In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit

 Jesus had taken Peter, John, and James up onto a mountain to pray.  There they were with the very Son of God Himself in a moment in which His divine glory would be revealed.  And what did they do?  They got sleepy and dozed off.  I guess I shouldn't feel so bad when people get drowsy in church.  If a transfigured Jesus had people falling asleep on Him–what could I possibly cook up to do better?

 Heaven revealed itself on earth that day, and the disciples fell asleep.  We are not unlike them.  For heaven comes to earth among us every week here in the divine service.  The Lord appears to us, too–not in visible glory, to be sure, but in a very real and tangible way nonetheless.  Jesus speaks His words to us, He forgives our sins, He feeds us His very body and blood.  Angels and archangels and all the company of heaven are here in Christ's presence, and like the disciples, we get drowsy, sleepy, even bored in the presence of God!  We yawn through the liturgy.  We let our mind wander away from God's Word.  Our prayer life in general is often lethargic.  This drowsiness is our old Adam trying to avoid God and holy things.  "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak."

 And yet, despite that, the Lord still reveals His glory to His people.  On the mountain He "shined with unborrowed light", as the hymn said.  In other words, He wasn't reflecting some other light like the moon does; He was radiating His own glory as the Son of God.  "The appearance of His face was altered, and His robe became white and glistening."  His light awakened the disciples.  So also it awakens you.  The meaning of the third article of the Creed says that the Holy Spirit has enlightened you with the gifts of Christ.  In Baptism He brought you from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light.  He continues to shine in your lives through His preaching and His supper.  For it is written in the Psalms, "Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path."

 And so the call comes to you now:  Wake up!  Rise from your lethargy and your sleep!  Behold the glory of the Lord!  Recognize that you are on the mountain right here.  This is where heaven and earth are united.  This is where the glory of Christ now dwells.  Be filled with His saving words, so that you may have the words to speak back to Him in heartfelt prayer.  Be strengthened by His living presence in the Sacrament of the Altar, that you may have the life He has given you to live.  Open your tired eyes!  Now is the time to turn to Him in faith, as it is written, "Awake, you who sleep, arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light."

 From the company of heaven, Moses and Elijah appeared here with Jesus.  Why?  We prayed in the Collect of the Day:  "You (O God) . . . confirmed the mysteries of the faith by the testimony of the ancient fathers."  In other words as representatives of the Old Testament Law and Prophets, Moses and Elijah's presence on the mountain showed that Jesus is the fulfillment of all the divine promises in the Scriptures.  He is the Messiah foretold in ages past who would deliver His people from their sins and usher in the kingdom of God.  He is the One you are to listen to and believe in.  For the Father spoke from the cloud, "Hear Him!"  You are to give careful attention to the words of Christ; for they are the words of eternal life.

 And what were Jesus and Moses and Elijah discussing?  The Gospel says, "(They) spoke of His decease, which He was about to accomplish at Jerusalem."  In other words they spoke about Jesus' impending death.  In the midst of all this glory, the #1 topic of discussion among Jesus and Moses and Elijah was His inglorious crucifixion.  For it was only through the cross that the Old Testament promises of life and forgiveness for all who believe would ultimately be brought to reality.  It was only through the cross that the kingdom of God would fully come and the true glory of Christ would be eternally revealed.

 This didn't settle too well with Peter though.  Just a week earlier, when Jesus said He would have to suffer and die, Peter rebuked Him and said, "This will never happen to you, Lord!"  Peter didn't understand what Jesus had really come to do.  Peter wanted glory without suffering or hardship.  Like the devil, he wanted Jesus to avoid the cross.  And so here too on the mountain, Peter constructs a roadblock to the cross by suggesting that three shelters be built so that they could all stay there and bask in the glory.  He didn't want to leave.  He wanted glory without the cross and the affliction that must necessarily precede it.

