Receive Transfiguration’s Confidence!

Last Sunday after Epiphany, The Transfiguration of Our Lord, 2/19/12
Mark 9:2-9

Receive Transfiguration’s Confidence!
I. In our Savior’s person
II. In our Savior work
III. In our Savior’s approval

For all of the disappointing setbacks in life, there are those moments of victory that instill confidence in the individual. The homeowner is rather certain he can’t complete a needed home improvement. But with the encouragement and advice of the associates at the local home improvement store who have assured him, “Together we can do this,” he undertakes the task and, when finished and admiring his efforts, he feels confident he can take on the next project. The dedicated staffer at a large global company isn’t sure she has what it takes to make the presentation assigned to her by her supervisor, but the further along she gets in her preparation the more confident she becomes and the end result is a smashing success. The 16-year-old is taking her road text for her driver’s permit. She’s so nervous she almost feels ill, but as the road test progresses, she can feel her confidence rising and she passes with flying colors.

I’m sure you’ve had similar experiences. They make you feel like you’re on top of the world. You want to rush right into the next challenge and tackle that one as well. But it isn’t long before the confidence subsides and you’re not so certain about your abilities anymore. You begin to wonder if you’ll ever succeed at anything important ever again.

We’re standing on the threshold of another Lenten season in which we will go with our Savior to Calvary’s cross. To the world, Jesus’ death on the cross appears to be the crushing defeat of his efforts to be the King of the Jews. But we know that’s not so. We know that his death was exactly what we needed for our salvation and his resurrection from the dead three days later is the guarantee that he is the victor over Satan and he is our Savior.

But our God doesn’t make us wait until Easter to receive that confidence. Instead, he instills that confidence in us even before Lent begins. He does so with the Transfiguration of our Lord. As people who doubt our Savior’s power and work more often than we care to admit, receive Transfiguration’s confidence. May the Holy Spirit fill your hearts and minds with that confidence as we discuss this glorious event in our Savior’s ministry.

Part I.

“I thought I knew that person. I guess I was wrong.” Those are some of the most disappointing words we can speak. We speak them after learning that a certain person has said or done something completely out of character. Maybe it was something immoral or vengeful or devious. Whatever it was, it completely changed our impression of that person.

By this time in Jesus’ ministry, he had spent about three years preaching to the people, proclaiming that he was the promised Messiah and the very Son of God. He had performed countless miracles, every one of which was the loud proclamation that Jesus possessed almighty power as the Son of God. He repeatedly displayed his power over even the demons. But for all those words and acts that called for the people to believe that Jesus was the very Son of God, relatively few people believed him. The masses rejected it. His enemies charged him with being an imposter, a liar, and even a cohort of the devil. And many of these people had either seen Jesus perform those miracles, saw the effects of those miracles or had heard him preach and they still rejected him as the Son of God.

We haven’t seen or heard any of those things and yet we believe he was and is and always will be the Son of God. Could we be wrong about him? Not a chance. With the eyes of faith look at what happened to him, “Jesus took Peter, James and John with him and led them up a high mountain, where they were all alone. There he was transfigured before them. His clothes became dazzling white, whiter than anyone in the world could bleach.” For three decades or more, Jesus had not allowed his glory to be seen as it was here. That’s for our confidence. This was no Messiah-imposter heading to Calvary for us. This wasn’t a mad-man who made outlandish claims about himself. This was and is none other than the Son of God from all eternity. His divine glory proves it.

Receive Transfiguration’s confidence in our Savior’s person. He is true God.

We don’t deny that truth, but we have our sinful doubts. What sinful doubts do you have? Any twinge of guilt is really doubt that Jesus is true God who removes guilt forever. Any worry about the future no matter how great or small is a lack of trust in Jesus the almighty Son of God. And if those aren’t the case with you, then how about sinful arrogance—the kind that says, “I know that’s what Jesus says, but I want to do it anyway”? That’s a refusal to allow Jesus to be who he is. These sins and multitudes more are evidence that we need the saving confidence that Jesus is true God in every sense of the term, for only then is he our Savior from sin. That’s the confidence Transfiguration provides. Receive it!

