Lutheran Church of the Resurrection

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Click play to listen to the audio version of this sermon. If ever there was an episode in the gospels that was susceptible to a spiritual or figurative interpretation its the Transfiguration of Jesus. Light emanating from within a body and illuminating the clothing. Two men, long dead seen talking with Jesus and then they disappear. It’s got all the makings of science fiction or wild fantasy. Maybe that’s why all three gospel writers who record this episode carefully anchor it in time and space – much the same way the Creeds connect the life of Christ to actual history by saying, “He suffered under Pontius Pilate” – to make sure we understand this as an actually event.
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So far in this season of Epiphany we have seen Jesus do some pretty miraculous things. We’ve seen Him tell the unclean spirits to be silent and they shut up. He says to them, “be gone” they be go. He cures the flu and all your diseases by the word of his mouth, cleanses leprosy by the touch of his hand and makes the paralyzed man walk simply by telling him to stand up and go home.

We have witnessed enough concrete evidence to be convinced that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, that the Kingdom of God is in Him and that He is the One we should follow.

But this is the easy stuff to believe. We want to believe in miracles. “Show us some spectacular demonstration of power and authority Jesus – that’s what we came for.” This is the stuff that people turn out in big numbers for. “And many were gathered together, so that there was no more room, not even at the door.” (more…)

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I remember back when we were trying to decide how to move from one service to two services and what times we would begin each service talking with my friend Alan Taylor who is the pastor of St. John’s Lutheran Church in Galveston, Texas. I asked him what their worship schedule was. “8:00am.” he said. “Sounds pretty early,” I replied. He then explained that they had begun their service at 8:30am. for years but just recently, the congregation had voted to move the time to 8:00am. The reason for the move was so that they could get out of worship before the Baptists let out and all the restaurants in town filled up for lunch.
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