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The Sermon for Quinquagesima, or the Sunday before Lent, March 2nd, 2025
The Lessons: Exodus 34:29-35; Psalm 99; 1 Corinthians 12:27 – 13:13; Luke 9:28-36
The Text: Luke 9:28-36
INTRODUCTION
The captain of the ship looked into the dark night and saw faint lights in the distance. Immediately he told his signalman to send a message: “Alter your course 10 degrees south.”
Promptly a return message was received: “Alter your course 10 degrees north.”
The captain was angered; his command had been ignored. So he sent a second message: “Alter your course 10 degrees south – I am the captain!”
Soon another message was received: “Alter your course 10 degrees north – I am seaman third class Jones.”
Immediately the captain sent a third message, knowing the fear it would evoke: “Alter your course 10 degrees south – I am a battleship.”
Then the reply came: “Alter your course 10 degrees north – I am a lighthouse.”
In the midst of our dark and foggy times, all sorts of voices are shouting orders into the night, telling us what to do, how to adjust our lives. Out of the darkness, one voice signals something quite opposite to the rest – something almost absurd. But the voice happens to be the Light of the World, and we ignore it at our peril.
– p.309, 750 Engaging Illustrations for Preachers, Teachers and Writers from Craig Brian Larson and Leadership Journal. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Bakerbooks, 2002. Second Printing, 2008.
The Transfiguration holds before us the goal of all our spiritual journeys – to be conformed to the Lord Jesus Christ in his perfection and purity by loving and obeying Him.
Luke 9:20-27: THE CONTEXT OF THE TRANSFIGURATION AND THE LESSON OF SELF-DENIAL
About eight days after Jesus foretells his death and resurrection, he takes with him his three closest disciples, Peter, James, and John, and leads them up a high mountain by themselves (Luke 9:28). In the Gospel according to St. Luke, the transfiguration of Jesus is placed after the Lord has asked his disciples the all-important question, “But whom say ye that I am?” (Luke 9:20, KJV). St. Peter’s answer is that Jesus is the Christ (Messiah) of God. After commanding his disciples not to make this fact known, he predicts his own rejection by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, his death, and then his resurrection on the third day (Luke 9:22). Then he tells the disciples the hard conditions of discipleship – every disciple must deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow him (Luke 9:23). Every disciple must be willing to lose his life for Jesus Christ’s sake, so that he may save it (Luke 9:24). It is no use to a man if he gains the whole world but loses his own soul (Luke 9:25). It is no use being ashamed of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of Man, and of his words, to find that when the Lord comes again in his own glory, his Father’s glory, and the glory of the angels, that the Lord is ashamed of him (Luke 9:26). After saying this, the Lord adds that some of those standing around him then will not die before they see the kingdom of God (Luke 9:27).
SEEING THE KINGDOM OF GOD AT THE TRANSFIGURATION OF OUR LORD
Now I believe that the Transfiguration of Jesus Christ allowed the Apostles Peter, James, and John “to see the kingdom of God.” How, then, did these Apostles see the kingdom of God?
Firstly, they observed that while Jesus was praying on the mountain, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothing became white and dazzling (Luke 9:29). This showed the Apostles that the Lord Jesus was radiating the glory of God, and that the presence of God was with him, pointing to the fact that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and King in God’s kingdom.
Secondly, they saw Moses and Elijah appear in glory, speaking to Jesus of his death at Jerusalem (Luke 9:30-33). The fact that Moses and Elijah spoke of Jesus’ exodus at Jerusalem links the passion and death of Jesus to the exodus of the nation of Israel from Egypt. What the Apostles were seeing of God’s kingdom was that the cost of believers’ being set free from bondage to sin would be Jesus’ death on the cross, just as at the Passover, the blood of the sacrificed lamb smeared on each Israelite family’s door posts and lintel saved that family from the destroying angel. This part of the vision of the Transfiguration gave Peter, James, and John a glimpse of the cost of mankind’s salvation purchased by the blood of Christ.
Thirdly, a cloud overshadowed them, and they heard a voice from the cloud, saying “This is My beloved Son: hear him” (Luke 9:35b, KJV). This vision and the voice of God was so deeply imprinted on St. Peter’s mind that in his Second Epistle General he testified to God the Father’s honoring of His Son as follows:
For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For he received from God the Father honour and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And this voice which came from heaven we heard, when we were with him in the holy mount.
(2 Peter 1:16-18, KJV)
At our Lord’s Baptism, before he began his earthly ministry, God the Father had made the same affirmation that Jesus Christ is his beloved Son in whom he greatly delights (Matthew 3:17; Mark 1:11; Luke 3:22), and again at Jesus’ Transfiguration, God the Father repeats this pronouncement, and St. Peter bears witness to it, as evidence that the Lord Jesus Christ is truly God’s beloved Son, and that the Gospel is genuinely true, since it has come from God through Jesus Christ. But at the Transfiguration, God the Father adds an imperative that is not there in the accounts of our Lord’s Baptism. He adds the words, “Listen to him” (NRSV). The American Standard Version reflects the Greek imperative plural in its rendering “Hear ye him” (ASV). God’s command was not just addressed to St. Peter but to Ss. James and John as well. Not just the impulsiveness of Peter was being addressed, but every other tendency human beings have that causes them to deflect their attention from paying close attention to what Jesus says and from obeying it.
CONCLUSION
This is the essence of the kingdom of God that the three Apostles saw at the Transfiguration: on the basis of Jesus Christ’s identity as God’s Only Begotten Son, and on the basis of God the Father’s pronouncement of him as such, all the followers of Jesus must listen to what Jesus says and obey it. Are you obeying the Lord Jesus Christ in your daily life, even if, at his command, you have had to change course to reach the goals that he has set before you?