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Luke 9:28-36 - Lectionary for Transfiguration C

2/28/2019

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2/28/19
Many churches throughout the world use a Bible reading schedule called a "lectionary." It's just a fancy word meaning "selected readings." Posts like this reflect on the readings for an upcoming Sunday or other Church holiday, as found in the three-year lectionary.

On Sunday of the Transfiguration we often think about how Jesus has changed our world, how He uses us as agents of change, how we are personally changed into His image, and other similar ideas. These are well and good, make no mistake. However, I question whether they are the main point of the event, recorded for us in Luke 9:28-36. To dig into that, I’d like to ask what Jesus was talking with Moses and Elijah about. Actually, as I let you peek behind the curtain of my writing just a little bit, let’s revise that careless statement. I’d like to ask what Moses and Elijah were talking with Jesus about. That’s where the focus is.

Moses and Elijah were talking with Jesus about “his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem” (v. 31b, ESV). This is a very literal translation of the Greek. However, the word “accomplish” might have more of a sense of “fulfill.” In fact, that’s the word which is used, but it doesn’t make very good English. Jesus is about to go to Jerusalem and from there he will complete his journey and fulfill his purpose. In a certain sense, his earthly work will have been accomplished. This doesn’t mean, of course, that there’s nothing else to be done. After all, he continues to use his people and to work in them, changing them into his image. Yet the essence of what he came to do - living a perfectly sinless life, dying in the place of sinners, and rising again from the dead - all that is accomplished. There’s nothing more to be done. That’s what Jesus was talking about when, on the cross, he said “it is finished.”

I encourage you, in this season when we remember Jesus, transfigured, shining bright, to give thanks to him for knowing his mission and completing it. Truly, he accomplished his departure. We have no need to worry about anything being forgotten, because he has done every last step needed for us and for our salvation, to purchase our forgiveness, and the forgiveness of the whole world.

If this brief meditation was helpful to you, I hope you will check out the other materials on our website at www.WittenbergCoMo.com and consider supporting us.

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Hebrews 3:1-6 - Lectionary for Transfiguration C

2/27/2019

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2/27/19
Many churches throughout the world use a Bible reading schedule called a "lectionary." It's just a fancy word meaning "selected readings." Posts like this reflect on the readings for an upcoming Sunday or other Church holiday, as found in the three-year lectionary.

Hebrews 3:1-6 reminds God’s people to remember Jesus. This should be a surprising statement. Then again, when we consider much of modern American Christianity, Jesus is pretty hard to find. I’m constantly seeing articles about how to make Christianity relevant to our larger culture. Sadly, these methods rarely seem to focus on discovering Him in Scripture, considering His claims, reviewing how He fulfilled many detailed prophecies, or gathering together purposely around Word and Sacrament. Want to be more relevant? Talk about social issues in church. Want to be more welcoming? Don’t throw anything difficult at people. Want to be more inclusive? Try purposely celebrating people’s different cultural, sexual, or religious backgrounds. Anything but Christ crucified for sinners, and every last human being bound by sin, needing rescue by Jesus’ death in our place.

It’s time to get back to the Scripture. In Hebrews 1-2, Jesus is described as the great and mighty Lord of all, spoken of in advance throughout the Bible. He is the one irreplaceable in all our theology and, therefore, in all our life. We neglect him at our great peril. Remember Jesus, the apostle and high priest. He is the one sent from above (apostle) to work forgiveness and reconciliation with God (priest). He was faithful in all that he came to do. He deserves all our honor and respect.

Maybe this makes us uncomfortable. We are used to being the center of our universe, or at least being encouraged and rewarded when we decide to do what’s right in caring for others. We like that role. But it isn’t the one the Bible gives us. If all our service to others, all our care, all our concern is driven by our own concept of what the world is like, we have forgotten what it means to be Christian. Above all, to be Christian is to remember Christ, who has redeemed the world and uses us as his instruments to call others to his grace. If we want to call ourselves Christian, let us remember Christ.

If this brief meditation was helpful to you, I hope you will check out the other materials on our website at www.WittenbergCoMo.com and consider supporting us.

