It Is Good for Us to Be Here!

Sermon preached at Our Savior for the Last Sunday after Epiphany, the Transfiguration of our Lord. Text: Luke 9:28-36

It Is Good for Us to Be Here!

I don't know how many people watched the opening ceremony of the Olympics a couple of nights ago, but it was quite a spectacle. Thousands of people were there in the stands. Amazing visuals and music were happening on stage. But the part that stood out most from what I saw was all the different countries' teams walking into the stadium. The crowds would cheer, and the athletes would walk and wave.

This part of the ceremony was for more than just entertainment. I've heard that walking into the stadium like they do is actually important for the athletes. After all, they are about to embark on quite a struggle. The Olympics are about competitions, competitions for which these athletes have trained years. But as they walk into the stadium to the roar of the crowd, the athletes get moments of glory. And it energizes them. It gets them ready for the struggle ahead. They've been to a lot of competitions, but now, as they walk and wave to the crowd, the athletes know they're ready to compete in the Olympics.

This is also important for those of us just watching the games. We could watch most of these sports at other times, but most of us don't. Why? Because it's not the Olympics! It doesn't have the same excitement for us. But when we see those opening ceremonies, when we see those athletes waving in all their glory, we realize that these are Olympic athletes. We realize that they're worth our time and attention over the next two weeks.

You might struggle to see what the opening ceremonies of the Olympics could possibly have to do with Jesus' transfiguration. But really, they have some striking similarities. The transfiguration was an amazing spectacle filled with light and glory. Jesus, too, was about to start on an incredible struggle. He would not compete in a sporting events; he would do battle with the devil himself as Jesus walked the road to the cross. Yes, right after the transfiguration, Jesus made his way to Jerusalem where he would be arrested, tortured, and put to death. The transfiguration is the opening ceremonies to Jesus' struggle against sin, death, and the devil.

Jesus didn't need the transfiguration for himself. But there was a great benefit for his disciples and for us. Because there we see exactly who our Savior really is. He's not some man going off on a fool's mission to die in Jerusalem. He is the true God of power and glory who was going to defeat sin, death, and the devil for us once and for all.  And because of his victory, the glory he showed on that mountain is the glory we will share with him in heaven. And until that day, he's the same Savior of power who is with us no matter what. So as we look to our Savior, we can say along with Peter in our text, "It is good for us to be here!"

It probably didn't start out as anything unusual when Jesus "took Peter, John, and James with him and went up onto a mountain to pray." (Lk. 9:28) That was probably routine. But the routine changed pretty quickly. "As he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became as bright as a flash of lightning." (Lk. 9:29) This is pretty hard for us to imagine. We've all seen flashes of lightning before, but they're just that: flashes. They don't last long. Jesus and his clothes changed and stayed that way. Imagine looking at a bright light bulb for a long time and it might give you an idea.

But Jesus was just showing who he really was: God. He'd always been God. The Bible reminds us that he had been there at the beginning (Jn. 1:1), in fact, everything was created through him! (Jn. 1:3) Of course he has all kinds of glory and power; he always has! But then, as the Nicene creed reminds us, "For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven, was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the virgin Mary, and became fully human."

When Jesus became human and was born, he did not become any less God. He just hid his true glory as God, and he didn't always make use of his full power as God. But there, on the mountain of transfiguration, Jesus showed his true glory.

How amazing it must have been! How comforting! Think about those disciples. Sure, they knew who Jesus was, at least they thought they did. Just before our text Peter had made a great confession that Jesus was the Christ. (Lk. 9:20) They'd seen his amazing miracles that pointed to him being true God. But still, there might have been doubts. Was Jesus really who he said he was? But now on that mountain, they had proof!

He is what he says! He really did have power! And then there's Moses and Elijah there talking with him all of a sudden! (Lk. 9:30-31) How incredible that would have been to see.  Imagine how safe they must have felt, how loved. This is the true God! He's here with Moses and Elijah! Suddenly their worries and problems melted away. They had no more doubts, no more fears. No wonder Peter in a happy stupor says, "It is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters -- one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah." (Lk. 9:33) Peter wanted this moment to last forever.

Did you ever wish you could have a moment like that? I realize none of us were on that mountain with Jesus. None of us have seen our Savior in full glory. But we may have had our own mountain-top experience. Maybe something happened once that left you no doubt that God had just done something amazing. Maybe there was someone who was sick who just got better, despite doctors saying it was impossible. Maybe you were close to a car accident, but somehow you escaped it. You know God protected you. Maybe you had a moment in your life when you suddenly realized the amazing ways God had blessed you, and at that moment you could almost see his glory.

It's a great feeling to have. You don't doubt; you're not afraid. You just want it to last forever! But here's the thing: it doesn't. The moment passes. Life goes on. Your problems come back; so do those fears and doubts. And pretty soon you're wondering if that moment ever really happened. You're wondering if you'd ever really been sure of Jesus' glory.

And that's if you've ever had a moment like that. Lots of people haven't. Maybe you don't recall any sort of miracle or special feeling that you've ever had. Does that mean that you missed something? Does it mean that God doesn't use his glory for you? Does it mean you're just not that special to him? And then when the troubles come, when the fears and doubts come (and they always do), you wonder. Why is God letting this happen? Is he really in control? Is he really there for me?

