Glory beyond understanding awaits us.

 

Sermon for Transfiguration, March 2, 2025

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort.  Amen.

Exodus 34:29-35  ²⁹When Moses came down from Mount Sinai, with the two tablets of the Testimony in his hand as he came down from the mountain, Moses did not realize that the skin of his face was shining because he had been speaking with the Lord.  ³⁰When Aaron and all the people of Israel saw Moses, they were amazed that the skin of his face was shining, so they were afraid to come close to him.  ³¹Moses called to them, so Aaron and all the rulers of the community returned to him, and Moses spoke to them.  ³²Afterward, all the people of Israel came close to him, and he gave them all of the commands that the Lord had spoken to him on Mount Sinai.  ³³When Moses was finished speaking with them, he put a veil over his face.  ³⁴But whenever Moses went in before the Lord to speak with him, he would take the veil off until he came out again.  Then he would come out and tell the people of Israel what he had been commanded.  ³⁵Whenever the people of Israel saw Moses’ face, they would see that the skin of Moses’ face was shining.  Then Moses would put the veil on his face again, until he went in to speak with the Lord again. (EHV)

Glory beyond understanding awaits us.

Dear friends in Christ,

            They were terrified.  Jesus’ disciples were terrified when they saw His transfiguration on the mountain along with the glorified saints, Moses and Elijah.  Fourteen hundred years earlier, the Children of Israel were, likewise, terrified when Moses came down from the mountain, because his face was glowing from being in the presence of God’s glory.  There is something about God’s glory that remains a mystery to us and will be so until we, ourselves, meet the Lord face to face.  Only in that moment will we truly know the Glory beyond understanding that awaits us.

We have heard that Jesus, “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact imprint of the divine nature.” (Hebrews 1:3)  Yet, because His glory was masked by human flesh, it was and remains hard for people to comprehend God’s full glory.  Still, if you and I, as sinners, had to stand before God unredeemed, we would be destroyed in His glory that shines brighter than anything we currently see.  Thus, “When Aaron and all the people of Israel saw Moses, they were amazed that the skin of his face was shining, so they were afraid to come close to him.” 

The reflection of God’s glory that stayed on Moses’ face for a time reminded the people how far we are from the glory of God.  While God is completely holy, pure, and righteous in all He is and all He does, we are the complete opposite since the fall into sin, and just as Adam and Eve were terrified to be in God’s presence after they sinned, so we by nature often find ourselves terrified of God.  Now, many of our world might argue against that idea.  The atheist claims not to be afraid of the deity he denies exists.  However, it is highly likely that it is his fear of being judged that drives his boldness against God.  He imagines that if he rejects the idea of God, then God cannot hurt or judge him.  It is foolishness personified as David wrote, “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’” (Psalm 14:1)

But, how about you and me, how is terror of God also evident in us?  We have been baptized into Christ, and most of us have confirmed our faith in Jesus as our Savior, but does terror of God still haunt us?  If so, that is a consequence of living in a sinful world in which the devil still roams about trying to snare the sinner in his rebellion as Satan attempts to keep us from the Lord’s grace. 

Many people don’t recognize the danger we are in.  Many around us mistakenly assume that every person will eventually go to heaven, but they aren’t sure of it.  You and I may show fear if we harbor sins that we don’t want to confess to God because we are rightly ashamed of our behavior.  We might even secretly wonder whether we are good enough to enter heaven, which, of course, we are not.  Some have been afraid to approach the Lord for communion because of their strong feelings of guilt.  Others have come to the communion rail boldly defiant of the judgment they face when not recognizing Jesus’ presence in the bread and wine because they are afraid to believe what they cannot see.

Perhaps we most commonly see terror of God when someone doesn’t want to serve the Lord in His work of saving people.  They might think they are not good enough to do what the Lord asks them to do—wrongly assuming that some of us are good enough—instead of trusting that the Lord empowers those He calls to serve with the ability to do the jobs asked of them. 

Or maybe, we are most likely to feel terror of God when we have to face illness or death of ourselves or loved ones.  In those moments of bad news, is our immediate reaction to trust that God knows what He is doing for our good?  Or do some thoughts of despair creep in?  Do we then blame God, as if He hasn’t remembered to take care of us or has forgotten to answer our prayers?

