03-02-2025
“GLORY AND CROSSES SHARED”
Text: Luke 9:28-36
Sunday March 2, 2025 – Transfiguration
Trinity – Creston
Grace, mercy, and peace is yours from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!
Our text for this Transfiguration Sunday is the Gospel Lesson from Luke chapter 9 that was just proclaimed.
Let Us Pray: Dearest Jesus, send your Holy Spirit to remind that the revealing of your glory on this day reminds that you are not only true man but true God. Having your glory shared with us will also mean we will suffer with you but connected to you we will one day triumph and rise with you to eternal glory. Amen.
Dear Fellow Redeemed in Christ:
Awhile back, I started watching a series that was very popular. Many people were talking about it. Good characters and interesting plots! So. I decided to tune in and see what all the hoopla was about! Oh, I understood some of the first episode I watched. But some didn’t make sense. Unfortunately, watching previous seasons required a streaming service I don’t have.
Look at the first words of today’s Gospel: “Now about eight days after these sayings” (v 28). Luke is telling you that you need some backstory to understand the transfiguration fully.
Fortunately, you don’t have to subscribe to a streaming platform to get that backstory. The Bible provides it. What was said about eight days earlier? Jesus said, “The Son of Man must suffer . . . be rejected . . . and be killed, and on the third day rise” (9:22, emphasis mine).
Then he added, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily, and follow me” (9:23, emphasis mine).
The transfiguration happens because crosses will be taken up. That’s not the only reason for the transfiguration. But it’s one reason. Before we enter Lent, before we remember how Jesus takes up his cross for us, before we rededicate ourselves to taking up our crosses as we follow him, the transfiguration teaches us who Jesus is and what he has waiting for us.
The transfiguration shows who Jesus is before he takes up his cross for us. A soldier looks at Jesus hanging in agony on Golgotha. The soldier thinks, “That’s yet another criminal paying the price for what he’s done wrong.” The transfiguration says, “Actually, that’s God paying the price for what you’ve done wrong.”
It’s obvious Jesus is just as human as we are. Because he dies. Just like we will, unless Jesus returns first. But the transfiguration makes it clear Jesus isn’t just a human. That day, his body glowed with glory that could only belong to God.
It was an epiphany—a revelation that Jesus is God begotten of God and Light begotten of Light. Our Lord wants to make sure that Peter, James, John, you, and I all know that the one who will soon hang on a cross has the pedigree to pay for our sins.
Ol’ Peter wants to make the moment last. He wants to build three tents. Jesus could have stayed on the mountain. He could have said, “I kind of like glowing with glory.”
If Jesus had stayed on the mountain as Peter wanted, he would have been spared the cross. And you would have no forgiveness, no resurrection, no heaven, no hope. You would have a life filled with sorrow. And then a death filled with hell. So would I.
But Jesus didn’t come to this earth to put himself on glorious display. He came to put himself on a gory cross.
Did you notice what Jesus, Moses, and Elijah are talking about on the mountain? Jesus’ departure. That’s his departure from life when he’s crucified. Even when Jesus shines with glory as God, he is thinking about how he’s going to accomplish your salvation.
Jesus has an undying love for you. Correction. Jesus has a dying love for you. He plans to go to the cross, because he knows his death is the only way God’s justice can be satisfied, the only way we unholy people can be made holy, the only way we can join him in glory.
You’d think that a dead criminal couldn’t possibly be serving God. But the transfiguration shows that the dead criminal not only serves God; the dead criminal is God. Which means the price of your salvation is paid.
But Jesus is not the only one who will take up a cross. Jesus knows Peter, James, and John will take up their crosses as they follow Jesus. And so will you and I. Jesus takes up a cross literally. We take them up figuratively.
Our Lord does not say, “If anyone wants to come after me, let him have an easy life and earthly riches.” That’s what Joel Osteen, Joyce Meyer, and their followers claim—that you should expect prosperity on earth.
Jesus suggests that you should expect resistance from the world—whether or not your heavenly Father grants you prosperity. “If anyone wants to come after me, let him take up his cross.”
John suffered years in exile. Peter was executed. James lost his head courtesy of King Herod. James was the first apostle to be martyred. Which is to say, James was the first apostle whose soul got to share Jesus’ transfiguration glory. And when Jesus returns, James’ body as well as his soul will glow like Christ.
When you say you’re a Christian, people may laugh because you still believe the Bible is true. When you resist temptation, your friends may think you’re a prude. When you talk about your Lord, some people will consider you hopelessly out-of-date. When you take up your cross and follow Jesus, life isn’t likely to be easy.
Maybe you’ll have the privilege of dying for Jesus. Yes, the privilege of dying for Jesus. I’m not sure what the twenty-first-century equivalent of Christians being thrown to the lions might be, but if you’re asked to endure it, remember the transfiguration.
The transfiguration shows what we will have before we take up our crosses and follow. The glory Jesus has on the mountain is glory you will share. And when you realize that’s the glory he has waiting for you, you’ll be ready to carry whatever cross may be laid on you.
You might ask, “Why can’t we skip the suffering and go straight to glory with Jesus?” For the same reason Jesus couldn’t skip the cross. There are people on this earth who need him. You and I are the way our Lord cares for those hurting people today. And you and I are the way he gets the message of sin and a Savior to all those people out there who don’t realize that Jesus took up his cross for them.
Peter would live roughly thirty-five years after the transfiguration—thirty-five very difficult years. But nothing that he experienced in all those years, no matter how horrible, could erase what he saw on that mountaintop.
I don’t know what you’ll be asked to suffer in the future because you belong to Jesus, but nothing that you will experience as a Christian, no matter how horrible, can erase the promise God gave you when he baptized you into the death, the resurrection, and, might I add, the transfiguration of his Son.
What the Father said about his Son he now says about you because of Jesus: “You are my child. My chosen one.” Jesus’ glory will be your glory.
And to make sure you know that promise is for you, so you can remain faithful until death, your Lord at this altar puts into you the same body that Peter, James, and John saw transfigured on that mountain, the same body that they saw hanging on the cross, the same body they saw alive on Easter evening in the Upper Room. Along with the blood that atoned for you.
Pay attention when the Father says, “This is my Son, my Chosen One; listen to him” (v 35). Listen to him when he says you must take up your cross to follow him. Listen to him when he says, “The Son of Man must suffer, be killed, and on the third day rise.”
Listen to him when he says, “I forgive you all your sins.” Listen to him when he says, “This is my body given for you” and “This is my blood shed for you.” Listen to him when he says, “I will never leave you or forsake you.”
When it gets difficult to carry your cross and live as God’s child—and it will be difficult—remember the transfiguration. It guarantees that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing to the glory that will be revealed.
You don’t need a streaming service. You know the backstory. Jesus is transfigured because crosses will be taken up. The transfiguration tells you that
When Jesus Takes Up His Cross, That’s God Dying to Save You,
So before You Take Up Your Cross to Follow Him, You Know Jesus Will Share His Glory with You, his transfiguration glory. Amen.
Now may the peace of God which passes all human understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior. Amen.