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Sisters in Christ, using the gospel reading for the text today, please be seated.
As a wedding gift, a young couple received a set of rather hideous looking drinking glasses. The couple thought they were junk, but they kept them for everyday use as they didn’t mind that the glasses would get chipped, cracked, broken, or even thrown away. And they’d pull them out and show them to their guests and joke about just how hideous they were. Until one guest seemed to think that these were possibly very rare glasses. And sure enough, upon further investigation, if the glasses hadn’t been chipped or cracked or broken or thrown away, a complete set was worth over $5,000. The moral of the story, the point, when you discover something is actually more valuable than it looks, then it looks different to you. The idiom we use is, it’s like seeing it in a different light.
And that’s what happened in our gospel reading today. The three disciples, Peter, James, and John, they witnessed what we call the transfiguration of Jesus. Transfiguration means a noticeable change in form or appearance. These three guys saw Jesus differently than they ever had. They saw Him in a different light. And boy, what a light! A light like walking out of a movie theater kind of light, you know? It’s like, whoa, is this bright? Peter, John, and James probably came back from this event with a tan! They saw Jesus in a glorified state reflecting God’s glory. We don’t know what it looked like exactly other than it was glorious and really, really bright.
Peter enjoyed this event so much he says to Jesus, “It’s good to be here! Let’s make three tents, one for you, one for Elijah, one for Moses. Let’s never leave here!” But that wasn’t to be. They did eventually leave that mountain, and mostly because it’s not the place where Jesus was going to be the most glorious. They saw Jesus in a glorious way here, but there was going to yet be another different light to see Jesus in. There was another transfiguration to come, really. Not on this hill in the Gospel reading, but at another one called Calvary, where Jesus was crucified.
Now, we know for sure that John saw that transfiguration at Calvary, and it’s reasonable to believe that James and Peter may have too, but what they saw was Jesus in a not-so-glorious light because He was arrested, beaten, falsely accused, sentenced, spit on, and then crucified, nailed to a cross where He would die on that hill, Calvary. Another transfiguration took place that was terrible. A terrible alteration of Jesus’ appearance. Jesus became hardly recognizable because of how much He had been beaten and tortured.
In fact, the prophet Isaiah, some 500 years before this event happened, talks about what it’s going to be like, and he said this: “He had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men.” Despised and rejected? Hmm. Sounds like hideous glasses that are chipped, cracked, broken, and even thrown away. And Jesus was pretty much thrown away. He was deserted by all of his friends and put in a tomb very quickly. Not the kind of light that Peter, James, and John, or anybody, was expecting or wanting to see Jesus in. Not the kind of change they wanted to see, not this, not the kind of transfiguration they didn’t want to see in Jesus.
But even in His crucifixion, even in His death in such a terrible way, we see Jesus in a glorious light. We see Jesus in the light of His substitute sacrificial death for us, for our sins, for the forgiveness of our sins. Jesus’ transfiguration on the cross brings us out of the darkness of our sin and into the light of His forgiveness. In His crucifixion, we see Jesus in the light of His love for us. Jesus was transfigured to transfigure us. See, another transfiguration for Jesus was on the cross, but it is also our transfiguration, changing us, forgiving us, giving us mercy and grace.
And that’s a transfiguration that we really need because we are most certainly sinful. And we’re more than just imperfect. No, we’re chipped and cracked and broken. We are sinners. We fail to love God with all of our heart. We fail to love our neighbors as ourselves as Jesus told us to do. We may cheat or hurt or speak badly about other people. We may treat people like they have no value or treat Jesus like He’s of very little value to us. Our sin makes us hideous to God. It separates us from Him like we’ve been thrown away because of our sin.
But God sees us in a different light. He sees us in the light of Jesus. God sees us in the light of our value to Him in the forgiveness that Christ gives to us. In Christ, God transfigures us from sinful to forgiven, from broken to glorious, from thrown away to loved. That’s what the transfiguring crucifixion of Jesus does for us.
But that wasn’t the end of it. Crucifixion, as glorious as it is for us, is not the end of it because there was yet another transfiguration to come, another light to see Jesus in, and that’s His resurrection. Peter, James, and John saw it. They saw that again transfigured Jesus appear to them after His resurrection. They get to see Jesus in the light of His victory over sin and death by rising from the dead. But we see it too. Christ’s resurrection is for us to see His greatest glory too. Christ’s resurrection was for our benefit.
Christ died and rose again for us, giving value to us, giving value to chipped, cracked, broken, sinful people, putting us in a different light that God sees, not those imperfections. He sees the forgiveness of Jesus. We have value in Christ’s death and resurrection because it was for us to save us, and His resurrection keeps us from being thrown away in death because it gives us eternal life instead. Like Peter, James, and John, Jesus invites us to see this light, and we see Christ in the same way that they did, in the same light they did, in the glorious light of His grace and mercy, in the forgiveness of sins.
That is the light to see Jesus in. Sadly, there are many ways that, or many lights that people see Jesus in that aren’t right. Some see Jesus as just one of many religious leaders or philosophers whose teaching and work aren’t really any different from each other. Or some see Jesus in the light of politics. They talk about Christian values, but they really only want Jesus and His followers to agree with their policies. Some may see Jesus in the light of social issues, seeing Christ’s value only in their causes. Some see Jesus in the light of something kind of like a spare tire or a fire extinguisher or a first aid kit, something you store away for emergency use only, not for something that impacts your life every day.
Comedians, they value Jesus as a source of punchlines or use His name in curse words. And there’ll be several books or articles or television shows or movies or whatever that question Jesus’s divinity. They only see Jesus as something human or in a humanistic way and not in the light of His death and resurrection.
Now, maybe you see Jesus in one of these lights or some other light, or maybe worse. Maybe your life right now seems so chipped and broken and cracked. Maybe right now you even feel thrown away. Life can do that to you. Your life situations can make you seem this way. And all these lights that people see Jesus in, they really don’t help. They really don’t bring the comfort of the light of the death and resurrection of Jesus. That’s really the light to see Jesus in. If you’re having a hard time, if life has got you chipped and cracked and broken and thrown away right now, look to the transfigured, crucified, and risen Christ for your comfort.
And you’re in luck today. You’re in a place that just shouts that today. St. Paul Lutheran Church is a special, holy place where God’s people gather to see Jesus in the light of His death and resurrection. I mean, it’s all over the place here. A lot of the stained glass and a lot of the artwork here, it’s here where we see Jesus in that total transfigured light of His death and resurrection.
I mean, up front, the altar and the cross, they remind us of that sacrificial death of Jesus for us. And at the altar rail, where we kneel to receive Holy Communion, we see it in our hands and in our mouth, Christ’s body and blood given and shed for the forgiveness of sins. And we see Jesus in the light of His word that’s proclaimed from the pulpit, from the lectern, or from any time that you read or hear or speak God’s Word. You see that glorious saving work of Jesus. You see through all of these things, through God’s Word, the Lord’s Supper, the cross, the altar.
We see that work of Christ. We see the light of His love for us. All of that. But we also see our value, that all of this was done for us. You look at the altar and the cross, and it says, “God died for you.” At the Last Supper, Christ says, “This is my body and blood given for you.” And in God’s Word, it says, “You’re forgiven.” In the light of these things, we see our value to God about how He loves us.
It’s here when we gather together where chipped, cracked, broken, thrown away lives are healed. It’s here we can all truly say, “Lord, it’s good for us to be here,” where He transfigures you from sinful to forgiven. May that always be a place where you see Jesus in that light of His death and resurrection. Amen.
And now may the peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
