In this sermon, the preacher discusses the concept of transfiguration and its significance in the Christian faith. He emphasizes the need for believers to have a vision of transfiguration, where Christ dwells within them as the hope of glory. The preacher also highlights the importance of the Holy Spirit in the process of transformation and encourages listeners to reflect on the glory of the Lord during the season of Lent. He reminds them that their destiny is to shine forth as the righteous in the kingdom of God. The sermon concludes with a call to serve and love others, sharing the love of Christ and offering hope to a disfigured world.

We're getting ready this week to enter another season of Lent. Right. And there is a reason why in every liturgical cycle that we contemplate the Transfiguration right before Lent. And this is the first of two times we shall contemplate this passage. There's also the Feast of the Transfiguration. We'll read this passage again in August. I think it's August 6th this year. But at the end of this season of Epiphany, we're looking at Transfiguration of Jesus Christ. And this is the ultimate Epiphany. But this is a pre-figuration of that great event. The Transfiguration is a pre-figuration of that glorious state that humanity is heading through Jesus Christ, who is the great apostle of our faith, the high priest of our confession, who shares everything because we are co-heirs. Doesn't that blow your mind? I mean, you know what an heir is, right? You get everything the Father has. And we're co-heirs with Jesus Christ. I don't get that. No, it's too good to be understood, right? Some things are just too good to understand. God is one of them, right? God the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. But we get to get glimpses like today, the Transfiguration. And so this is an encouragement for us, just as it was for those three sleepy disciples on the mountain. Because when they come back down the mountain, like when we go out today, we're going to go out into that place, that valley where there's people demonized, there's people hurting. And we're all a part of that. We're wounded healers, right? The church needs to be a wounded healing unit. The church is a field hospital. We bring healing. That's an image of the church in this world, right? A place of healing and nurture. Too often this has not been so. Too often this has not been the case. So this is the vision of the church. This is the high calling of the church, right? And so we must live into this. And so one of the ways that we live into that and admit that we have failed in many ways is Ash Wednesday. Every year we face our failure together as a community. And we repent as it were in dust and ashes. That's the image out of the Old Testament of repentance, right? So we get that cross put on our forehead, which really that is the symbol, first of all, of disfigurement. He was disfigured before he was truly transfigured. So the cross is about disfigurement. I mean, that's the purpose of why Jesus is being disfigured for us and for our salvation. Because sin has disfigured us, disfigured creation, disfigured humanity. All have been disfigured and fallen short of the glory of God, right? And so this new man, this new human being, this new representative, this new Adam, Jesus Christ, comes down from heaven and takes on human flesh and becomes the new human being, the new race of redeemed co-heirs, those who are, you know, going to inherit everything that the father has through the son. We're going to be co-heirs. And so he's the representative and he's showing us that grand vision today on the Mount of Transfiguration before the disillusionment sets in, before Peter denies the Lord three times, before all hope is lost in a sense, right? Until he begins to appear to them on the road to Emmaus in various places in the upper room. First thing he says is, fear not. The bright light of Jesus Christ is shining and he's appearing and he's blowing into the mouth of the church, be filled with the Holy Spirit. But the disfigurement must happen first. And we live in a world that's disfigured and we must have the vision of transfiguration before us, Christ in us, the hope of glory, right? To walk through the desert, the forty days symbolizing, the forty days of fasting is symbolizing this desert world that we're in, waiting to cross over into the promised land of Jordan, the kingdom of God, where Moses and Elijah will talk to us and all the other saints and the angels and all who are in Christ and not separated from him. Right. So good. And so now we we have the Father's voice through the Spirit. The Spirit is crying in us, Abba, Father, the Spirit of the Son, crying, Daddy, God. That's our adoption. Our adoption as we walk through this world of disfigurement. And it's a beautiful thing because. The book of Hebrews and pulling it out of the Psalms is saying today, today, if you hear his voice right now, if you hear his voice and