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This Week's Sermon THE TRANSFIGURATION OF OUR LORD 29 January 2012 "Not A Cleverly Devised Myth" Matthew 17:1-9; 2 Peter 1:16 Pastor Jacob R. Sutton Soli Deo Gloria!

The apostle Peter writes, "For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty…" (2 Peter 1:16, ESV)

We are not feeding you a line. We are not making up some fanciful story to impress you into believing us. This is no myth, no fairy tale, no fable. We saw the majesty, and heard the voice of the Majestic Glory of God up on that mountain, Peter says. They trembled and bowed down in fear as if asleep or dead (Luke's Gospel says) - because they were allowed to glimpse the heavenly Glory, unveiled, light inexpressible filling their eyes. All in real time, in a real place.

Compare that to the fables and fantasies that pass for other false religions. Mohammed claims he received the golden tablets for the Koran from an angel on a mountain in the desert. Joseph Smith supposedly saw the vision of the Father and the Son in the woods of upper New York state, and then the so-called angel Moroni comes and tells him where to dig for the golden tablets that he would "translate" into the Book of Mormon - when the real story is that Smith plagiarized his fantasy story about the lost tribes of Israel being North American Indians from a science fiction book written around the same time.

Cleverly devised myths are what these men and other false teachers over the years came up with - in order to deceive millions into the clutches of Satan and doom them to an eternal death. Cleverly devised myths kill.

Like these well-worn but timeless clever ones:

* If you eat of the fruit of the tree, Eve, you shall not surely die.
* If you let your anger have its way, Cain, it will make you feel good to take it out on your brother Abel.
* If you men build a tower high enough at Babel, put in enough work, you can get yourself to heaven and reach God by your own efforts.
* If you let your lustful eye wander, and use your power to satisfy your lustful desires, King David, if you steal Bathsheba from her husband and seduce her and kill her husband to get what you want, you will be happy and your life will be better.
* If you just ignore the Ten Commandments, you who call yourself a Christian, and just do as you please, and satisfy your every desire and whim, you'll lead a happier and more fulfilling life.
* If you just pick and choose what you like from Holy Scripture, and ignore what you don't like, God will not mind - He'll just be happy if you try and "do the right thing" most of the time, if you just try hard to "be a good person."

Cleverly devised myths kill. Here's another one - "Tis good Lord, to be here. If you wish, I will make three shrines here, one for you, one form Moses, and one for Elijah." This is as good as it must get Peter reasons. This is holy ground. Here we are, we have seen what no eye can see, and it is good.

And he was right - it was good. It was a glimpse into heaven itself. There is the God-Man in His full, unveiled glory, the fire of God's love incarnate in human flesh, yet it does not destroy that flesh, just as His fire did not destroy the bush when He appeared to Moses those many years before.

It was a glimpse of the worship of the saints around the throne of the eternal Son. Moses, who received the Law, and Elijah, the greatest preacher of the Law and repentance - there they are with Jesus in His glory. This was a high as things can get - the top of Jacob's ladder, beyond Mount Sinai, what the men at the Tower of Babel only tried for but could never reach.

It was good to see this wonderful event. To be an eyewitness to Jesus' majesty and unveiled glory, to see what is in store in the heavenly places.

But to stop right there, to remain up on that mountain, to enshrine everything right there in place was a cleverly devised myth that came up out of Peter's mouth, no matter how well-intentioned he may have been. He did not truly know what he was saying. He was asking Jesus to stop His mission right there, which would have been to stop short of the goal, to stop short of where the Father intended His only-begotten Son to go: it was necessary for Jesus to go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.

Just one week earlier, the same Peter had reacted to that news from Jesus with this cleverly devised myth: "Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you!" (Mt 16:21-23) The sinful mind, tempted by Satan, is so easily set on the things of man, and not on the things of God. Now, six days after Jesus informed them of the necessity of His suffering and death, Peter basks in the glory of the mountaintop and says, let's stay up here on the mountain, tis good Lord to be here.

But it was not good to stay there. It would have made Jesus into the same old human story of failure - someone who goes for the glory now, and who fails to care about the greater good and the consequences of their actions. Jesus would have become just another false religion, just another cleverly devised myth. Those kill.

But Jesus is God's beloved Son, with whom the Father is well pleased. Listen to Him! Look up from the ground, all fear be gone, rise and see Jesus alone. Jesus, who must go down that mountain, and continue the work of bearing the sins of the world. Jesus, who must go down that mountain, and set aside His glory for our sake, the one who knows no sin becoming sin for us. Jesus, who must go down that mountain, and go to Jerusalem as sin bearer, and suffer many things, and be killed for that sin, for your sin, for Peter's sin, for the sins of the whole world.

