Sexagesima - Sowing Seed and Sown Perfection

Sexagesima - Scripture (Word) Alone - February 3, Year of Our + Lord 2013

Trinity and St. John Lutheran Churches, Sidney and Fairview, MT

Sowing Seed and Sown Perfection – Luke 8:4-15

Vicar Jason Toombs

In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God.  All things were made through Him, and without Him was not any thing made that was made. God’s Word is a creative Word, it does what it is sent out to do.  God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.  God says, “Let there be,” and there is.  His Word is creative, powerful, and surprising.  His is a creative Word, creating the heavens and the earth.  Powerful enough to stop the roaring of the waves and the blowing of the wind.  And it’s surprising because it saves.  It saves where He sends it forth to save, where He promises that it saves.  It is a saving Word where He combines it with elements, water, bread and wine, and where He has promised to be, in His Word.

God sowed the seed through His Word saying, “Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, each according to its kind, on the earth.”  And it was so.  And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there He put the man whom He had formed.  The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  God created man to work in the garden, tending the trees, picking the fruit, and caring for His creation.  God’s Word is a sowing word and He has sown perfection in the garden of Eden.  But in the garden strove the slithering serpent, that crafty creeper, the deceiving devil who put a thought into the ear, “Did God really say?”  Is His Word really true?  Listening.  Eating.  Falling.  Open eyes seeing evil for the first time: nakedness, shame, and sorrow. 

And God calls out to the man and his wife, “Where are you?”  Unhidden.  Regretful.  Blaming.  And God spoke, speaking His Word of compassion, forgiveness, and promise:  To the serpent, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring, He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.”  The promise of God’s Word coming to rescue and redeem man and woman first spoken in the Garden is there in the person of Jesus, broadcasting the Word to the crowd.

“A sower went out to sow His seed.”  The seed is the Word of God.  God sows His seed abundantly, not caring if it falls on hard hearts or is choked out by the cares of this world.  He is constantly letting out His Word, putting it into the ear of sinners who need to hear His Word of comfort, assurance, and salvation.  The Word is a comfort when life seems to get the better of you, struggling to make ends meet, or tempted by the cares of this world with its message of “take the easy way out, nobody needs to know.”  The Word is there to assure you that God is always with you, even to the end of the age, promising to never leave you nor forsake you, and He is your solid foundation when life is rough.  God’s Word is a saving Word: For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life; Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; As for the seed in the good soil, they are those who, hearing the Word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patience.

Jesus, God’s Word, is in their midst, preaching and teaching.  He is preaching God’s Word from the Old Testament.  He is teaching the people, teaching them in parables, so that seeing that may not see, and hearing they may not understand.  But to His apostles He explains what the parables mean, so they will be able to preach and teach the people.  From the apostles we have God’s Word written for us in Holy Scripture so we can know what God has done for us.  As Paul writes, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”  We only know the saving God through His Word written for our learning.  We can look at the beauty of God’s majesty, His wonderful creation.  We know some things about who God is, the Righteous Judge, we know His power and law as it is written on our hearts but we can’t know His mercy.  We can’t know God as a loving God except through His Word.  To know who God is and what He has done for us we have to dig into His Word.  And He has spoken to us through His prophets.

God, speaking through Isaiah the prophet, says, “So shall my Word be that goes out from My mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.”  God has promised that His Word does things, the Word of God accomplishes what it is sent out to do.  The Word is sent to breathe life into hard hearts, hearts that have been hardened by years and years of turning away from God at every turn.  In the nursing home, in the hospital, and in the home when the Word of God is being read, people who we know have turned their back to God are hearing to His Word and the promises of God for the first time in years.  His Word is constantly working, digging past all the hurt, all the pain and sorrow, and reaching its target, turning that hard heart to Christ and His saving work. 

God, speaking through the writer to the Hebrews, says, “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”  God’s Word goes forth from His mouth and is sharper than any two-edged sword.  His Word has two main forms: Law and Gospel.  The Law kills, it shows us our sin, and the Gospel makes alive, it shows us our Savior. 