there's an odd phrase. And it's because we're in a disfigured world that says, harden not your hearts. If you hear his voice, there's a lot of things in the scriptures that can either set us free or harden our hearts. We have disagreement with the word of God, the scriptures of the voice of God many times. And so we're warned. Right. Today, if you hear his voice, harden. And so I may be speaking to a hard heart this morning and you're saying like, wow, I need those ashes on my head. I need those 40 days. We all do. I do. You see, my heart gets hardened, too. So this is something that we have to face every year. Our heart just kind of hardens up and we just need a new spring in Jesus. And that's what it's all about. I mean, and so saying to Jesus, if you'll see these two verses here, speak of the disfigurement and the transfigurement. Come and see, look on this mystery, the Lord of the universe. What? Nail to a tree. Christ, our God, spilling his holy blood, bowing in anguish, his sacred head. Sing to Jesus, Lord of our shame, Lord of our sinful hearts. He is our great redeemer. Sing to Jesus and honor his name. This is the way through the world of disfigurement, singing to Jesus. Amen. We get to sing on our way to the promised land. We get to worship him because father's looking right now in this disfigured world for worshipers who will worship him in spirit and in truth, not just in spirit. Sometimes it's the truth that we have to wrestle with. And if you're not wrestling with the truth, you haven't heard the truth. The truth is something to be wrestled with, like Jacob wrestling with the angel. The truth is not easy. The truth is embodied. The truth is a person ultimately in Jesus Christ. It's not a concept. We're not wrestling with concepts. We're wrestling with embodied, absolute truth and holiness. And we're seeing this transfigured Lord today because he's saying that's your destiny. And I know you don't look like that and you don't feel like that. But I want to show you the path to get there, the way, the truth and the life in Jesus. So let's contemplate this. It says in Mark nine, verse two. And after six days, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and he led them up. This is what the Lord does. He leads us up to that place, that high mountain to be alone, it says, by themselves, with him. And in that place, he was transfigured, Mark says, he was transformed. Metamorphosis is the word here, the same word that Paul uses in Romans 12, be transformed, be transfigured by the renewing of your mind. No transfigurement, no transformation without that renewal in the mind, the deep place, that noose. And so there's that play back and forth of his transfigurement, his transformation in ours. Right. Because we're in Christ now and he was transfigured before them and his clothes became radiant, intensely white. And so it's the glory of God. It's interesting because there's all kinds of symbolism throughout the Bible. And I think this six day thing is such. On the sixth day, human beings were created. On the sixth day, human beings were created in the image and likeness of God. And somewhere along the line. In the garden, the decision to be disfigured came about because that image and likeness became disfigured. Right. And it's interesting that the one new man, the representative human being, Jesus Christ, was crucified on the sixth day. We were created on the sixth day and we were recreated on the sixth day in Christ on the cross. And now this person, this representative is taking them up to the mountain to pray and he's wanting to show them something for a reason. There's a reason for this. Right. It wasn't just sort of, oh, I think I'll just go into my glorious state today. It's not showing off or anything. You know, Jesus doesn't do that, does he? There's a reason behind this. Now, I love Luke's version, Luke nine, still chapter nine in Luke. It says that he took Peter, John and James with him and went up on the mountain to pray. Doesn't say that in Mark. Right. And get this. And as he was praying. Oh, this is even better. As he was praying, the appearance of his face changed. It was transfigured and transformed. Ah, Jesus is giving us an example of how our minds are renewed, how we're transformed as we draw near to him. He draws near to us in prayer. That's where the transformation happens. It's happening beyond that. But without that, it won't happen. Right. A prayerless life will not be a transfigured life. And so transformation happens outside of the prayer room for sure. And outside of the closet, that's for sure, because that's where our prayers get tested. It's in the body of Christ and in the world and in spiritual warfare that we become stronger because we need resistance. You know, it's kind of an isometric principle, right? Gotta have some resistance to get stronger. I wish it weren't so. You need resistance and we got it. We got it. We got a lot of resistance. So how do we handle that