On the Feast of Transfiguration, the Church celebrates the Light of Christ. On Mount Tabor Christ appeared as bright as the sun, but the disciples were not harmed because God protected them. God allows us to see His Light as much as we can bear. The world is competing with God by showing us images of light of destruction. On the day the world celebrates the Transfiguration of Christ, the world displayed the light of destruction over Hiroshima. Let’s end summer by focusing on the Light of Christ rather than the light of the world. Then we can take the Light of Christ out into the world to bring hope and love to the world.
Transcript:
My brothers and sisters, today we are celebrating not just a feast of Christ but a feast of the light of Christ. On this great day of transfiguration, we celebrate Christ going up on his mountain with his disciples. And in front of his disciples he is revealed as his only-begotten light, as his light shines, and yet the disciples were not even harmed by the brightness. It says in the gospel that his clothes, his face, his whole body, it says, “Shined as bright as the sun.” But if we look at the sun, what happens to our eyes? They burn. We go blind if we look into the sun. But when Christ appears as bright as the sun and the disciples look at him, they were not harmed because God protects us, because God loves us. In the hymn of Transfiguration, “It says that he showed his glory to the disciples as much as they could bear,” as much as they could take.
It says, “Show us also that glory even though we are sinners.” You see, my brothers and sisters, this is what we are celebrating today, the light of Christ. Unfortunately, the world has a different light than it tries to show us. There’s a movie out these days. I saw it while I was on vacation. I don’t know how many of you have seen the Oppenheimer movie? Today is the commemoration of the bombing of Hiroshima. It is a day that we should be weeping for all of humanity because on August 6th, 1945, the world showed a light of destruction, and the world had hope in the light of destruction. With that light, there was pain and suffering and deaths of tens of thousands of human beings, and we have lived from that moment in constant fear of destruction, “They’re going to bomb us. We’re going to bomb them.” Next thing you know, there’s going to be nobody left but the cockroaches.
This is how I grew up. Most of us grew up in that fear, and that’s because the world put its hope in that light of destruction instead of the light of Christ, and it should bring us pain for the world. We should weep for the world and be thankful that God has spared us as long as he has. We have not destroyed ourselves. Glory to God. But we are slowly and slowly as a society walking closer and closer to the destruction that the world has instead of walking closer to Christ and his protection and his light. And so my brothers and sisters, as we end our summer and begin our new year, we’ve got school starting this week. We’re going to bless the students today. More and more of our people have begun coming home from Greece. Everything is starting over again.
It’s our chance to start with a new outlook on life. We don’t have to wait for New Year’s resolutions. We can start today, focus on the light of Christ. Ask God as it says in the hymn, to show us his light and to show us his glory because he’s come to save us from the world. He’s come to protect us from the world, but he cannot protect us if we don’t turn to him. When the disciples saw him in his light, they said, “It is good for us to be here.” They saw him talking to Moses and Elias. They said, “It is good. Let us build three altars for you, one for you, one for Moses and one for Elias.” The response of the disciples when they saw the light of Christ was to worship him and to build an altar.
I know some of us have been to the Mountain of Transfiguration, have seen where God revealed himself. You can see there three altars that were constructed. This is our human response to God’s glory not just, “Thanks, God. See you later,” but to build churches altars so we can worship him. So we as a church, as a family, as a community, so we then can be the light of Christ to the world. You see, we are celebrating that God has given us his light. He has shown us his light, in our baptism we have received the light. As soon as holy communion is over, we’re going to sing, We have seen the light, and now it’s our opportunity to take that light out into the darkness so our friends can see the light. Not the light of destruction, but the light of hope and love and mercy. The light of God. Glory to God for all things.
