Exodus 34. 29-35
Life is rooted not in the Old, but in the Cross!
For years, now, my Monday mornings have begun, pretty much, the same way. At nine o’clock sharp, the phone rings. I answer. And for the next hour or so, Mark Russell and I talk. Mark’s the Synodically-Aurthorized Worship Leader at Christ’s Lutheran Church, over in Odessa. Anyway, we talk. As mentors. More often, as tormentors. As friends. Talk about the weather. Talk about the weekend. Talk about ministry. About church. But mostly, we talk about the sermon for the coming Sunday. We bat ideas, back and forth. No agenda. No assumptions. We just talk and see what comes from it … if anything!
Well, this week, naturally, the Transfiguration was the focus of our efforts. He would be focusing on the gospel reading; I would be preaching on the first. He would be preaching on the New; I would be preaching on the Old. He would be preaching on Jesus; I would be preaching on Moses. For a while, we talked in circles. Moses to Jesus. Old to New. Israel to Church. But somewhere along the way, Mark said something that took the discussion in a different direction. Something that grabbed my imagination. That piqued my curiosity. That inspired this sermon. “We have to understand,” he said, “where the New Testament comes from!”
“We have to understand “where the New Testament comes from!”
Nothing deep. Nothing profound. But what he said changed the way I’d thought about the Transfiguration. I’d been thinking about it from the perspective of calendars and clocks. For me, it had been the oldTestament that had informed the new! The former explaining the latter! The first describing the second! For me, the story had unfolded one verse, one chapter, one book, after another. Each sentence, each paragraph, each page, resting on what came before. Mark said, ““We have to understand where the New Testament comes from!”
But that’s not how faith, how believing, works! What happens to Jesus isn’t rooted in what happened to Moses! What happens to Jesus in the Transfiguration isn’t foreshadowed by the veil Moses wore at Sinai! It’s rooted in and foreshadowed by what happed goodFriday afternoon! If you want to understand the Transfiguration of our Lord, you need to go to the darkness that came over the land! You need to hear that last scream! You need to see Jesus breathe his last! That’s when the curtain of the Temple is torn in two! It’s the cross that gives us meaning! It’s the cross that gives us understanding! Not chronology, like we think! That’s why Luther says, “I see nothing in scripture except the cross! I see nothing except Christ crucified!”
But then, that’s how it works for everything! Want to understand Christmas, go to the cross! What to understand Jesus’ baptism by John, go to the cross! Want to understand the temptation in the wilderness, go to the cross! We don’t go back to the oldTestament, we go to the cross! To the afternoon of goodFriday! To Jesus breathing his last! Understanding, believing, doesn’t happen by the numbers! It happens by the suffering and dying of god! That’s when god’s glory is revealed. That’s when Jesus “shines!” That’s when god’s “glory” is revealed! It’s not a literal thing! Letter by letter! Word for word! It’s Christ! It’s Christ crucified! It’s goodFriday! It’s the moment Christ cries out! The moment he breathes his last! The moment the curtain is torn! The moment god is unleashed into the world! For us, that … For us, THAT is the kingdom and the power and the glory!
Yes! We have to understand where the newTestament comes from. But we come from the same place! We as church! We as congregation! We as Christian! We come from the same place! We come from the same moment! Every breath! Every heartbeat! Every thought and every word and every deed is an echo, a reflection of Christ, of Christ crucified! Jesus doesn’t say, “Pick up your manger and follow me.” He says, “Pick up your cross!” He doesn’t say, “Blessed are those who shine like the sun.” He says, “Blessed those who are persecuted!” Blessed when people revile you and persecute you and lie about you! It’s Christ and it’s Christ crucified! It’s all Christ and the Cross!
Faith, hope, and love are anchored, are rooted, in sacrifice and suffering! Faith, hope, and love are anchored, are rooted, in the Cross! Suffering! Dying! Descending! Suffering, dying, descending not because of the sure and certain. But suffering, dying, and descending because of the commitment to and the compassion for those god loves! Because of the commitment to and the compassion for those we love! That’s why we don’t hang a big yellow smiley face on our walls! Why we don’t hang a big yellow smiley face around our necks. We hang a cross! We have to understand – to know – where the newTestament comes from! We have to know – to understand – where life begins! It comes from the Cross! It begins on Golgotha!
We imagine faith moves in a clock-wise direction. That the past points to the future! That prophecy points to the cross! It doesn’t. Believing is counter-clock-wise! The cross points to the prophets! GoodFriday isn’t, merely, a continuation of the old, the presence of the past. It’s something new! Totally and completely! Drastically and dramatically! And we can understand it without ever knowing the Old! All we need is the Body broken and the Blood shed! All we need is the dying and rising! That’s what – who – is significant! The only thing – the only one – necessary and essential!
It’s true! We need to know! We need to understand! Without the Cross, faith has nothing to trust! Nothing to believe in! Without the Cross, hope has nothing to wait for! Without the Cross, love doesn’t exist! And without the Cross, there is no church! No matter how high! No matter how holy! It’s the Cross that makes us confident! It’s the Cross that makes us bold! It’s the Cross that makes us daring! And it’s on the Cross we stake our life! Our life as church! Our life as congregation! Our life as Christian! Not just once … or twice … but a thousand times! My friends … remove the veil … tear the curtain in two … and it’s not the transfiguration we see. It’s Jesus! It’s goodFriday! It’s the cross!