resistance? Well, it's first of all, going up with Jesus to the mountain and praying, spending time with him. Right. Because that's where we hear his voice and we don't harden our hearts. We try to make it through this world without prayer and without him softening our hearts, then we'll be those crunchy Christians that are just judgmental, pointing the finger at everybody because we're holier than everybody else. We're miserable and misery loves company. You know, it's that kind of thing. That potential is there in all of us. Right. The potential of that is there. And so we know that. And so that's why we humble ourselves. Really, prayer is an act of humility. And you can test the level of your pride by your prayer life. Right. How much you need God or can you make it on your own? Right. How are you doing? You know, praying without ceasing is the goal. Spirit of God in us crying father, see the spirit praise because we don't know how to pray. Paul tells us you don't know how to pray. Right. Remember that Romans say we don't know how to pray. Spirit praise in us. Sometimes that's passive and sometimes that's in cooperation and in a conscious will of, you know, you're praying in the spirit and you're giving yourself to that. And there's other times where you're not in prayer, but the spirit still in prayer inside of you. He's crying out of the father all the time. Jesus is the great high priest who is always praying and always interceding for us. Right. And so we just pray in him and we're always in him. So there's always prayer going on. So when we enter into that place of prayer, it's always happening and it's a continuous state. Right. That's the atmosphere of heaven before the throne of God. Amen. So when we come, we have this hope to be transfigured from glory to glory, that metamorphosis can take place. A change of forms. What that means. Morphe form in the Greek. Right. Metamorphosis, a change of form, a change of figure. I like that. I need it. I need a figure change. That'd be really good. Change my figure. But it's not talking about that, unfortunately. It's talking about something so beyond that physical scene thing in our figures. It's talking about the fullness of life when we will see him face to face and God will be all in all and we will be raised in that glorious state with Jesus. That's the ultimate. That's the ultimate destination of transfiguration. And so Jesus is talking and he's talking to Moses and Elijah, and they're wanting to build three booths. In other words, as if Jesus and Moses and Elijah were equal. And the father breaks in and says, wait, wait, wait, wait. I know you're speaking because you're nervous and you don't know what to say. It says in Mark, it says they were terrified. So they just started talking. Right. Be quick to listen, slow to speak. They hadn't learned that yet. But that was James that wrote it. Right. At any rate, maybe that's where he learned it. This is my beloved son. Don't equate him with Moses and Elijah. Moses and Elijah spoke through his authority. Now he is here right out of his being exousia, his authority. God is speaking to you. God is in your midst. God is here. Very God and very man. Listen to him. It's time to listen to him. You know, you've heard it said that I tell you, you've heard it said that I say to you, Jesus is turning up all the tables that human religion had actually produced. He's going in and he's cleaning out the temple and he's cleaning it all out so that he can make way for new creation. In Luke's account, it says that they were talking about something doesn't give this in Mark and the Greek word is exodus. He's talking with Moses and Elijah about his exodus, his what? Passover. He's talking about his Passover, Christ, our Passover, who has been sacrificed for us. He's talking about that with Moses and Elijah. This is the ultimate story of all of the law and the Psalms and the prophets. And he's saying, like, yeah, I'm getting ready to go there to be disfigured. He talked about his disfigurement. In order that we could all be transfigured, he's talking with Moses and Elijah about being disfigured, torn to shreds and all life, he really died. Was it just like some sort of play? You know, it's not a passion play. It's the passion. It is the passion. And he's talking to them about that. And so what does that mean? He's talking about his exodus. He's talking about his Passover. He's talking about his passing over from death and disfigurement to life. That's what the Passover is talking about. Passing over from death to life. Jesus is letting Moses and Elijah in on the mystery of our salvation. He's preaching the gospel to them. He's getting the gospel. And, you know, I just can't I can't hold this back, but it's almost like this is a little blurb for the communion of the saints here, because God is not the God of the dead. God is the God of the living. And so Moses and Elijah, they had experienced in some sense an exodus of himself, a crossing