Tomorrow at Saint Paul’s Lutheran Church of Irvine, February 10th, 2013: “We Would Rather Build Houses” (Luke 9:28-36)

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

 

Tomorrow is the last Sunday in the season of Epiphany and we will celebrate the Transfiguration of Our Lord!

The Law will focus on the great comfort we take in realizing the glory of our Savior, Jesus Christ to the extent of a sinful reaction: we want to soak it in, bask in it, hide in it, and shut down in it. This self-centered reaction is carried on to the extent that we become inactive in bearing the cross, doing the Lord’s work in the world, and caring for our neighbors. We would rather build a house to enclose the glory we know (Luke 9:33). In this way, we also avoid all suffering. We forget that the purpose of the Transfiguration was to strengthen and encourage the Lord Himself who entered our weakness and His disciples for “his departure. (Luke 9:31)” This was not the time for house-building, but the time to be girded and prepared for the Passion of Christ. The glimpses of glory are shown to us not so that we would sit on it or in it, but to strengthen us to go forth and to “listen” (Luke 9:35) to the Son and to follow Him no matter our cross. Lent cannot be endured without this encouragement; without this background knowledge of glory. But when the Holy Spirit keeps the greater reality of glory before our eyes of faith, then we are empowered for the battle until we see the Lord face-to-face…in glory!

During the service we will also receive our newest members to Saint Paul’s, we are blessed to be receiving eight (8) new members to the congregation and all of them are adults. One of them will be confirmed into the LC-MS and to Saint Paul’s…this promises to be an exciting day.

Here is an excerpt from tomorrow’s sermon:

 

“We Would Rather Build Houses”

(Luke 9:28-36)

Pastor Espinosa

            Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. The Transfiguration of our Lord is perhaps the most glorious of all of the epiphanies of Christ which we celebrate. In this epiphany our Lord most certainly once again revealed His divine glory when He was shown in “dazzling white” while being flanked by Moses who had lived about 1450 years before Jesus was ever born and Elijah who lived about 850 years before Christ came from The Virgin. Both of these prophets appeared from heaven and stood there speaking to Jesus about — as the Scriptures say — “his departure” (Luke 9:31). The stunned disciples Peter, James and John were so amazed at what they witnessed that when St. Peter finally opened his mouth to speak, his words betrayed the incapacity of the human heart to absorb the glory of God.

 

            And yet even at that, the disciples did not see the full and unrestricted glory of God – as I proclaimed a few weeks ago – since God does indeed hide Himself for our own good. If the disciples had witnessed the full glory of Jesus, they would not have lived to tell about it. They got to see in accord with what was most likely the limit of their capacity to see, but even this was dumb-founding to them as proven once again by Peter’s words.

 

            But why all the fuss? Does it seem to you dear Christian like a lot of extra pomp and circumstance? Haven’t the Scriptures up to this point already clearly revealed that Jesus is the true Savior? Surely we already know this by now through the revelation of the Star of Bethlehem, the Baptism of our Lord, His first miracle at the wedding of Cana, and indeed His manifestations in and through His Holy Bride The Church and in and through each and every one of Her members who have been given a manifestation of the Holy Spirit for the common good (1^st Corinthians 12:7). It appears that the Lord has had ample occasion for us to get the point. So it just might seem that the Transfiguration of Our Lord is a beautiful and yet somewhat superfluous religious climax to reinforce the theme of Christ’s epiphanies. And if we left it at that, we would be committing a grievous error. The Transfiguration is so much more than that.

Come and hear about the “much more”!

In Your Service and To Christ’s Glory,

Pastor Espinosa

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