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Psalm 99 - Lectionary for Transfiguration C

2/26/2019

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2/26/19
Many churches throughout the world use a Bible reading schedule called a "lectionary." It's just a fancy word meaning "selected readings." Posts like this reflect on the readings for an upcoming Sunday or other Church holiday, as found in the three-year lectionary.

Our Psalm this week points out very clearly how the Lord loves justice and establishes equity. Most of us become very enthusiastic around a message like that. And well we should. These are very positive things. Yet our enthusiasm tends to cool a little bit, maybe a lot, when we consider the nature of justice and equity.

In the Bible, God is the one who establishes what justice and equity are. When we consider them, we always look through the lens of our fallen world. We always perceive it with fallen eyes. We will never be completely accurate. We simply don’t have the eternal perspective that the Lord does. While he understands all the outcomes of actions and attitudes through all the steps of forever, we struggle to look beyond the next few steps. While God knows how the world works, in every detail, we have to imagine some. And while God does in fact consider every life situation, there are some we willfully choose to disregard, either because we don’t care or because it hurts to think about them.

To put it in the briefest, most pointed way I can, God who created and sustains everything, knows what is good and bad, and He will not ignore that dynamic. We are not God, and we should be very glad. If we were God, we would run things according to our fallen natures and it would be a terrible disaster.

God is the one who establishes justice and works equity. But notice he does it through fallen and sinful humans, like Moses, Aaron, and Samuel. He used them, flaws and all, to accomplish his purpose in the world. May he also redeem our failings and use us individually.

If this brief meditation was helpful to you, I hope you will check out the other materials on our website at www.WittenbergCoMo.com and consider supporting us.

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Deuteronomy 34:1-12 - Lectionary for Transfiguration C

2/25/2019

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2/25/19
Many churches throughout the world use a Bible reading schedule called a "lectionary." It's just a fancy word meaning "selected readings." Posts like this reflect on the readings for an upcoming Sunday or other Church holiday, as found in the three-year lectionary.

Moses, called a prophet in Deuteronomy 34:1-12, saw God face to face, led the people of Israel toward receiving their promise, and, finally, died in the wilderness without personally receiving the promise. Yet the people of Israel didn’t consider him a failure. Not by any means. Personally receiving the promise of God in this life is a wonderful thing. It’s what we all hope for, it’s the stuff of dreams. Yet generation after generation of God’s people died without receiving all of God’s promise.

Here, the promise is that which had been given to Abraham some 500 years earlier. God would bless Abraham, give him offspring, a land of promise, and make him a mighty nation through whom the whole world would be blessed. For generation after generation, the people who believed the promise to Abraham died in faith, not receiving the promise. They had an offspring. They were, at least in some ways, a blessing to other nations, as they did a lot of the dirty work of the Egyptians. But they didn’t have the land and they had trouble seeing some of God’s blessings.

There’s a very important principle we learn in Scripture, illustrated in the life, work, and death of Moses. God’s promises are real promises. The fact that we die before inheriting them all the way does not invalidate them. God’s promise is true and good. It will come to pass. He won’t let a little thing like the death of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, or the many others leading up to Moses stand in the way. He won’t let the death of his anointed King David stand in the way of his promise to make of David a great and eternal kingdom. He won’t let anything stand in the way of his preservation of a remnant people who could trust his promises. The promises are good and true.

How has God promised to bless his people? They will have a land, an inheritance, and an eternal king on the throne of David. They will be rescued from all evil. This happens in Jesus, the Messiah. Granted, he dies, but he rises again from the dead. In his death and resurrection he shows that not only heaven and earth, but life and death belong to him. He himself is the promise of God. So what of Moses? Moses died in faith, trusting that he was also a partaker of God’s promise. He was perfectly all right, even after death, just as God’s promise is perfectly valid, even when it is beheld by those of us who are limited in our earthly life. The Lord makes an eternal promise which is just as real, just as valid, just as certain as it was when he first made it. Thanks be to God, the God of promise.

If this brief meditation was helpful to you, I hope you will check out the other materials on our website at www.WittenbergCoMo.com and consider supporting us.

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