Sermon for the Last Sunday after the Epiphany, March 2, 2025

Exodus 34:29-35+Psalm 99+2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2+Luke 9:28-43a

As I have mentioned before, this season of Epiphany is especially long this year, although on rare occasions it can run for eight Sundays rather than the seven we have observed since those magi arrived in Bethlehem. The word epiphany simply means an appearance or manifestation, and the liturgical season of Epiphany is that time when Jesus is revealed - appears - as the promised messiah, the savior of the world. The season always begins with the coming of the magi and then Jesus's baptism, but each of the three years of the cycle of lectionary readings has its own special focus for the remaining Sundays.

In Year A when Matthew is the principal gospel, we have the calling of the disciples and then three Sundays of the Sermon on the Mount. In Year B, we have Mark with the calling of the disciples, healings, and the casting out of demons. Each year also includes a Sunday from of John. In Matthew's year, it is John pointing out Jesus as the Lamb of God. In Mark's year, it is the calling of Philip and Nathanael. In our current Year C, we heard the story from John 2 about the wedding in Cana and the changing of water into wine. What is different about Luke's Epiphany readings is that they rely less on miracles, signs, and wonders than on the things Jesus says, the words that he uses.

Remember that we heard him read from the Isaiah scroll in the synagogue in Nazareth letting people now what he was about - freeing captives, giving sight to the sightless, bringing Good News to the poor. If we had not celebrated the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple the following Sunday, we would have had a continuation of that synagogue scene with the people getting mad and wanting to toss him off a cliff because he said that he didn’t just come for them. The next Sunday, he tells Peter and the others that they would become fishers of people, and then we heard Luke's version of the beatitudes in the Sermon on the Plain. Yes, there have been some healings, but most of what we know about Jesus so far in Luke is what he tells us. We can witness who he is not just in what he says but in how. He stands in a boat with the fisherfolk. He comes down from the mountain. He speaks to people and encounters them where they are, and these are not people who are accustomed to having anyone seek them out. He is teaching them in action as well as in words.

On the final Sunday of Epiphany in all three years, we come to the Transfiguration, that last astonishing display of supernatural voices and the appearance of the two great prophets of old. Even still, Luke is distinct in how this is framed. Mark and Matthew simply say that Jesus took Peter, James, and John and went up the mountain and there he was transfigured, as if that was the purpose of going up the mountain. Not Luke. For Luke, the purpose of going up the mountain was to pray, and it was during the time that he was praying that "his face changed, and his clothes became as bright as a flash of lightning" (Luke 9:29). Throughout Luke's gospel especially, everything that happens to Jesus, everything that he does, occurs as a result of his connection with God, his taking time away from the crowds to pray. It is the intense connection with divinity that reveals to his followers the particular identity and purpose of the one that they follow. It's not just the amazing wonders that he performs; it's how he lives a singular life of connection with the God he calls Father. And after coming down from the mountain, his healing of the boy when his disciples could not is another signal that they are not ready for prime time, they have not developed a deep rootedness in prayer and relationship with God by whom such healings are possible.

One other difference in this transfiguration scene to note. It is the only one that mentions that the three - Moses, Elijah, and Jesus - were talking about Jesus's "departure" (9:31), but the word actually used here is ἔξοδος, his going out. Obviously, the connection is with the liberation of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, but Jesus's departure does not simply refer to his death and resurrection, because that final departure comes with the Ascension into heaven whence he came. It is the fulfillment of the Incarnation that began with the Angel Gabriel. It is the story of our liberation through the birth, life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ in glory. It is all of a piece.

And we are part of it.

We are in a long continuum of people who have beheld a world that falls short of the paradise that God created, that God has intently been working to restore, and we are co-laborers with God in that.

But the labor can be overwhelming. The needs of the world are too great. The battles seem endless, and the foes arrayed against us are powerful.

Remember, though, what Luke tells us about Jesus. He stays connected with God through prayer and solitude. He gathers people around him - not the experts and not the powerful but people like you and me - and he shows us what it means to follow him. Love God. Love each other. Feed the hungry. Tend the sick. House the houseless. Until he comes again, we cannot separate ourselves behind doors or up on some mountaintop. As a community of faith, we show the world around us what love looks like and what the power of love can do.

Looking ahead toward a new season in our Church year, I will close this one with the words of the Apostle Paul that we heard a few moments ago:

Therefore, since it is by God's mercy that we are engaged in this ministry, we do not lose heart
(2 Corinthians 4:1).

We do not lose heart.