The Law is spoken to those who sin, it is spoken to us, us who are comfortable in our sin, whichever they may be.  You have given into temptation, listened to the world to take the easy way out instead of continuing in the way that leads to salvation.  The cares of the world and its ever incessant cry of bigger, better, faster, these are alluring.  The world tries to get you to focus on your wants, your desires, instead of the things which God has given to you.  Are you more excited about the upcoming game, the commercials, and the halftime show than what God is giving to you at His table today?  He comes to give you life and salvation found only in His beloved Son.  Is your mind running through a checklist of things to do before the game starts?  Maybe it’s not the Super Bowl for you, but do you keep your mind focused on God’s Word during the service?

And the Gospel is spoken to those who grieve over their sin.  That means it is spoken to us who are afflicted by the law, who ask, “Where can I turn?”  The Gospel points you to Him who comes to you to rescue and redeem you.  Rescue you from the world, He calls you out of it, away from its temptation and to Him who is seated on the heavenly throne.  He is there with you throughout your life, forgiving you when you have fallen from the way of salvation, bringing you back to Himself and His Word, giving you life and light that is found only in Him.  Listen to Him, focus your mind on Jesus, the Word of God, and hear the good news.  For Christ’s sake you are forgiven, even for when your mind wanders during the sermon, wandering to the game, the friends, and the party that you will have later.  He comes to you through your excitement and in your sorrow, through joy and tribulation, constantly calling you back to Himself, calling you to His gracious arms.  Our gracious God is the forgiving Father, the saving Son, and the sustaining Spirit.  He is constantly there for you, forgiving you as you repent of your evil words and deeds, saving you from death and hell, and sustaining you throughout the sorrow and pain of life. 

God’s Word lays bear your heart.  He knows your passions, your lusts, your sorrow, and your pain.  Nobody can hide their heart from God, as no creature is hidden from His sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.  Before God everyone is naked.  You may try to cover yourself with fig leaves but it is all to no avail.  The only covering that you can trust in is the one who has given you His Word.  And in His Word He has promised to provide a covering that works, a covering in baptism where He washes you clean, and you emerge from the water dripping in His bloody death and are covered in a white robe, His robe of righteousness.  You have been raised from death to life by the water and the Word, raised to live a new life in Him.  You emerge from the baptismal water every day, having been cleansed by God. 

You pass the font, the reminder of your baptism, and come to His table, a table prepared with His meal for you.  The Word has softened your hard heart, even more a new heart is given to you.  A heart that sees Jesus as the crucified Christ, the one who died and rose for you.  As the Word from Hebrews says, you have entered God’s Sabbath rest, resting with Jesus in the tomb, resting as you sit listening to the beloved Son of God.  Resting in His promises and His proclamation for you.

The Word of God is still being proclaimed in our day.  His Word is still being cast without care, cast into every passing ear, and every hard heart.  Sometimes it lands, a little at a time, gradually causing people to question their motives, their past actions, and look for a certain hope.  Other times it lands with a thud waking someone up to their actions, how they have turned away from the faith into which they were baptized and how they must be turned, like a horse by bit and bridle, turned back to the gracious God who called them by name.  Even if we don’t see the work of the Word, it is still working, still doing what God sent it forth to accomplish. 

And we rejoice when the seed of the Word of God falls into good soil and grows to yield a hundredfold.  We know that these have heard the Word, hold it fast in their hearts, and bear fruit.  Whether the Word is working on a little baby, a toddler on the knee of grandma or granddad, or a friend that we talk with, or on you and me.  The sowing Word is constantly on the lips of God and He has sown perfection in His Son and those who are found in Him.  We rejoice that the Word of God is living and active and bringing people to faith.  Amen.

Septuagesima - By Grace Alone

St. John and Trinity Lutheran Churches, Fairview and Sidney, Montana

Septuagesima Sunday, January 27^th, Year of Our + Lord 2013

Septuagesima - Grace Alone            Matthew 20:1-16

     Septuagesima.  Sep-tu-a- ges-ima.  What is that? 