 Is that not also what your sinful nature wants?  The Old Adam in you wants Christianity to
be all about happiness and togetherness and prosperity and success all the time–all glory and no difficulty or suffering.  Faithful Christians, however, know that the times of glory are rare, because Jesus said, "Whoever will be my disciple must deny Himself and take up His cross and follow me.  For whoever wants to save His life will lose it, but whoever loses His life for my sake will find it."  This is what is missing in so much of Christianity today.  Our faith is not about self-fulfillment, it's about self-denial.  It's not about personal enrichment through following certain spiritual principles, it's about emptying yourself in service to others.  It's about sharing in the sufferings of Christ in this world in order that we may share in His glory in the next.

 The word "decease" which the two prophets and Jesus spoke of is literally the word "exodus".  Just as in the first exodus Moses led the people of God through the Red Sea out of slavery to the Egyptians, so also Jesus leads you, His people, through the baptismal sea out of slavery to sin and death.  Moses, though, didn't make it to the Promised Land.  He only saw it from afar and died.  But Jesus, the New Moses, leads His people through death and the grave all the way to the Promised Land of the resurrection.  Just as the watery cloud enveloped the disciples here in God's presence, so also in your baptism you were wrapped with the living presence of Christ, that in your own bodies you may share in His resurrection and His glory.

 That's what the transfiguration is all about.  It's not only about Jesus revealing Himself as the Son of God, it's also about how Jesus has brought divine glory to your human nature.  When you see Christ transfigured, you are seeing a picture of your own eternal destiny in Him.  The Lord was transfigured is order to strengthen His people in the midst of the darkness of this world by giving them a vision of the splendor of the coming resurrection.  The disciples would need that strength as Jesus would very soon be handed over to be crucified.  And you need that strength, too, in the midst of your own crosses and struggles.  In a world of sin and death, you need to know how your "story"  finishes.  You need a vision from God that gives your life direction and hope.  In His transfiguration Jesus gives you that glorious vision.  He gives you to see how things will be with you in the end.  The hymn said, you see your redemption in His glorified body.  For you are members of His body.  It is written that you will be like Christ on the Last Day, because you will see Him just as He is.  Your perishable bodies of decay and death will be raised imperishable in perfection and majesty just like His.  In the same way that Moses' face shone with the light and glory of God on Mt. Sinai, so in a much fuller and everlasting way you will shine with the light and the glory of the Lord.

 As a believer, I'm sure you've wondered what it's going to be like after you die, or what heaven will be like. Unfortunately, many Christians in their curiosity about this turn away from the Word of God and turn their attention toward very uncertain and doubtful accounts of near-death experiences and the like.  However, in the transfiguration of our Lord, you have a very real, very certain experience of life after death.  Before you taste of death, you see God's kingdom come in the glorified Jesus.  In this vision, you are given to glimpse by faith what you will behold by sight in the end.  You see the true light of Christ in which you will be bathed for all eternity.  Christ's kingdom, which you now experience in a veiled way in water, words, bread and wine, will be unveiled on the Last Day in all its brilliance.  The words of the Benediction will be fulfilled, "The Lord make His face shine on you and be gracious to you."  There will be no need there of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the glory of God will illuminate it and the Lamb of God will be its light.  As the disciples slept and then were awake before the Lord, so you will sleep in death and then awake in the resurrection to hold this vision bright, where you will have only perfect joy and peace and light and life.

 In the meantime the Lord gives you to ascend the mountain with Him each week in this place to behold His hidden glory.  Peter said, "Master, it is good for us to be here."  So also, we say with the Psalmist, "My soul longs, yes, even faints for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God."

 The disciples did not remain forever on the mountain, though.  Neither does the Christian remain forever in the house of the Lord.  He must go into the world to the places where the Lord has called Him–as a citizen, a family member, a worker.  Christ goes with you down the mountain to your everyday life.  He dwells within you by His words and body and blood, and He lives through you in your callings, to perform works of love towards your neighbor.

 In three weeks Lent begins–a reminder that you live not on the mountain but in the valley, on the plain.  But the Lord is with you there.  His transfiguration proclaims to you that He will carry you through your troubles and crosses to Easter light.

  In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit