Sermon for February 27

May God’s grace, mercy, and peace be with you, through God the Father, and the Son Christ Jesus, our Lord and Savior. Amen.

Have you ever witnessed something that you just couldn’t explain? I would imagine every sermon you’ve heard about the Transfiguration mentioned something about how this event is unexplainable, at least in human terms. And I’m certainly not going to make a feeble attempt, either. What I would like to do is to get you think about its importance for a few minutes and how some of the side bar actions are as important.

First, Epiphany began this and every year on January 6, and we celebrated the first Sunday of Epiphany with the Baptism of our Lord. Luke writes that “when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’” The voice, God, the Father was telling Jesus who he is.

So, on this day, February 27, Epiphany ends with the Transfiguration of our Lord. It was during this time Jesus revealed himself to us as the Messiah. And it was there on the mountain with Moses and Elijah, and Peter, James, and John that a voice was heard. “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!” Now God is telling the disciples who Jesus is. This is the progression of the whole season of Epiphany. Paraphrasing, “This Son of mine is the one who is going to the cross for you.”

About a week before this, Peter had declared that Jesus was the Messiah of God. And when Jesus told him and the other disciples that he mut suffer many things and ultimately be killed, Peter was rebuked. You see, Peter was not listening. He was not listening on the mountain at the Transfiguration. He only responded with something about building three shelters for the group. It was like he wanted to commemorate the place. He had forgotten about what Jesus told him about the cost of discipleship and all that went with that.

Peter is a lot like us. Maybe he’s supposed to represents us. Open mouth, insert foot. He half-way listens and then blurts something out.

But why did Jesus go up on the mountain in the first place? He went up to pray. And it was while he was praying, his face was changed, and his clothes became dazzling white.

If you remember, when Jesus was baptized, he was praying when the Holy Spirit descended on him, and the voice was heard.

Luke seems to emphasize praying in his gospel. We remember Jesus praying before he fed the crowds. He prayed before his arrest with the same three that witnessed the Transfiguration sleeping nearby. Jesus prayed—he prayed to his Father.

A few years ago, I heard the story of a young man who had to carry his new wife to the hospital emergency room on a Sunday afternoon. She was in pain and needed treatment. They had carried her back into one of the exam rooms, but he had to stay in the waiting room. Some time went by, and he had heard nothing from anyone about the condition of his wife. After getting impatient, he started asking about the condition of his wife, but no one could give him an answer. After exhausting all efforts to find out something, he said the only thing he could do was to pray.

It sounds like his praying was his last resort when it should have been the first. Prayer is our communication with our Creator, Healer, and Savior. While knows what we’re going to pray before we utter the words, we need to hear our own words and how we say them to the Almighty.

Sometimes we are like Peter. We don’t think. We don’t think about praying to God. It becomes our last resort. If we can’t fix something ourselves, then we pray.

The power of prayer is beyond our comprehension. We may not get what we’re asking for, but you can be assured that in whatever situation you will be comforted. You will be comforted. God loves to hear our petitions, our prayers of repentance, our prayers of praise.
Our world has changed drastically in the last ten days or so. Not only do we need to pray for all those on our prayer list, but we need to pray for the world and its leaders. We need to prayer for the people caught in a power struggle in Eastern Europe. We need to pray for peace and stability there and in the Far East. We need to pray for those leaders who don’t understand the concept of a god, much less a loving, caring, and merciful One.

In our worship folder we say that we are a confessing congregation, and that is true. We also need to be a praying congregation, praying for each other and praying for our neighbor, no matter how far away that neighbor might be.