     Septuagesima means seventy, in late Latin, I think, and it is the name given in the historic one year lectionary to the third Sunday before Ash Wednesday.  Septuagesima, seventy, Sexagesima, sixty, and Quinquagesima, fifty, these are the names given centuries ago by the Church to the three Sundays of the pre-Lent time, a kind of bridge from Epiphany, which closes the Christmas season, to Lent, which opens the Easter season.  The idea is that these Gesima Sundays are fifty, sixty and seventy days before Easter.  Of course, since each Sunday is only 7 days apart, a difference of ten in the counting for each week doesn’t quite make sense.  But hey, the Church is full of theologians, not mathematicians. 

     We’ve switched to the one year, old-school lectionary, with its old-school names like Septuagesima, switching for a number of reasons, not least interesting perhaps being that it matches well with the old-school look of our vicar.  I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Vicar Toombs has a very old-school beard.  Wild and wooly.  Old school, as in the early days of the LCMS, when church men wore mighty beards.  Indeed Vicar’s beard is very CFW Waltheresque, very much reminiscent of the facial hair of the 19^th century founder of our Synod.  You might even think Vicar’s facial hair is like an Old Testament prophet.  It also happens to be very hip these days, to let your beard grow where it wills, gnarly and free.  So celebrating an old timey sounding Sunday like Septuagesima this year when we are enjoying the service of Vicar Toombs just seems to fit, doesn’t it?    

     Well, anyway, we have the readings of Septuagesima before us today.  The three traditional Pre-Lenten Gospel readings for these Gesima Sundays were set centuries and centuries ago, long before the Reformation, and yet they serve very well to highlight three great “Solas” of the Reformation:  Grace Alone, Scripture Alone, and Faith Alone,– demonstrating once again that the Lutherans weren’t changing anything essential in the Reformation of the Church, just clearing up the clutter that had accrued onto, the clutter that was obscuring the Gospel. 

     Luther and his fellow reformers were scraping off the barnacles from the ship of salvation, barnacles like purgatory and indulgences, the sacrifice of the mass, and the forced celibacy of priests.  All of these false teachings grow from the granddaddy of all barnacles, works righteousness, the anti-Biblical idea, indeed the Satanic idea that Christ’s way of salvation includes a requirement for works by us sinners, the unbiblical teaching that we sinners can and must in some measure earn our own salvation.  By the year 1517 these works-righteous barnacles seemed to be nearly running the ship of the Church aground.  Christ was presented as an angry judge, and salvation as a long, difficult climb up a ladder of good works, a ladder that stretched beyond your physical death, many rungs remaining for you to climb in purgatory.  There was precious little teaching of Christ for sinners, of forgiveness, or of our utter inability to earn salvation.  This last, desperate news, that there isn’t any work we sinners can do that can earn God’s favor, this frightening truth makes us ready to hear about God’s free gift of salvation, by the Cross of Christ.  But these things were rarely being preached in 1517; such was the state of the Church, 500 years ago. 

     So thanks be to God for raising up Luther and thousands of others who proclaimed the Truth of Grace Alone, Faith Alone, Scripture Alone.  Still, today, Churches and pastors and Christians still try to attach barnacles to the hull of free salvation in Christ, but this Truth is certainly much more available today than it was before Luther.  Available, but still, somehow, not always believed.  But I digress.  Suffice it to say, as we approach Ash Wednesday and another Lenten journey to the cross, nothing could be better for our faith and life together than a review of the basics, how it is that God saves us, so that we will be resting in this good news, as we come to Ash Wednesday, to face the trials and bitter repentance of Lent.  And so, regardless of what Vicar Toombs may choose to do with his beard, we are blessed today to focus on Grace alone, next week on Scripture alone, and the following on Faith alone. 

     Grace alone.  God saves sinners because He wants to, it is pure gift, springing from His heart, which overflows with love and gifts.  This teaching is all over the Bible.  Nothing in Adam and Eve, no good work by them, was the cause of the LORD’s promise to the Serpent.  The man and woman had just turned their backs on God, and the next thing you know, the Lord makes His promise, that the Seed of the Woman would come and crush the serpent’s evil head, breaking his sin-based power over mankind, by removing our sins from us. 