When the chastisement that belonged to all of us was laid upon Him, it would be so gruesome that we would not recognize our Lord's body as even being human; men would hide their faces from it, the prophet Isaiah would foresee. Yet, that would be God's true and greatest glory, where His glory and righteousness would be most evident: not on the mountaintop, but on the cross, high and lifted up in bloody agony, drawing all men unto Himself.

That is no cleverly devised myth. That is the prophetic and apostolic Word of God, delivered to you by men speaking and writing from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. We have something more sure than the eyewitness account of the Mount of Transfiguration. We have God's own Word to us, written down for our learning, read to us, preached to us, taught, memorized, sung, planted deeply into our hearts and minds so that God might bring forth His harvest:

God's own eternal Son came down from heaven, veiled Himself in our human flesh, lived a perfect life in our place, suffered the punishment for sin we deserved, was nailed upon the cross and His innocent life was destroyed in order to destroy forever the wages of our sin. And on the third day, He rose from the dead, the grave could not hold Him, and He emerged glorified from the tomb, in perfect, resurrected flesh, holy, eternal, glorified flesh.

How do we know it is all true? How do we know that our Christian faith is not a "cleverly devised myth"? How do we know that the Bible is God's Word to us, a Word that is "something more sure" than even someone eye witnessing a glimpse of heaven up on a mountain? How do we know that Word of God is the lamp shining in our dark place to comfort and guide us? How do we know that the new day of resurrection will dawn, and the bright and Morning Star will rise upon our hearts and raise us up out of our grave on the last day to live forever?

How do we know this when our everyday experiences are full of the pain, misery, grief, and heartaches of this corrupted world all around us, when we are daily and sorely tempted by sin and the power of the devil? How do we know?

In real time, at a real place, making real history, Jesus came down off that mountain, went to the cross for you, and died to pay for your sins. He has risen, just as He said. He is not in the grave. How do we know it is all true, all of these promises of God, the declaration that you are not guilty of sin on account of this God-Man, the Lord Jesus Christ? Because He is not in the grave. He is alive, ascended into heaven, just as the prophets foretold and hoped for, just as the evangelists reported, just as the apostles preached and taught. He is not in the tomb. Go to Jerusalem yourself and look. There are no dead bones.

Mohammed is dead. His bones lie somewhere. Joseph Smith is dead. His bones lie somewhere. Every Buddha, every Dahli Lama, every false god and every false teacher from time immemorial lies dead and you can find their bones if you try hard enough. And that is a sign of what awaits Satan, the father of all their lies - at the last, he will finally be destroyed forever.

But Jesus is different. God's beloved Son who has died and risen and now lives and reigns to all eternity, who has raised our flesh into the heavenly places - has done this not for His own sake, nor has He done this so that He might be enshrined up in heaven or even on some mountaintop, so that we might have to just hope to make our own way up to Him.

No, He came down and went to the cross and tomb, all of this out of love for you. That He would heal up and take away your brokenness, your sin, your shame, your pain, your misery, your grief, your heartaches, and instead give to you His glory, His majesty, His holiness, His righteousness, His innocence, His life.

He does that wonderful work of this great exchange by His Holy Spirit, in His body, the Church, through that more sure prophetic and apostolic Word, that living Word that is Christ who comes down from the heavenly glory, the heavenly places, and comes down into your world, into the peaks and valleys of your life, and gives you the same glorified, crucified, resurrected, holy Body and Blood, speaking to you with the same life-giving voice that spoke from the Majestic Glory cloud:

You are His beloved sons and daughters, baptized into His death and resurrection, thanks to His holy, precious blood and His innocent suffering and death, the Heavenly Father is well pleased with you. That is forever how God sees and speaks of you, the believing, baptized one in Jesus Christ.

There is no greater thing that you can hear. God is well pleased with you. Listen to Him. He does not speak to you any cleverly devised myth, no fable, no fairy tale. But certainly, you will see the most happiest of endings to your story:

You will follow Him out of the grave and into the heavenly places, where you will dwell in the lovely dwelling place of the LORD of hosts, blessed to ever sing His praises and see Him forever in His unveiled glory, that glory which was only briefly glimpsed by Peter, James, and John up on that holy mountain so many years ago.

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