Part II.

You’ve probably noticed some of the damage to our church from last May’s hailstorm. Since the damages were rather excessive, our trustees decided to enlist the help of the architect who designed our sanctuary since he, more than anyone else, knows what it took to build our sanctuary in the first place.

Moses and Elijah weren’t the architects of God’s kingdom, but they were certainly two of the most important builders of it up to this point. That’s the reason they appeared here at Jesus’ Transfiguration. Mark tells us, “And there appeared before them Elijah and Moses, who were talking with Jesus.” The Old Testament was called “the Law and the Prophets” by Jesus and the Jews of his day. In Moses you have the representative of the Law, the one to whom the Lord gave his law on Mt. Sinai. And along with him on this mountain was Elijah, representing the prophets of the Old Testament and their tireless efforts to reform God’s people.

Mark says they were talking with Jesus. About what? Luke tells us that they discussed his departure. In other words, they spoke about all the things that Jesus would do from that day until his ascension into heaven. God had used these men centuries earlier to tell the people about the coming Savior and now they were here on earth again discussing with Jesus how he would complete that work.

What a confidence-builder for Jesus! Look at how hard Jesus had worked night and day to build God’s kingdom among his fellow Jews and yet look how little he had to show for it. Even his disciples and family members tried to discourage him from staying on the course. Jesus himself shuddered at the thought of the cross. And yet there were Moses and Elijah, speaking words of encouragement to Jesus before he embarked on the final chapter of that work.

Receive Transfiguration’s confidence—confidence in our Savior’s work.

I’m convinced that all too many people are unimpressed with Jesus’ work because they aren’t at all negatively impressed with their sins. After all, why focus on a Savior who died for your forgiveness when you feel no need for it? Thankfully, that’s one of the great blessings of Lent. It’s a season of repentance. That’s the focus of our service this Wednesday. We easily miss how often each day our attitudes and thoughts—let alone our words and actions—are filthy in the sight of our holy God. Confessing those sins produces the thirst for forgiveness, a forgiveness Jesus won for us by his work of redemption. That work was the topic of conversation at our Lord’s Transfiguration. Receive Transfiguration’s confidence—the confidence in our Savior’s work.

Part III.

What do other people think about you? Some people care about that a lot, others not so much. But I’m sure all of us would be discouraged to know that no one cared that we were trying to do something wonderful, something blessed, something eternally saving for them.

That’s exactly the kind of discouragement Jesus faced. He was here on this earth to suffer and die for the sins of all people. He was here in fulfillment of God’s greatest promise to the nation of the Jews. But look what kind of response he received! His own disciples told him not to go to Jerusalem to suffer and die. And if he wasn’t going to miraculously provide food for the Jews and drive out the hated Romans, his people wanted nothing to do with him. And the leaders of the Jews, the ones who should have been leading the people to Jesus, were the ones who put up the greatest resistance to him. The high priest himself was leading the plot to have him executed. It was enough to make any lesser person throw in the towel.

But not Jesus. On the Mount of Transfiguration he received the kind of divine encouragement that he needed, the same encouragement that we need. Mark writes, “Then a cloud appeared and enveloped them, and a voice came from the cloud: “This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!” His own Father in heaven announced his pleasure with all that Jesus had done so far. He gave him the highest commendation—that of being his beloved Son. Strengthened by those words, Jesus ended this glorious event, walked down that mountain and began his journey up another one called Calvary. What confidence that gives us! Receive Transfiguration’s confidence—a confidence that flows from our Savior’s approval by his heavenly Father.

Oh, to be approved by our Father in heaven in the same way! Oh, to know that he accepts us as he accepted his Son! And he does! That’s what his Transfiguration, his suffering, his death and his resurrection were all about. Our God justifies us—he declares us holy, not guilty, innocent, acceptable. That’s our confidence! May that confidence grow all the more as you walk this Lenten season with your Savior to his cruel cross and then in victory to his empty grave. Amen.