     In the same way, nothing about Abram’s character and holiness caused the LORD to choose him to be the Father of God’s special people, to be the original ancestor of the human family of the Christ.  Indeed, if you read the Scriptures through, you will discover again and again that these chosen instruments of God, like Abraham, Moses, David, Peter, and Paul, were in truth miserable sinners, saved and used by God by grace, totally apart from any merit in them.  Abraham tried to give his wife away, multiple times.  Moses was a killer, and was prone to losing his temper.  David was an adulterer and murdered his friend.  Peter denied Christ, and then later denied fellowship with Gentile Christians, in order to impress his Jewish friends.  Paul persecuted the Church of God, holding the coats of the mob as they stoned St. Stephen.  Such are the human heroes of the Bible. 

     We are all thoroughly sinful sinners, with nothing worthy to offer to God for our redemption.  But God is gracious, and so God saves us, by grace alone, that is as a free, undeserved gift.  God saves us, solely because God is love, and in love He wills to save.  Which He does, in the way that He knows is best. 

     Which brings us to our parable this morning, the parable of the workers in the vineyard.  The Master of the house, the owner of the Vineyard, is God.  The laborers are you and me, individual sinners called to enter and join in the work of the vineyard, which is to say to be a part of the Church Militant, the Church on earth.  Notice that the focus is not on the actual work that each laborer does in the vineyard – no, the key element in the parable is the call of the Master, who continually seeks out and brings the idle into His vineyard, all day long, guaranteeing each a reward, regardless of the amount or quality of their work.  The Master’s “hiring” is by grace, it’s free gift, unrelated to the value any laborer can or cannot offer in return.  This “hiring” is God’s converting call, perhaps best seen in our lives in our Baptism, a gracious selection by God of sinners, by which He brings them into His vineyard, His household, making them His very own, without any reference to their goodness, with no relationship to their merit, simply because God desires to make disciples of Jesus, by baptizing them. 

     But, while God is naturally gracious, we are naturally ungracious.  To coin a term, we are sinfulnaturally ungracious, from our sinful nature we resist sharing, and we also tend toward ungratefulness, unthankfulness.  From the newborn selfishly trying to monopolize the time and attention of Mom, to the toddler, refusing to share her toys, to the American public, which in survey after survey wants the government to shrink and spend less money, except don’t take away the programs that benefit me!  Don’t ask me to do without for the good of the whole.  Indeed, the most prosperous system yet discovered for living together on this planet, the free-market capitalist system, is a just-barely-held-in-check system of every man for himself, struggling to get all he can, more or less within a rule of law.  The free-market system is to many a thing of beauty, and it has done more for the material wealth and prosperity of more people than any other system.  But still, at its core it depends on our desire for more and more stuff, and on the government’s ability to keep our desires and selfishness operating within certain boundaries. 

     It’s how we are.  When we receive, we may be thankful for a moment, but how quickly we want more, how quickly we grow bored and dissatisfied with what yesterday fulfilled all our needs and wants.  This is clearly seen in God’s people, already back with Moses in the desert.  Consider their situation.  A few months earlier, they were a nation of slaves, laboring painfully under the whip in Egypt.  But the LORD through Moses had delivered them to freedom, God even causing the Egyptians to shower them with gifts on their way out of town.  When Pharaoh changed his mind and sent his chariots after them, the LORD led Israel on dry ground through the Red Sea.  Then the Lord re-purposed the walls of water He had held up for Israel, changing them into a weapon, which crashed down on Pharaoh’s army, destroying horse and rider.  Soon after that, when Israel could only find bitter waters, God told Moses to sweeten the waters at Marah with a stick.  When they were hungry, God sent manna and quail on the camp, day by day. 

    

      God had done all these things for Israel, in a matter of weeks.  But still, in today’s reading from Exodus, the Israelites are grumbling again, unhappy with the LORD’s provision, ungrateful and impatient for more and better gifts.  God’s people showed no patience, no trust, no thankfulness, even though the LORD had been blessing them so richly.  All this from a people who were living as slaves, seemingly forgotten by God just months earlier.  Ungracious, and ungrateful.

