Transfiguration Day Sermon

Here is the sermon from our Feb. 14th service. It was a wonderful Transfiguration Day.

Transfiguration Day
Feb. 14, 2010
Deuteronomy 34
People, Potential, Promise

In the name of Jesus, amen. Mountaintop experiences can be both literal and figurative. We could spend lots of time in a friendly debate about whether the view from the Skyline Drive is better than the view from Mt. Hood or Mt. Washington or Mt. Cuba. Climbing mountains allows you to get a view you’ve never had before, to perhaps look down on clouds, to look down on trees, to be higher than an eagle, to see the twists and turns of a river in the valley.

You can also have a mountaintop experience sitting in your office cubicle, in the library, or on the phone, when you suddenly find something so clear that you are stunned. Moses was no stranger to mountaintops. And Moses was given some clarity in our OT lesson this morning. It is a remarkable lesson about people, about potential, and about promise.

As you live with the Bible, Moses is somebody you get to know pretty well. His history is well-known, from birth to rescue to burning bush to the exodus to the Red Sea to Mt. Sinai to the wilderness and finally to Mt. Nebo. And how about this nugget of information from our lesson: Moses was 120 years old when he died. His eye was undimmed, and his vigor unabated. Don’t we all wish for that kind of thing? What an amazing man Moses was.

Yet Moses was human. He had disobeyed God on more than one occasion. He was stubborn, prone to violence and anger. Thus Moses was able to see the Promised Land but could not enter it. With tremendous clarity on the top of Mt. Nebo Moses could see the Promised Land from north to south, from east to west.

And the people that Moses led were people. Moses saw the children of Israel at their best and he saw them at their worst. Moses heard them praise God for his protection and provision yet Moses also heard the people grumble and complain against God.

There are times when I see you at your best and at your worst. And there are times when you experience me at my best and you know when I act on my worst instincts.

Yet God calls us to be His people. And God mercifully uses us for His glory and purpose. Where there is a need, God plugs us in to meet those needs as faithfully and as best we are able.

On top of Mt. Nebo, Moses saw the Promised Land, and I imagine he saw the potential of that land. Under all the snow at my house is a garden. It might not look like much now, but there is potential. With a little love, hard work, and fertilizer, something will grow. With some tender pruning and some good compost, my blueberry bushes will grow closer and closer to bearing fruit. There is potential. And we know that people have potential. Little children are not what they will be. Teenagers are not what they will be. Adults are not what they will be either. There is growth, maturation, learning, mistakes, missteps and errors.

The Promised Land was good land. The twelve tribes of Israel were going to settle on that land and they would be cared for. Through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, you and I have been grafted into that great nation. The twelve tribes had potential. And we have potential too.

Potential for what? Sometimes our vision is shortsighted and we cannot see beyond what is right in front of our noses. But there are times when the Lord calls us to make clear the potential of what the Lord can do in the lives of His people through the power of God’s Word and the Sacrament. Our potential is a danger if it is disconnected from the dynamic power of God’s Word and has lost touch with God’s grace present in the Lord’s Supper and the water of Holy Baptism.

The potential that you and I possess comes from a promising God who keeps His promises. Moses got to see the Promised Land. On a different mountain Moses showed up with Elijah, another great prophet. And in between Moses and Elijah was the fulfillment of all the promises- our Lord Jesus Christ.

God made a promise when he announced that the woman’s offspring would have his heel bruised by the serpent yet that offspring would crush the serpent’s head. God made a promise that the virgin would conceive and bear a son. God made a promise that his servant would bear the stripes, the wounds, the lies, the mockery and would yet reply, “All this I gladly suffer.” God’s suffering servant would make a promise that he would be betrayed into the hands of sinful men, be put on trial, condemned, and crucified, but on the third day He would rise again. Jesus didn’t stay dead. He came back to life and He is alive today!

All the promises made by God are kept by God. As Moses looked over the Promised Land, perhaps God was looking over the landscape and thinking about the land of heaven, where one day there will be people farther than the eye can see and they will be assembled around the throne of God saying, “Worthy are you to receive glory and honor and power.” This great day will come because God keeps his promise.

God keeps his promise that he ‘desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth’. God keeps his promise that ‘if we confess our sins, God who is faithful and just will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness’. In the announcement of forgiveness, in the gift of salvation, in the hope of heaven, in the gift of Jesus to you, God keeps his promises.

We pray as the people of God that we would see the potential God sees in us as God unfolds his promises of love, grace, and mercy to us. God grant it! SDG