The Transfiguration of Our + Lord
Celebrating the Sanctity of Human Life
February 21st, Year of Our + Lord 2024
Our Savior’s and Our Redeemer Lutheran Churches
Hill City and Custer, South Dakota
God’s Special Dirt Makes People Special
holy ground. Ground set apart and dedicated for God’s loving purposes. Holy ground. In Hebrew, Adamah Qodesh. Which is so cool, don’t you think? It’s been weeks since we’ve learned any Hebrew, so I’m sure your eager to unpack Adamah Qodesh this morning.
Qodesh is the noun form of the adjective which the Four Living Creatures sing as they fly around the throne of the Almighty: Qadosh, Qadosh, Qadosh, Holy, Holy, Holy, is the LORD God Almighty. Qodesh is a noun, which means the quality of holiness, of being dedicated, set apart for God’s purpose.
Ground in Hebrew is adamah. And if you’re thinking you hear an echo of a certain famous someone’s name, you’d be right. The LORD God formed Adam, the man, from the dust of the adamah, the ground. Man was formed from the ground, Adam from the adamah. God’s fondness for inspiring plays on words in the Bible began already in Genesis 2, and continues throughout the Good Book.
The Angel, or Messenger of the LORD comes down and occupies the bush on Mt. Horeb, where Moses was tending sheep. The presence of the Angel makes the bush burn, but does not consume it. This flaming mystery served to attract the attention of Moses, to draw him near, in order that he might hear and deliver the LORD’s message to Pharaoh.
But not too near. The presence of God’s Messenger made the ground, the dirt beneath and around that bush, to be holy, special, set apart for God’s purpose. And of course anything taken and used by the LORD will also be made sinless, since He is without sin. Holiness includes and presupposes sinlessness. So the sinner Moses bowed his head to the ground and took off his sandals.
This Angel, this Messenger of the LORD does a mysterious thing: He speaks as God Himself. Moses is afraid to look at the bush, for he is afraid to look at God. Somehow sent from the LORD, and yet also being the LORD, this Messenger is more fully revealed on the Mount of Transfiguration. Jesus (whose name, btw, means “the LORD saves”), took Peter, James and John up on the holy mountain and revealed a bit of the glory that was hidden within His flesh. The Son of Mary is the New Adam, the New Man, who is also God. And so, from His flesh shines forth glory, the glory which gives light to heaven. The glory of God was always present in the flesh of Jesus, but it was normally hidden. The Lord at the Transfiguration revealed His glory, for a few moments, to Peter, James and John.
The Transfiguration kicks off Jesus’ march toward Jerusalem, where He would rescue His people from the dominion of Sin and Satan. This is much like the encounter some two millennia earlier, when God met Moses at the Burning Bush, to kick off the Exodus, God’s rescue of His people Israel from the wicked domination of Pharaoh. This similarity makes sense, since truly, the Exodus and the Passion of Christ are two stages in the same story, one prophetic and foreshadowing, the other messianic and fulfilling. The first shows God’s Way of restoring His fallen humanity, and the second finishes the project.
Adam, made from the adamah, had brought curses down, on himself, and every other part of God’s good creation. The very ground, the adamah from which he was formed, was cursed because of Adam’s sin. But God loves the ground; He loves His whole creation. Amazingly, God even loves us, the sinners who invite all the tribulations and struggles that we see in the world. The ground is cursed when we sin, when we abandon God’s holy, special, set-apart will for our lives, and instead chose our own way, thinking we can live independently from the Creator. Adam did it first, and we all have naturally followed in his way. By our nature, we cut ourselves off from the only source of life, the only source of goodness and love, and make ourselves unholy.
Which is the height of foolishness and the greatest tragedy. For the LORD is the great I AM. He is not some petty god, like Zeus or Thor or Osiris, pretend gods who are subject to error and failure and defeat. I AM who I AM, declares God, the One Being from whom all other beings, all other existence, flows and depends. The One Source. The One True God, who always has been and always will be. Our existence, and our happiness, now and for eternity, depend entirely on Him.
So Adamah Qodesh, holy ground, is decidedly good news. For at the Burning Bush the Holy, Holy, Holy LORD God Almighty began to show that He is willing to get down into the dirt, to come down to His own adamah, in order to put right everything that Adam and Eve, and the rest of us, have made wrong. The ground re-made holy, as the LORD works to remake and sanctify fallen humanity.
This glorious truth of God’s complete commitment to our rescue is revealed on the Mount of Transfiguration. This is who Jesus of Nazareth is: the eternal Son of God, who entered time and took on flesh from the Virgin Mary. Jesus came to rescue humankind, by joining Himself most intimately, and forever, to our race.