     As with Israel in the desert, so also with the workers in Jesus’ parable today.  None of them deserve to be brought into the Master’s household, none of them earned a spot in the vineyard.  And yet this is the call and promise of the Master, a promise He chooses to make, all day long, calling out again and again, “Come into my vineyard, join in my prosperity.”  The Master was full of grace.  How did the workers react?  The laborers hired first expected special, better treatment than those hired last, because that is how sinners naturally are, ungracious toward others, and ungrateful towards the Master.      

     I’m sure glad that you and I have at long last gotten over this ungracious, ungrateful problem.  I’m glad we are so naturally thankful and gracious, happy to share what we have with others, happy to see others praised and blessed, never jealous of the good fortune the LORD showers on another.  I’m so glad we never get possessive with the gifts God has given us.  We’re never upset that someone has parked in “our” parking spot, on that public street in front of work, never miffed that someone else is recognized for a kind act that we do all the time, never grumpy because someone else got the best seat in the student section at the basketball game, you know, the seat between the coolest guy and the prettiest girl, that seat that certainly I deserve, don’t I?  We’re never jealous that God is blessing someone else, maybe with an oil right and royalties that they didn’t do anything to earn it.  We never grumble that we’ve worked harder, that we’re just as deserving.    

     Unfortunately, ungratefulness and ungraciousness are still in our nature.  And while it can be funny, it’s really no laughing matter.  For the many and various ways we despise God’s gifts from yesterday and want new and better today, for the way we insist God should serve us in the way we think is best, for our ungrateful, ungracious, prideful hearts, we deserve to be cut off, kicked out of the vineyard, rejected by God.  Watch out. 

     It seems our gracious God has a problem:  how to give a free, priceless gift to people who claim a right to everything, people whose thankfulness passes away like the mist, whose gracious desire to share lasts but a moment?  Well, part of God’s solution is to warn us, with the example of the Israelites who despised God and died in the desert, with the example of all the Jews who saw the Savior, but rejected Him, and with the example of all the people we know who have heard and received and even confessed the Good News of salvation by Grace alone, but then despise God’s gift by living without Him, outside the fellowship of His Church.  Don’t be fooled, God is not mocked. 

     Part of God’s solution is to warn us, but then He does the continually unexpected.  When we are put in charge of unruly people, we warn, and then we punish, and then we warn, and give partial rewards as we get partial responses, the carrot and the stick.  This is not God’s way.  God does warn, but He  overcomes our ungratefulness… with more giving, even the supreme act of grace – Jesus doing all our works for us, and then also becoming sin for us.  It is as Jesus said, the first shall be last, and the last shall be first. 

     You see, Jesus was the very first, the greatest Man ever, and yet He, to overcome our ungratefulness, our sin, our pride, became the very last.  Hanging on a Cross, suffering in our place, utterly abandoned, Jesus became the lastest of all, so that we don’t have to be cast out.  And then, completing God’s grace, Jesus the Lastest, the crucified, despised one, became the very first, the firstest of all, the first-born of the dead, the ultimate gift of our loving God.  Jesus, crucified and resurrected, is the gift that makes new the ungrateful hearts of the very people who by their nature reject Him.  That is, Jesus creates new hearts, in you and me.  Jesus, dead in our place, and raised for our new life, uses the Word of His Grace to create new hearts in us, truly thankful hearts, by the forgiveness of our sins.  Jesus, by His Word of Grace helps us to rejoice in all our gifts, because in Him we realize that all our blessings come from the same God has saved us by His Cross.   

     Our old, ungrateful, ungracious, sinful natures still war against the thought of the complete free-giftedness of God’s salvation.  But God’s giving is greater than our selfishness, and His giving continues, day by day throughout our lives, for we are His chosen, baptized, free-gifted people.  By grace you have been saved, and nothing, not even your old sinful nature, will stop God from giving you the gift Jesus’ has won for you.  Go forth, in the grace, and joy, and peace of Christ, Amen. 

