C, Transfiguration of our Lord - Luke 9:28-36 "Living with God and his Glory"

1.0 The glorified Jesus – The revelation of Jesus as God for us.

We've had our fair share of electrical storms lately. And often during these furious phases of flashing lightning and wild winds, power lines are tested beyond their capacity, leading to blackouts across the countryside. While the lights are out and the house is in darkness, the electricity continues to arc through the skies drawing our gaze to the spectacular sky show. The only source of light demands the attention of all.

In the Gospel Jesus is that flash of lightning grabbing the attention of the three disciples on the mountain and also capturing our attention here today. There's no doubt the Gospel reading reveals to us something special about the man Jesus. Just as lightning points to the centre of the storm and to the life giving rain which follows, Jesus’ transfiguration points us to the events of Good Friday and the following Easter Sunday. Even if we take the transfiguration narrative by itself, he is at the centre no matter which way we look at it.

Jesus leads the disciples up the mountain to pray. He is the one who is transfigured into something like a flash of lightning. The disciples look at nothing else but the dazzling Son of God. Not to mention Moses and Elijah speaking to Jesus on what he was about to do for the sins of the world. And even the Father in heaven descends in a cloud to put us beyond any doubt that Jesus is centre stage – the flash of lightning sent to lighten up a world darkened by sin.

1.1 Revealed as a human baby now the fleshy mask comes off the man to reveal God’s Son.

Isn’t it interesting how storms so often sneak up on us under the cover of darkness? It's as if they decide to use a veil of darkness to hide and then suddenly they reveal themselves in all their fury. As we go about our work the steamy, sultry air makes us suspicious that something is coming.

The sultry oppression of the law and its revelation of sin in the lives of the Jews, led prophets to proclaim that something was coming too. And now "that something" was in the world.

First as a baby, foretold by the angel Gabriel, conceived by the Holy Spirit, in the Virgin Mary. A little weak defenceless baby incapable of looking after itself was the veil hiding the creator of the universe. The creator who allowed himself to be created! The wise men came and found this baby, who was to be the king of the Jews. Yet even beneath the honour and prestige of earthly kingship was veiled something much greater.

So the baby grew, he was circumcised a Jew, and he was baptised in the Jordan by John. Rumble, rumble – the heavens opened the spirit descends like a dove, God thunders, ‘You are my Son, whom I love, with you I am well pleased’.

A bank of cloud was forming, a storm was brewing in the west and hidden in those clouds, and the wild weather, was not just an earthly king who was going stir up a storm, conquer the Romans, and return the Jews to power.

But rather it was a king whose flesh hid the flashing brilliance of God. Christ’s mask of flesh, given to him in his incarnation, was the masking cloud which hid the glory of God, which shot out from his body transfiguring him on the mountain, warning of the impending storm which was going to wreak havoc on the sultry oppression of sin in the live of people.

2.0 Glory – God at work…

Nevertheless, we shouldn't let these clouds of glory scare us. Your sinful nature might shake scared in its boots, but the sight of the clouds and lightning in the west is a welcome sight to those who've had the refreshing sprinkling of baptismal rainfall on them before. From within the veil of a glory cloud God has been at work, he continues to work, and he will continue to work.

2.1 …through Moses

In the Old Testament we hear that Moses comes down from the mountain with two tablets on which the Ten Commandments were written. His face shone from being in the presence of God’s glory. God worked in the presence Moses on top of Mt Sinai, producing the law, but the Israelites below didn’t see God on the mountain with Moses, all they saw was the cloud which shrouded the mountain and kept the glory of God veiled.

In fact Moses never saw God’s face on the mountain either, when God showed his glory he hid Moses in the cleft of a rock and only let Moses see his backside after he had passed by (Ex 33:12 – 34:7). God hid himself so that he could work with humanity without destroying us with his overwhelming holiness.

When the Israelites left Mt Sinai the cloud in which God’s glory was concealed lifted and followed them in the wilderness (Num 10:33-34). This cloud was not a threat to the Israelites but a comfort and a constant reminder that God was the one who led them in the desert.

2.2 …through Jesus

In the same way Jesus’ glory was hidden as he worked on earth. The glory of his transfigured holiness blasted forth for only a brief moment on top of the mountain before his disciples. But his divinity shone for enough time to tell the disciples that God was at work. And even though the flash of lightning sizzled their sight with Christ’s glorious brilliance it didn’t make much sense at the time. Later on they were able to recount the lightning of transfiguration, the storm and cleansing rains of Good Friday, and the glorious "Son shine" rising on Easter Sunday.

2.3 …today

So here we sit today. Where is the glory? Why are we still sitting in the oppression of our sultry sinful lives? The heat of our existence seems to evaporate any cloud of glory that might come our way?

God’s glory may not be visible to our eyes, it might seem to have evaporated and vanished, but it's still here. In fact the glory of God is veiled in our midst right at this moment.

You see, when Jesus ascended to heaven he didn’t leave us, he just became unseen to the naked eye. When Jesus ascended he was hidden by a cloud, not removed by it.

This cloud is lifted by faith when we hear the word of God proclaimed and are nourished by Christ’s body and blood. God’s glory is there to be seen through the eyes of faith.

We too have a window into the unseen world when we read passages such the gospel proclamation of Christ's divinity at his transfiguration and in scenes painted by texts such as Revelation 4 (Read Rev 4).

What John saw and recorded in Revelation are the unseen things happening right now, of which we all are a part.

We have come into the door of heaven here; today we dwell in the presence of God and him in ours. Shortly we will confess with the angels, archangels, and with all the company of heaven, the Holy, Holy, Holy and then we will join in fellowship with the church, in and outside of time, and feast on Christ’s body and blood.

Yes, God’s glory is invisible, it's masked from the naked eye, but it's at work in each and every one of our lives right now.

3.0 The effect of God’s glory shining in us

So what's the effect of God’s glory shining in our hearts and our lives? What's this glory seen briefly at transfiguration and made complete in Christ’s death, resurrection, and ascension doing for us now?

God’s glory lives in us, and just as Christ’s glory was masked behind his flesh, the glory of God has been given to us, and is masked behind our flesh too. But unlike Christ’s flesh our flesh is sinful. It's sinful just as is Peter’s flesh and the Israelite’s flesh too.

The glory of God that shines in us shows just how unclean we really are. We don’t like that much and the old Adam in each of us, seeks to take God’s glory and turn it into self-glorification. Just as Peter sought to stay on the mountain and bask in the glory of God, rather than let Christ do his work of salvation which just lay ahead.

However, our sinfulness is not the end of the road. We will not be left sweltering in the sin of our fleshy lives. A storm rages within. The lightning of Christ’s brilliance flashes inside, lighting up the darkness, blowing and cleansing us with Christ’s atoning blood spilt on the cross and made real in our lives at baptism.

There's a change in the west, a cool refreshing change. After the lightning and the storm, the rain leaves us regenerated. This change takes a lifetime to pass over our lives, but when it does finally pass over us, it will leave us permanently changed. We will be perfectly restored, pure and spotless. We will be new creations minus the flesh that now masks our glory. Amen.