Human life has dignity and value simply because God is our Creator, we are fearfully and wonderfully made. But even more, we are sanctified, made holy. We have the highest value in God’s eyes, because Jesus became our Brother. Jesus honored our species by becoming one of us: in His humanity, like us in every way, except without sin, but in His divinity, in His God-ness, utterly higher and greater, the Source and Author of life, now also a Man, the New Adam.
The Transfiguration gives us a special window into why Christians are “for life.” Every human life has value, is worthy of love and protection, because Jesus came for every human life. He came to shed His blood which covers all sin, all the sins of all the people, from Adam and Eve down to you, and you, and me.
At the Transfiguration, three of Jesus’ Apostles glimpse Jesus’ glory, which would help them as they followed Jesus on the long, dark road to Golgotha. To be sure, knowing Jesus held the glory of heaven within His body must have made His suffering and death that much harder to understand. But on the third day, glory returns.
Jesus left the Tomb with a glorified
heavenly body, which He revealed now and again, over 40 days, to His chosen Apostles
and disciples, that they be restored and forgiven and empowered to carry His
message of repentance and mercy to the ends of the earth.
And so, we Christians live differently. I for one, as an American citizen living on the ground in 2024, am tempted to depression about the coming year, and the mud that is sure to fly politically. Hopefully nothing worse than mud will fly. Our nation and our polity seem frayed and brittle. Violence between neighbors and nations, fighting over internet memes and worthless patches of ground, is on the rise. I pray the Lord will bring us through this year without major troubles, but I’m not confident that this is His will. Enough said. I have my worries, and you have yours. But as Christians, we know better. The One who revealed His glory on the Mount and fulfilled His glory on the Cross now rules in heavenly glory, at the Father’s right hand. The events in this world are not beyond His control. We know how this all ends, for each individual believer, and for the Church in total.
We may suffer. We may have to live through uncertain and even dangerous times. But my future and your future, the future of Christ’s Church is absolutely secure, secure in the nail-scarred hands of the New Adam, Jesus our Savior. Even now He is interceding for us before the throne of heaven, guaranteeing our future glory, by His victorious reign. And so we Christians lift up our heads. Trusting in the wonderful future that is ours, we are bold to speak and act and even sacrifice for other human lives. Because our life is guaranteed glorious.
Freed from fear by the Ascended Christ, Christians also see others with the eyes of Christ, who came to be the Savior of all. We learn to value others specially, selflessly, faithfully. To be sure, loving our fellow man is not always easy. We ourselves are not, on our own account, all that loveable. But we are not lovely or loveable on our own account; we are lovely to God, beloved even, because we are joined to Jesus Christ by Baptismal faith. And the Spirit who drew us to Christ is capable and is seeking to draw all men, women and children to Jesus. And so, let’s pray to the Lord of the harvest to impress us with a bountiful multiplication of His Church. Let’s even dare to fight for life, with truth and love, to fight in the public square, and in our private lives. Let us ask God to make us as innocent as doves and as shrewd as serpents, as we fight against the wolves who devalue and seek to end innocent lives.
Nineteen months ago, in the Dobbs decision, the Supreme Court ended the deadly tyranny of a nationalized “right” to unfettered access to abortion throughout nine months of pregnancy. This was a good thing. But we should not have been surprised that the enemies of life have fought back fiercely. States with strong pro-death movements are even promoting abortion tourism. Human life is still devalued in much of our society and the world. Abortion is hardly the only threat to the sanctity of human life. The fight has changed, but it goes on, just as it has since the Garden of Eden. Sadly, this fight will continue until the Father calls time, and the Son returns on the clouds in glory.
And precisely because the fight goes on, our opportunity to be part of God’s rescue continues. In the midst of death, there is life, because of Jesus. In the midst of the sometimes brutal struggle for life, there are always opportunities for the Holy Spirit to use our words, our confession of Christ and His glorious love for life, to convert our enemies, to bind up the broken-hearted, to give new life and joy to the hopeless.
And so, God grant that we Christians continue to be about the work of loving life. We are eternally optimistic because Jesus is risen and reigns on high. We are continually compassionate, because God has poured out His compassion on us. We are hopeful in the midst of troubles, because in Jesus, we have perfect hope.
As Peter, James and John hid their faces on the holy ground of the Mount of Transfiguration, they received strength for their journey, through their glimpse of Jesus’ hidden glory. That was great. But, as Peter writes, we have something more sure, the prophetic Word, the Holy Scripture, which tells the finished story of Jesus’ victory. This prophetic Word, the Word of Christ, has the power to save.
In His Word and in His life, Jesus has declared us holy. Today, He continues to make the dusty ground of this troubled world to be holy, wherever and whenever His Gospel is spoken, in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.
Thank you.
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