Of Mountain Tops and Valleys

The Transfiguration of Our + Lord, January 20, 2012

Trinity and St. John Lutheran Churches, Sidney and Fairview, MT

Of Mountain Tops and Valleys - Matthew 17:1-9

Vicar Jason Toombs

Which is sadder: a mountain top or a valley experience? 

There’s nothing like a mountain top experience.  You’ve reached the peak, as high as you can go, and nothing can stop you from reveling in the moment.  Views that take your breath away not just because of the view but because the air is thinner and crisper.  The brightness of the sun is kicked up a notch.  You can peer off in the distance and see all of God’s creation.  But when you come down you are often disappointed because life will never be that good again.  Sure, you can relive the moment in your mind but there’s nothing like a mountain top experience.  When life returns to normal it bogs you down.  Normal life isn’t exciting or thrilling.  It can’t match that feeling when you’ve been on top of the world.  Normal life, or as normal as it can be, is about the highs and the lows.  Sometimes you need to view things from a different perspective.

Valley experiences cause pain and sadness.  You’re at a low point.  The stress of the holidays gets to you.  The sun isn’t shining and the darkness starts to creep in.  You’ve spent so much time away from family and friends that you turn to something to take the pain away: sex, drugs, alcohol, or gambling.  You’ve been going it alone for so long that you don’t know when somebody wants to help you.  They’ve reached out to you but you turn away from them, “They don’t know the pain of an abortion.  They don’t know the pain of an addiction. They can’t help me.”  Pride or maybe shame rules your heart; you can’t let other people know your pain and agony.  You’ve made it this far on your own.  You need to push a little harder and you can make it.  Like Thomas the Tank Engine, you say, “I think I can, I think I can” not realizing that maybe some things in life are too big to overcome on your own.  Valleys are surrounded by hills or mountains; when you leave a mountain top the valley isn’t always far away.  But sometimes you need to view things from a different perspective.

We have all had those mountain top experiences.  When he got down on bended knee to ask for your hand in marriage.  When she said yes.  When the pastor announced to the congregation, “I now present to you Mr. and Mrs. ...”  When your favorite team won the big game against their rival.  When your team won the championship.  When the judge awarded you first place in the contest.  The agony and practice were all worth it when you stand on top of the world.  But what if things went a little differently?

We’ve all had those valleys in our lives.  Husband and wife, parent and child arguing with each other.  Neighbors arguing over pets and property lines.  Your team loses in a close battle or, worse, in a blowout.  You’re the favored team; you’re expected to win, but you fall short of winning the championship.  Life drags on and you think, what if?  What if we went left instead of going right?  What if I looked to the left once more and saw that car?  What if we got the message a little sooner about a loved one going to the hospital?  What if?

So I ask again, which is sadder: a mountain top or a valley experience?  Don’t answer too quickly because sometimes you need to view things from a different perspective.

Peter, James, and John his brother, went up a high mountain with Jesus.  They were going to have a mountain top experience, on a high mountain no less.  They had been with Jesus and knew that He went up on mountains to pray (Matt. 14:23).  They knew that going up mountains was not out of character for Jesus.  But this mountain was different.  They wouldn’t forget what happened on this mountain.  They had followed Jesus up the mountain when, what to their wondering eyes should appear, but Jesus transfigured, and boy did they peer.  They looked intently at His appearance, it was changed.  He was transfigured, He was transformed before them. 

His appearance was altered from how they normally saw Him.  His face shone like the sun, shining with His full radiance which He hid from their eyes.  His clothes became white as light.  White, pure, holy, radiating with the truth and light that Jesus is.  As St. John writes in the opening words of his gospel, “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:4-5).  Jesus came into this sin darkened world to bring light and life to you.  God’s word, this same Jesus, is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path (Psalm 119:105).  He is your light and shines upon you every day.  Last week we had the Paschal Candle, the Christ Candle, beside the baptismal font as we celebrated Jesus’ baptism.  We celebrated the light of the world being in our midst.  This celebration continues every Lord’s Day as the candles are lit to show Christ’s continued presence with us radiating from the cross.  But even when the candles are not lit at church He is still there with you because of His promise to you, “Lo, I am with you always” (Matt. 28:20).