over from death to life. And now all of the saints and all of the angels, we have a communion with like this. This is kind of a little illustration of our conversation that we can have. I believe that's I mean, that's just that's Michael talking to you right now. Now, where does this all go? We're getting this glimpse. And then throughout the writings of Paul, who actually experienced this sort of bright white light appearing to him, he had this experience in a sense of the transfiguration. But it was the resurrected Christ calling him, right? He comes up with these passages like this in 2 Corinthians 3, 12. Therefore, since we have such a hope, we are very bold. We are not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face to keep the Israelites from gazing at its white radiance, though it was fading away. So in a sense, here's a prefiguration of the transfiguration here with Moses, because Jesus truly is the new Moses. But their minds were dull, right? Renewal of the mind, transformation. For to this day, the same veil remains when the old covenant is read. It has not been removed, that veil, because only in Christ is it taken away. Verse 15. Even to this day, when Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts. But whenever anyone turns, this is what Lent's all about, turning to the Lord. It's turning from death to life. It's turning from sorrow to joy. It's just all good. Repentance is so joyful, man. That's the whole point of the prodigal son and what's happening in heaven, right? The angels are going like, yeah, coming back to joy. They're coming back to join the party again. Yes. When anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. You begin to see. Now, the Lord is that spirit. And where the spirit of the Lord is, there's freedom, there's liberty, and we all with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory. We're being transformed again here. Here's the same word. We're being transformed into his likeness with ever increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the spirit. That's some dense stuff there, folks. You really can't just read over that and forget that. I mean, just go home and chew on it a little bit, because it's really a beautiful thing about what happens as we slow down. And that's what Lent's going to call us to and begin to reflect on the glory of the Lord. And the surprise is, is that we will be changed from glory to glory from year to year as we do this by the Lord, the ever increasing glory which comes from the Lord, who is the spirit. It's our destiny. Matthew 13 says, Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their father. Isn't that great? That's where we're headed. One of the reasons I believe that Jesus is showing this to these guys is because he was getting ready to be disfigured. And Jesus wanted them to know that this one, this transformed one, is coming down the mountain. He's headed into Jerusalem. He's headed the Holy Week like we all are. Right. And he wanted them to know that it wasn't Rome or the Jewish nation that took his life. He wanted them to know God from God, light from light, true God from true God, voluntarily laid his life down for us. Nobody took it from him. He laid it down willingly. And we must always remember, as we voluntarily lay down our lives for the life of the world, it's never forced on us. Christ in us the hope of glory. But until then, that hope enables us and empowers us to lay down our lives for one another. That is a glorious life of cruciform Christianity. And that is the hope of the world, you guys. And in some crazy way, we're the light of the world. I mean, the church would never come up with that. I mean, Jesus would have to tell them that, right? Because we have our issues. But in some way, as we're drawn to this light and as we fix our gaze on this light, we become more and more like that which we worship. Problem is, is that the church is worshiping other idols, other than Jesus, not based in the scriptures, right? And so they become more and more like that as they fix their mind and their eyes on that. And so the warning is today, if you hear his voice, harden not your hearts. So it's easy to be a Christian, hearing the wrong message and hardening your hearts. So it takes discernment. It takes love. It's all at the final point, you know, the cross, the cruciform life. It's love. It's pure love. It's love that casts out all fear. It's love that causes us to lay down our lives for one another. It's not a duty. We're doing it out of the love of Christ that controls or constrains me, Paul says. May the love of Christ constrain us. May the love of Christ motivate us as we serve and love and bandage up one another and as we live in the world and we offer our lives to the world and all of its disfigurement. And we go as wounded healers, knowing and sharing Christ in us and the hope of it being Christ in them, the hope of glory. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, amen.