Claimed, gathered and sent

This is the sermon I preached on Sunday, 2/11/24 at St. Timothy Lutheran Church . The text was Mark 9:2-9 . You probably thought I misspoke when I said “transformed” instead of “transfigured” in the reading of this morning’s gospel. However, in Greek, they are the same word. It is the same word used in Romans, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed…” and in 2 Cor. 3:18, “And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.” In these verses, I hear echoes of Jesus’ transfiguration/transformation. Let’s look more closely at these events. Moses represents the law, while Elijah represents the prophets. Both ascended to God at their deaths, as will Jesus. Their appearance is beyond what most people think is possible. In scripture, there are numerous signs of God’s presence. The cloud is one such mysterious sign....

This is the sermon I preached on Sunday, 2/11/18 at St. Timothy Lutheran Church . The text is Mark 9:2-9 . The other night, Ray and I were watching the old tv show, “The Twilight Zone” on Netflix. The story was about a man from the 1800s, Wild West, who was suddenly transported to 20th century, downtown Manhattan. At night, he was surrounded by cars with horns blaring, buses, bright neon lights flashing and so on. It was more than he could stand and he nearly went out of his mind. What if the scene were reversed? What if someone from our time found him or herself as a witness of Jesus’ transfiguration? We can explain so much in our world—from volcanoes to northern lights to germs and disease transmission. What do we do when we are confronted with something so amazing, otherworldly and unexplainable? Three of the disciples went with Jesus to a high mountain. This tips us off that something big is going to happen. Throughout scripture important revelations happen on mountains...