And when Jesus was transfigured there were two other people talking with Him.  Moses and Elijah were having a conversation with Jesus about His exodus, His leaving the disciples and returning to His Father.  Moses had handed over what he received, the Law of God.  Elijah, one of the prophets standing in place for all of them, was God’s spokesman to Israel and the nations.  God had spoken by these two men, as well as many others.  “In many and various ways, God spoke to His people of old by the prophets. But now in these last days, He has spoken to us by His Son” (Evening Prayer Heb. 1:1-2a).  The Law and the Prophets were speaking with Jesus about Him.  The Law and the Prophets testify about Jesus and how He will save His people.  All people are His people; He came to rescue all people from the hand of the devil and bring them back to God.  He came for those who are having a mountain top experience and those who are in the valleys of life.

When Peter saw Jesus, Moses, and Elijah talking, he had a brilliant idea, “we should build tents, one for each of them.”  He wanted to stay on the mountain, to maintain the mountain top experience for as long as he could.  He went up to Jesus with this idea, “‘Tis Good, Lord, to Be Here” but while he was speaking a bright cloud overshadowed them. 

And a voice came from the cloud saying what we heard last week at Jesus’ baptism, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to Him.”  The beloved Son of God came down from heaven to die on the cross for everyone’s sin.  And Peter would have prevented Him by staying on the mountain rather than going down through the Kidron Valley.  Jesus walked through the Kidron Valley before He was crucified outside of Jerusalem on a hill.  Peter wanted to keep his mountain top experience with Jesus rather than going through the valley of death that was waiting for Jesus outside of Jerusalem. 

Peter’s mountain top experience would have prevented Jesus’ dying and rising for his sins.  Viewing Peter’s mountain top experience from the perspective of preventing the death and resurrection of Jesus would have been far sadder than losing his beloved friend and master.  As sad as the valley of death that awaited Jesus on the cross was, it is nothing compared to His not dying for our sins.  If He had not died for you, you would still be in your sins, you would still be in bondage to the devil, and there would be no hope for you. 

But thanks be to God because He has rescued you from your sins and the devil.  Jesus is your hope and sure foundation for your faith.  Jesus left the mountain top and travelled through the valley to the cross.  On the cross Jesus paid the ultimate price, giving His very blood to cover you, covering your sins.  Going further into the valley of sorrow He was placed into a tomb where He rested until He rose again on the third day.  He fulfilled all righteousness in His death and resurrection.  And He ascended higher than any mountain top, ascending back to the Father from whence He came. 

Jesus makes the mountain top experience that Peter wanted to maintain a valley experience as it would have prevented Him from going to the cross.  He also helps by making your valley experiences, the struggles that you are going through in your day to day life, better.  He lifts you up with a Word of promise when you are brought low by pain and agony.  He is there with you through your struggles of addiction helping you day by day and moment by moment.  He is there forgiving you when you can’t seem to forgive yourself for you past actions, your what ifs, and your pride and shame.  He is with you to remind you, “Lo, I am with you always,” even now shining His light to illumine the path of salvation that is found only in Him.  Jesus, your light, is there to shine on you in all of your dark days.  He gives you life and comforts you in your sadness and agony over your past actions: abortion, addiction, giving in to temptation wherever it is found.  Moses and Elijah, the Law and the Prophets, can only point you to Jesus, they can’t get you into heaven on their own.  There is no one but Jesus only for that.  And in Jesus you rise and have no fear because He is there to protect you.

Mountain top experiences are fun every now and then but they are nothing compared to the joys and experiences that you will have in heaven.  Throughout your life you will have mountains and valleys but these you shouldn’t focus upon. Instead, focus upon Jesus as He is your life and light.  Your trust and faith resides in the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  The beloved Son of the Father is there for you throughout the mountains and valleys of your life.  Listen to His words calling you to Him, “Rise, and have no fear.”