he thinks. He can offer up something to God on his behalf however feeble it may be. Surely his efforts must count for something. That God must send his only begotten Son to die in the place of sinners offends his pride. Even many Christians think that the good they do must count for something before God. They believe that they are not totally bankrupt spiritually speaking, but always have some change in their pockets.

The Christian religion is not primarily a religion of ideas but a religion of historic facts. Jesus died in Jerusalem and the world has never been the same since. Look at the Second Article of the Creeds. It is all about the Son of God in history, becoming man, suffering, dying by crucifixion under Pontius Pilate [this fastens it securely to history!], rising, ascending to heaven, and sitting at the right hand of the Father.

The real glory of God is not in him destroying sinners. Certain Christian denominations say that explicitly [Calvinism]. They say that God is glorified when he destroys sinners. But that is no different from Islam or any other pagan religion. Even James and John thought that way when they asked Jesus if they could pray that a Samaritan village could be destroyed by fire because it had not welcomed Jesus [Luke 9.51-54]. Shouts of "God is great" as people are killed is not the glory of God. God is glorified in showing mercy to sinners in the death of Jesus Christ.

The real glory of God is the death of Jesus Christ. Here is God's real glory because it is a glory of love. That God can love sinners is beyond our comprehension. That the Christ accomplished it by allowing sinners to kill him goes against all of man's corrupted thinking because man believes that it is not necessary for the Christ to die for him.

The way of the cross of Christ becomes the pattern for the Christian life. The Christian life is cruciform. We are marked with the holy cross at Holy Baptism and we live under it our whole lives. Christians seldom live any kind of glorious life. Rather, we find that troubles increase and the world tends to hate us more and more. We discover that life, far from getting easier because we belong to Christ, gets more difficult the longer we live. We face our own suffering and death. It is not onward and upward but backward and downward. We have afflictions and persecutions because we belong to Christ.

Yet, here stands the Transfiguration of Our Lord to encourage us and cheer us. There on the mountain Jesus stands transfigured with the glory he had before the creation of the world. That glory he resumed at his Ascension. That glory has had promised to share with us when we have completed our earthly days. In his great high priestly prayer on the night on his betrayal, Jesus prayed: "Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world." (John 17:24, ESV)

Sin keeps us from seeing the unrestrained glory of God, but in Christ Jesus we do see it. God's glory lies in redeeming sinners, not condemning them. It is the glory of a love which went to this extreme that the sinless One became THE sinner who bore in his own body the sin of the whole world. Christ absorbed in himself what you and I deserve. He did it because he loves his Father and the Father loves us in Christ. The riches of God's glory lie in his mercy and compassion. It is not weakness but a strength that our world cannot comprehend.

You do see that! You do understand it because you are the object of God's love in Christ! You see God's glory in the cross of Christ! That is why you are here. You are here to celebrate that which Christ has already completed for you by his suffering and death, and you are here to receive the gracious gifts of his body and blood as you live your life under the cross, awaiting the day when the Son of Man will come in his glory with all his holy angels and share the majesty of his glorious presence with you forever. In that day sin is no more, crying, pain, and mourning are no more. There is only the glorious love of God in Christ, the splendor of his holiness.

And now we embark on the Lenten season when we again come down from the splendor of the mountain to the life under the cross. Lent calls us to repentance for our sins because Jesus is going to the cross for us. He is going to die there in place of us. He is going to pay for our sins. We cannot ignore our sins because of this. Our lives follow the pattern of Jesus. Death before resurrection. Humiliation before glory. We must repent.

But the glory is sure! Jesus ascended in glory and sits at the right hand of the Father. He has promised to come again in glory with all his holy angels to take us to his heavenly kingdom where he will share his glory with us in an unending eternity of joy.

The real glory of God lies in this death of Jesus because his death makes us eternal partakers of his heavenly glory.

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.