✠ One Message: Christ crucified and risen for you ✠
The Word of the Lord Endures Forever
Verbum Domini Manet in Aeternum
2. Peter 1,16-21 0916
Letzter Sonntag nach Epihanias 019
Antonius the Great, hermit in the Thebais, Egypt ✠ 356
17. Januar 2016
1. O Merciful and Everlasting God, Heavenly Father: We thank You for revealing unto us the Glory of Your Son, and let the Light of Your gospel shine upon us: We pray, guide us by this Light so that we may walk diligently as Christians in all good works, ever be strengthened by Your grace and conduct our lives in all Godliness. Amen. (Veit Dietrich for the Transfiguration of our Lord).
2. For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and advent of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty. For when He received honor and Glory from God the Father, and the Voice was borne to Him by the Majestic Glory: »This is My Beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased,« we ourselves heard this Very Voice borne from heaven, for we were with Him on the holy mountain. And we have something more sure, the prophetic word, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the Morning Star rises in your hearts, knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture arrives from someone’s own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
3. The Apostle John writes in his Gospel: »And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His Glory, Glory as of the Only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth« (John 1,14). The Apostle Matthew writes in his Gospel: »And Jesus was transfigured before them, His face shone like the sun and His clothes became white as light. A Bright Cloud overshadowed them, and a Voice from the Cloud said: „This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to Him“« (Matthew 17,2.5). And the apostle Peter writes in his Epistle: »For when Jesus received honor and Glory from God the Father, and the Voice was borne to Him by the Majestic Glory: »This is My Beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased,« we ourselves heard this Very Voice borne from heaven, for we were with Him on the holy mountain. And we have something more sure, the prophetic word.«
4. The Apostles Peter, James and John saw Jesus transfigured before their eyes in His Divine Glory. God the Father tells them to listen to His Son. Jesus made two important statements about His ministry before and after the Father’s exhortation which is bookended by: »From that time Jesus began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders, chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised« (Matthew 16,21) and »As they were gathering in Galilee, Jesus said to His disciples: „The Son of Man is about to be delivered into the hands of men, they will kill him and He will be raised on the third day“« (Matthew 17,22-23). When we listen to Jesus, we listen to Him proclaim His crucifixion and resurrection.
5. It was this very Passion of Jesus that Moses and Elijah spoke with Him about at His Transfiguration. In fact, Luke tells us in his Gospel: »Moses and Elijah appeared in glory and spoke of Jesus’ exodus, which He was about to accomplish at Jerusalem« (Luke 9,30-31). The Divine act of deliverance in The Old Testament was the Exodus of Israel from Egypt by the hand of Moses, and the Divine act of redemption in the New Testament is the Exodus of the world from death and hades by the hand of Jesus. In his Apocalypse, Jesus told John: »Fear not, I am the First and the Last, and the Living One. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades« (Revelation 1,17-18).
6. Peter thus tells us in his epistle: »We have something more sure, the prophetic word, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the Morning Star rises in your hearts, knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture arrives from someone’s own interpretation.« The Bible is the Word of God, and the Holy Spirit inspired prophets and apostles to write it so men and women would have the sure and certain account of God’s disposition toward fallen mankind. The Psalmist proclaims: »Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path« (Psalm 119,105). The prophetic word of God illumines our guilty conscience an promises us that all our sins are forgiven on account of the vicarious atonement made by Jesus on the cross. The Bible tells us that Jesus suffered for sin in our place and that He has fulfilled the law, cancelled our debt of trespasses in full and has made us righteous by the shedding of His blood.
7. An old Anglo-Saxon poem called The Dream of the Rood is written from the perspective of the cross. The poet has a dream where the cross tells him:
Now I command you, loved man of mine,
that you this seeing tell unto men;
discover with words that it is glory’s beam
which Almighty God suffered upon
for all mankind’s manifold sins
and for the ancient ill-deeds of Adam.
Death he tasted there, yet God rose again
by His great might, a help unto men.
He then rose to heaven. Again sets out hither
into this Middle-Earth, seeking mankind (95-104).
From the first page in Genesis to the last page in Revelation, the Bible tells us about God and His plan to redeem fallen sinners back to Him. God’s prophets foretell the advent of the Christ who will rescue fallen mankind from sin and the devil. It is this Christ and His Light that arises and dawns upon our hearts, comforting us with the promise of His grace and mercy freely given that absolves us from our sin.
8. The glorified Jesus could not be anything other than the brilliant sunlight that three of His apostles glimpsed at His transfiguration. Naturally, they bowed their faces to the ground in fear. Such is the response of sinners in the presence of God’s holiness. They had never seen Jesus so revealed in His Glory before. Straightaway Jesus comforts them: »Jesus went and touched them, saying: „Rise, and have no fear.“ And when they lifted up their eyes, they saw no one but Jesus only« (Mathew 17,7-8).
9. Jesus only is the basis and main cause of justification (Schartau Jesus Only 7. Sn. After Trinity). Jesus, yes, Jesus only. No other gods save us. No other religions deliver us the gospel. Not even Moses and Elijah can save us; these great prophets merely point us to the Son of God. If we want to be saved, then we must look upon Jesus. Only Jesus, and only Christianity, freely give the gospel, and that gospel proclaims that we are saved and justified by Jesus only. The Bible points to this Jesus and His saving work. Jesus is the offspring of Eve whose heel was bruised by the offspring of the serpent, but in the striking He crushed the head of the serpent’s offspring and killed it. Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega who rose from death and the grave. In doing so He know holds the keys to Death and Hades. Jesus only gives eternal life. Jesus only raises the dead to resurrected glory. Jesus only opens the gates of hades and brings His people into through the gates of heaven.
9. Take heed to what you have heard, O mournful souls, remember that Jesus only is the object of your awakening. Do not therefore seek for more regret nor for an immediate improvement in your course of life, but seek for Jesus only. Where, indeed, can you look for salvation except to your Savior? Where can you find salvation except in Him? It is nowhere else to be found. When you have found Him and in Him righteousness and strength, when His righteousness is your support in temptations, when His might is your help in time of distress, behold, then you have enough in Him, for you have all in Him. If then it should ever happen that you, like the first disciples, should in spirit see somewhat of His glory and taste the powers of the age to come, and if this glory should thereupon disappear, then do not look for Moses or Elijah, but be content with the grace granted to those early disciples of whom we read: When they lifted their eyes, they saw no one, save Jesus only.
10. When the peace of Christ has brought you reinvigoration and His promises have given you assurance of grace, then it shall also be your lot, at the approach of death, when your eyes can no longer see the things of this world, then the vision of your soul shall be opened and endowed with heavenly light to see the Great Glory, world without end, face to face, Jesus only. Amen.
11. Let us pray. O Christ Jesus, Thou Brilliance of the Eternal Light and Stainless Mirror of that Divine Power and Image of His Goodness, shine upon us Your heavenly Glory so that we may face each day, each trial, with the peace that You are with us and that You have won our spiritual victory. Amen.
To God alone be the Glory
Soli Deo Gloria
✠
All Scriptural quotations are translations done by The Rev. Peter A. Bauernfeind using the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, 4th Edition © 1990 by the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart, and the Novum Testamentum Graece, Nestle-Aland 27th Edition © 1993 by Deutsch Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart.
ELKB. Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche in Bayern. www.bayern-evangelisch.de/www/index.php. Copyright © Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche in Bayern.
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