It's Good Lord, to be here.

Luke 9:33 Transfiguration Sunday--February 14, 2010--Redeemer Lutheran, Olathe, KS
1. It’s good to be here! As we make a habit of gathering here on Sundays we get to see old friends again. Today we have the blessing of singing the old liturgy—what we used to call “page 15”. We will be spending time together around the coffee pot between the services. For many of us, this Sunday routine is so engrained in us that we wouldn’t know what to do if we weren’t here each week. It’s just so…comfortable.
2. For many of us, we were raised on this stuff. As Christians we know God expects us to observe the Sabbath in the 3rd commandment. We feel a sense of duty to be here. Our attendance and our offering are missed when we are absent. It’s…just…what we do. I think that most of us here today could honestly say, “It’s good Lord, to be here.”
3. Peter’s declaration was of a similar nature to ours. He, along with James and John, got to see Moses and Elijah. I can just about hear him say, “How blessed are we?” They even got to hear them talking with Jesus! To experience this once in a life-time event with his closest buddies must have been truly awesome. It’s no wonder, then, that he said, “Let’s remember this day forever and build some tents so we can make the most of this moment—make it last!
4. It felt good to be there because it just seemed right. Being on that mountain with Jesus—and seeing Moses—surely Peter must have had visions of what it must have been like when Moses received the 10 Commandments from God on Mt. Sinai. And when he and the others made this connection in their minds they were reminded of the gift they had received from God. While we are so often quick to associate God’s Law with being a burden we can never fulfill, Israel saw it as a sign that he cared so much for them that he personally gave them a piece of his mind and his heart so that they could strive to please him and ask for his forgiveness when they failed. That was so different from all the other gods and idols which other people around them worshiped. With those supposed deities one had to guess at what they wanted. One had to manipulate them into acting favorably. One had to buy the love of those cold, lifeless statuary idols. And sadly, as their bargaining and sacrificing went unheard, they built higher altars on higher hills and offered more and more sacrifices of an increasingly horrific and immoral nature.
5. But here on this mountain, on this day, it wasn’t like that at all. Here Peter and the others got to see for themselves, not a cold, distant, uncaring god that may or may not hear them, or who may or may not even exist but, instead, one whom they now saw before them as a man, yet God at the same time. And they watched as they saw his figure transformed—his face glorified; “like lightning” as we hear it in the Greek language by which it was originally written. And as they watched the events unfold, as they saw Moses and Elijah visit with their teacher, they were at peace. They knew that this was the place they needed to be. They knew, as they saw the whole thing unfold before them that they were there precisely because Jesus wanted them to be there so that they could have this shared experience between them as a memory in their minds forever. The sights of the prophets and the fog engulfing them, the sounds of the voice of God speaking to them all, the smells of the mountain air and the plants all around them. The view of the valley below as the cloud bank dissipated. All of it culminated to a point to where Peter just couldn’t contain himself any longer. He finally just had to blurt it out! “Master, it is GOOD to be HERE.”
6. Remember when said it was good to be here and listed all the reasons why? Place them aside the image we just painted of Peter’s experience on top of the mountain and you might have noticed one important similarity. All of those comments and accolades were focused on the self because that’s our nature as human beings just as it was Peter’s nature. We tend to get caught up in our own excitement and feelings and emotions. We let our desire to encounter God get sideswiped by our need to feel safe and our propensity to do things that are safe and not risky. And so we continue along in our faith walk never stretching ourselves, never quite reaching where God is leading us as we continue in our old ways, listening to the same old stories and following the same old lessons, perhaps expecting to find new answers, but probably relieved to hear that, no, they haven’t really changed all that much. Like Peter, James and John, we want to just linger in the moment of our experience and bask in the glow of our God.
7. As comfortable as it is to be here, however, at times it distracts us from Christ. “How can that be?” you might ask. “How can I be distracted from Christ when all I want to do is be surrounded by his glory and revel in his words and the words of the prophets? Surely there is value in that? Pastor, how can you say that that is wrong?” Well, the answer to that is another question. That question is, “On what is your heart focused?” If it is focused on finding your inner peace, if it is focused on finding a way for you to feel better about yourself or what you are doing, if it is focused on you escaping from the rest of your life, then your presence here is no different then Peter, James, and John’s on the Mount of Transfiguration.
8. You see, the transfiguration is all about Jesus and his mission and his ministry. It marks the beginning of a new phase of his “work”. His disciples have all been called and he has introduced them to his vision and plan to share the Good News with the world. But in the preceding verses we read that he has also just made the first prediction of his suffering and death. His ministry now has a different thrust as he moves from teaching to training, and eventually, turning the ministry over to his disciples. He has begun the process of bringing his work to an end and he needs to get the disciples up to speed—as quickly as possible—so that they can continue his work. He’s getting them ready for the battle ahead. If Jesus’ temptation in the desert at the beginning of his ministry was difficult, his last trials as he suffers and dies on the cross will be exponentially more painful. He’s going to need Peter to be up for the job of leading the group after his death. He’s going to need James to a take leadership role as well, and John will be called upon to look after Mary, Jesus’ mother, upon his death and he will be Christ’s witness, not only in the Gospel written by him, but in his “revelation” which he will write to seven persecuted churches; a letter we now know as the last book of the Bible, The Revelation of St. John.
9. As with everything he did, the Transfiguration of Christ was more than just a miracle, but a fulfillment of earlier prophecy and a completion of work begun generations before. On this mountaintop Moses and Elijah were passing the torch to Christ so that Jesus could eventually pass that torch to the disciples before his ascension. By bringing them to the mountain with him he was letting them know that this work they were being called into was a continuation of the work God had been doing through his people from the very beginning of history.
10. Moses delivered the people out of the bondage of Egypt, but he was not allowed to enter the Promised Land. To finish the task of deliverance into Canaan Joshua was called to be Moses’ successor. The name Joshua is Hebrew for “The Lord Saves.” And as surely as they entered the land under his leadership they were reminded of the One who made it all possible. Later in Israel’s history, Elijah was called to deliver the people of God out of the hands of unfaithful kings. He too did not see the end of his work, but passed his work onto Elisha, a variation of the name Joshua, so that through his very name the people would know where their salvation would come from. And God delivered them away from Baal worship as the worship of the true God was once again restored in Israel. And now today in our Gospel we find Jesus—Greek for Joshua—whom the angel told Mary and Joseph will free the people from the slavery of their sins. Moses and Elijah and many other men and women were called by God throughout the Bible to effect salvation for Israel in one fashion or another, but it would never last and there weren’t speaking to all people. Just as Joshua and Elisha completed the earthly tasks set before Moses and Elijah in their ministries, Jesus had come to complete the deliverance that no man could accomplish for any portion of man-kind throughout the millennia—the final deliverance of our bodies and souls from sin, death, and the power of the devil.
11. Although Peter’s intentions may have been wrong, his words were right on the mark; it truly was good for them to be there on that mountain that day. It was good because Jesus wanted these 3 leaders—the first of his disciples to follow him—to witness this significant, historic, event. Jesus wanted them to see his work in the context of salvation history—to allow them to connect all that he had been teaching them with all that they knew from the Law and the Prophets. Jesus wanted them to get a glimpse of what lies ahead for them; in ministry, in mission, and in the glory of heaven.
12. It is good for US to be HERE as well but not for the reasons we stated at the beginning of our message today. It is good for us to be here today so that we too can become witnesses of Christ’s transfiguration and his ministry through the scriptures we hear read and proclaimed. By hearing the stories of the Bible we can see how he continues to work in our lives just as he did in the past. In the Divine Service we too get a glimpse of our future glorified state as we partake of Holy Communion—that foretaste of the feast to come. As we gather here each week we surely do soak it all in, but not only so that we may be soothed and comforted, but so that we might be inspired, strengthened and lifted up to give God the glory. We say, “it is truly good, Lord, to be here”