Dear friends, there are times in every life when our fear of God may cross over into sin.  Just like those Israelites, we might want to flee God’s glory in those moments.  Yet, that is precisely what our Savior doesn’t want us to do.  Instead, He invites to come to Him in repentance to receive forgiveness of sins and peace.  That’s one of the reasons Moses covered his face after he spoke with the people.  If they saw the reflection of God’s glory fade, what would that do to their faith in God’s mercy?  Would they forget how truly remarkable God’s glory is, and how great a gift He has for us?  That seems to be the case for Israel.  They received both law and Gospel through Moses, but they eventually forgot the One Savior God promised to deliver His glory.  Therefore, their understanding remained veiled even when they met God’s Son, Jesus, face to face.

Today, we need to remember that God’s glory will never fade away, just as His mercy is never ending.  What Jesus came to do is completely finished just as He declared from the cross.  The glory of God includes giving us a Savior in His Son who lived perfect holiness for us.  God’s glory is most graphically evident in that He gave that Son to die for sinners who didn’t deserve God’s love or forgiveness, and that’s all of us and all people everywhere.  We all deserved God’s righteous anger and judgment.  St. Paul wrote to the Roman congregation, “The wages of sin is death, but the undeserved gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:23) 

Even one sin makes us deserving of eternal banishment from the paradise of heaven.  Yet, to God’s glory, He didn’t execute our deserved punishment.  Instead, God laid our guilt on His innocent Son.  God was patient with mankind, allowing our race to continue so that the Lord could rescue many from the guilt that would condemn.  Furthermore, God worked our salvation, first through the life and death of His Son, Jesus, and then through the work of the Holy Spirit who proceeds from the Father and the Son in the Word to work faith in the hearts of sinners, a faith that restores life to the previously-dead-in-sin soul so that we might learn that Glory beyond understanding awaits us.

At the transfiguration of our Lord, Peter, James, and John got to see a glimpse of the glory that will one day surround us and restore us to the glory that would have been ours if man never sinned.  That glimpse alone was overwhelming.  However, there will come a day when that glory will be our normal.  When the Lord of glory returns with all His angels to judge the world, those who have believed in Him as their Savior from sin will experience a new glory in themselves that has never been witnessed in this life, for a Glory beyond understanding awaits us.

The Holy Spirit had St. Paul write about Jesus’ return, “We will all be changed, in a moment, in the blink of an eye, at the last trumpet.  For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.  For this perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality.” (1 Corinthians 15:51-53)  And what will the result of that change be?  Paul writes, “That is the way the resurrection of the dead will be.  What is sown is perishable; it is raised imperishable.  It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory.” (1 Corinthians 15:42-43)

The people of Moses’ day experienced a glimmer of the glory of God through the radiance of Moses’ face after he met with the Lord to receive instructions for life, worship, and governance.  We benefit from receiving the glory of God’s grace in the Gospel which tells us that Jesus has done everything necessary to rescue us from our fallen state so that He will take us into glory everlasting. 

In baptism, we were baptized into Jesus’ death; “We were therefore buried with him by this baptism into his death, so that just as he was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too would also walk in a new life.  For if we have been united with him in the likeness of his death, we will certainly also be united with him in the likeness of his resurrection.” (Romans 6:4-5)  Thus, being connected with the likeness of Jesus’ resurrection, Glory beyond understanding awaits us.

When Jesus rose from the grave triumphant over the devil, temptation, sin, and death, He rose with a glorified body that is no longer troubled by the wretchedness of this world.  The human body that once masked His divine nature is now glorified into the image of God that had been lost to us in the fall.  However, the Father raised Jesus from the dead, “so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren.” (Romans 8:29)  St. Paul further reminds us that with His life and death, “Christ reconciled you in his body of flesh through death, in order to present you holy, blameless, and faultless before him.” (Colossians 1:22) 

When picturing the saints in the glory of heaven, Jesus assured John in the Revelation of what the gift of faith in Jesus will do for all who believe in Him.  He told John, “These are the ones who are coming out of the great tribulation.  They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” (Revelation 7:14)  Therefore, my fellow believers in Christ Jesus, at the end of our days here on earth, Glory beyond understanding awaits us.  Amen.

The peace of God which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus unto life everlasting.  Amen.