A message on Luke 9:28 -36
“Jesus is Lord”. That phrase may have been the earliest Christian creed. When the early Christian were baptized, they pledged allegiance to Jesus as their Lord, their King. He was King not just of their personal lives; Jesus was King of the whole world.
“Jesus is Lord” is an extraordinary, astounding claim. When the first Christians said that, they were risking their very lives. If Jesus is Lord, then Caesar is not. First century Rome was not the kind of place where you could challenge your rulers and get away with it.
“Jesus is Lord” means: This Jewish peasant who was nailed to a Roman cross is the ruler, the king of all creation. Dying on that cross, being raised from the dead by the power of God, Jesus won the victory over all other rulers and powers and systems that pretend to rule our lives. He has redeemed and rescued all creation. When the book of Revelation describes what happened in Jesus’ death and resurrection, it says, “The kingdoms of this world have become the Kingdom of our God and of his Messiah. He will rule forever and ever.” (Revelation 11:15)
Jesus rules. Jesus is building a kingdom where God’s justice and God’s peace are being realized. Jesus is Lord. That’s the truth; the gospel we proclaim.
It is not always evident that Jesus is Lord. A tiny, microscopic virus invades a human body and the whole world is plunged into a years-long pandemic that has upended the lives of almost everyone. Vladimir Putin declares parts of the Ukraine as independent states and Europe and North America find themselves being drawn into another war.
Jesus is Lord? There will be times in your life of faith when much of the evidence points to the opposite. There will be times in your life of following Jesus when everything you believe and trusted is called into question. There will be times when you find yourself living in what someone called ‘the unpredictable plans of God’. In those times, living in faith and hope will be a matter of simply holding on. You will be in a state of waiting for the Lord Jesus to make his victory apparent to you. You will find yourself trusting with everything you’ve got that Christ’s hold on you is stronger than your hold on him. That is part of what it means to walk by faith and not by sight, to hope in things that are not seen with your eyes.
For many years, Ed Searcy was the minister at University Hill United Church in Vancouver, British Columbia. I think I have mentioned to you before that, while he was there, that congregation developed a practice that helped them help each other through those times when faith was a matter of simply holding on through your doubts and questions. They practiced seeing their lives through the lenses of Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday. Searcy calls it the “three-day narrative of the good news”.
They would check in with each other to see how they were doing. “How is the gospel with you today? Are you living in Good Friday, Holy Saturday or Easter Sunday?”
To be living in Good Friday is to be experience a time of tragic ending. On Good Friday, hopes and dreams and expectations are dashed and broken and destroyed. You find yourself at the foot of Jesus’ cross, your world falling apart. Life will not be the same again.
Holy Saturday is that time of waiting, of being ‘in between’. The devastation has happened. There is nothing you can do to fix the problem; there is nothing you can do to resolve the crisis. Whatever God may be up to, you cannot see it. Your only sense that God is present is that deep ache in your soul that marks God’s absence. Holy Saturday is that long pause between what has been lost and whatever new life God is going to give you.
Easter is the surprise of the new life God gives beyond the loss of Good Friday. It is not simply a matter of “getting back to normal.” It is something new. It may frighten you but it also beckons you into a world that is shaped by God’s resurrection power.
All three days are part of the journey of gospel faith. When you are going through them, it helps to know that others have journeyed this way before you. It’s good to know that Good Friday and Holy Saturday are not the end of the story. This morning’s gospel story is a gift for those days when you are living in Good Friday or Holy Saturday.
The disciples have been following Jesus for three years. They have caught glimpses of the way that Jesus is Lord: he heals the sick; he sets free those who are imprisoned in fear or brokenness or social isolation; he feeds the hungry; he brings God close. The disciples are beginning to realize that Jesus is the Saviour for which God’s people have been waiting through many long years.
Then Jesus says to them, “It is necessary that the Son of Man, the Messiah of God, proceed to an ordeal of suffering, betrayed and found guilty . . . be killed, and on the third day, be raised up alive.”
Then, he told them what they could expect for themselves: “Anyone who intends to come with me has to let me lead. You’re not in the driver’s seat. I am. Don’t run from suffering; embrace it. Follow me and I’ll show you how.”
The disciples didn’t realize it, but this was the beginning of their living in a Good Friday time. Their hopes and dreams for being in the winner’s circle were beginning to break apart. Their expectations for how God would save them were getting dashed. The world as they knew it was beginning to fall apart.
That was when Jesus took three leaders of the group to a mountain to pray. There, on the mountain, the disciples saw Jesus’ face begin to shine. It shone the way Moses’ face shone after Moses came down from Mount Sinai having talked with God. There, in the light of God’s glory, the disciples saw Moses and Elijah — those great figures of faith who had carried God’s promises to God’s people. There, surrounded by the cloud of God’s presence, the disciples heard God affirm Jesus, “This is my Son, the Chosen One. Listen to him.”
Living in Good Friday can call everything you have been counting on into question: your belief that God is good and loving and full of mercy; your trust that Jesus will be with you through everything life throws at you; your decision to let the Holy Spirit guide your life; your confidence that you can live faithfully into the promises you have made to God. All that can seem less certain, less sure.
The story of Jesus’ Transfiguration is a gift to you for just such a time. It affirms the truth about God, about Jesus, about the world. Jesus is Lord. The suffering and the death he endured does not make that untrue. God takes all that happened to Jesus and blesses even the suffering and the death. God uses it to rescue you and me and the world from the false lords and powers that are pretending to rule our lives. God immerses your life in resurrection power, redeeming what was lost, transfiguring your life, make a new creation. That is the gospel truth, even in those times when that life-giving truth is hidden from your view.
Do you remember the story of Corrie Ten Boom? She was a Dutch survivor of a Nazi concentration camp. She said, “When a train goes through a tunnel and it gets dark, you don’t throw away the ticket and jump off. You sit still and trust the engineer.”
You tell the story of Jesus’ Transfiguration. You let it carry you through those difficult times when you cannot carry the faith yourself. You let it renew God’s promises to you. You let it proclaim “Jesus is Lord” for you.
You do that until God brings you once again through Good Friday and Holy Saturday to the new dawn of Easter morning. You have been set free to do that because Jesus is Lord.
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