It's good for us to be here. That's what Peter said on the mountain, but it's true in our lives now. It's good for us to be here! We're not in heaven yet! We're in the midst of a world that is full of trouble and sin. There is temptation all around us. The devil tempts us, and all too often we give in. We fail and we fall.

Why is it good for us to be here? Because this is where God has put us. This is where God wants us to live for him. And how can we live for him when we are in a world of sin, so full of our sin? We can because of the truth we learn at Jesus' transfiguration.

When Moses and Elijah were there with Jesus, did you ever wonder what they talked about? Our text tells us! It says, "They spoke about his departure, which he was about to bring to fulfillment at Jerusalem." (Lk. 9:31) Jesus' "departure" was his death.  You'd think that was the last thing they'd want to talk about! You'd think Jesus would say, "Can we change the subject here? I don't want to think about that!" But he doesn't! In this brief time of his glory, Jesus talks about his death.

Think about that. Jesus' death is where his real glory is for us. If it wasn't for his death on that cross, Jesus' glory would be terrifying to us. It would be the true God who would wipe us out because of our sins. But no! After his transfiguration, Jesus went to Jerusalem. He was arrested, he suffered, and he died for you.

Instead of wiping us out because of our sins, Jesus died for them. He paid for them. Jesus' glory at his transfiguration reminds us that Jesus is God, that he is the one who had the power to die to save us. It reminds us that his resurrection means eternal life for us! It reminds us that because he lives, we will live with him in the glory of heaven where all our troubles will be gone forever!

But remember, we're not in heaven yet! And Jesus' transfiguration is a comfort for us now. Think of how it must have comforted someone like Peter. After this event, he went with Jesus to Jerusalem. He ran away when Jesus was arrested. He denied even knowing him. How horrible! How guilty he must have felt! But then he remembered: this man who died is the true God who was doing this to save me! Jesus did this to forgive me!

That's our comfort too. It's good for us to be here, it's good for us to live our real lives with all the ups and downs and pains and fears that come with us. Because those problems are meant to drive us back to God's Word to hear again and again what Jesus did for us. There in the Word we're reminded what God has done. We're comforted that our sins are gone. We're comforted that Jesus will never leave us, but will be with us always.

Remember what God the Father said after all this happened. "This is my Son, whom I have chosen; listen to him." (Lk. 9:35) Let's listen to him. Let's go to his Word and hear his life and death that was for us. Let's listen to him at the altar as we receive that body and blood given for you, for your forgiveness. Let's listen to Jesus in his Word even when we're afraid, even when we're doubting, because in his Word he'll come our fears, and replace our doubts with faith. Yes, it's good for us to be here and to be in God's Word.

The Olympic opening ceremonies were quite a spectacle, and they cost millions to produce. But for the people who watched or participated, it was worth it. Jesus put on a spectacle at his transfiguration. And as we watch that spectacle through God's Word, we're reminded that the price Jesus paid was worth it, the blood shed was worth it, because he did it for our glory. He did it for our life. He did it for our salvation. May his glory be and abide with you through this life to the next.

Who Are You Following?

Note: I’m trying to catch up on posting a few weeks’ worth of sermons on here. Sorry for the delay.

Another note: The grammar nut in me realizes that the title of this post and sermon should have been “Whom Are You Following?” That just didn’t flow right when spoken out loud, though. So, the grammar rules were intentionally broken! *gasp!*

Sermon preached at Our Savior on 2/7/10 for the 5th Sunday after Epiphany. Text: Luke 5:1-11

Who Are You Following?

Conventional wisdom tells us that there are two kinds of people in the world: leaders and followers. Either you have the kind of personality where you take command of the situation and people just want to fall in behind you, or you have the personality that leads you to want to fall in behind and follow someone else. Many leadership books have been written covering every field you can think of, telling you how you can be a leader, or be a better leader, in your particular place in life.

And that's all well and good. Leadership skills can be a nice thing. But let's not kid ourselves. We're all followers. We all follow somebody else. The greatest leaders in our world's history, whether it was kings or presidents or generals, they had to follow someone. They had to learn their job and gain experience. Even as they led, the goals they were trying to reach show them following something, whether it's the will of the voting public, or the desire for fame and honor, or even following God.

Which causes us to look at ourselves. Whether your personality type is to be a leader or a follower in the end doesn't really matter. Because all of us are following someone. You could say that we follow a lot of people. We follow our teachers in school. We follow our boss at work. We follow our parents. We might follow our friends. We might follow our hearts, or our wallets. But spiritually speaking, we can only be following one of two people: our Savior or the devil. Either we're living for God and serving him with all we do, or we're living for our sinful self and we're falling for the devil's temptations. So today I want you to look at your life and at your heart. Who are you following?

In our text from Luke's gospel, plenty of people were following Jesus. In fact, in some ways it was too many people. You see, we heard last week about Jesus being rejected by the people in his hometown of Nazareth. But the other towns around Galilee loved him. They couldn't get enough of him. So much so, that Jesus found it hard to even teach them because the crowds were so huge. That's the situation in our text.

"One day as Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret, with the people crowding around him and listening to the word of God, he saw at the water's edge two boats, left there by the fishermen, who were washing their nets." (Lk. 5:1-2) If you've ever been in a crowd that's all trying to see and listen to one person, you know how hard it can be. You can just picture the scene here. People are so close they're bumping into each other, crowding around to see and hear Jesus teach. He was standing on the shore of the lake which here is called Gennesaret, but that we probably know better as the sea of Galilee.  A huge crowd is gathered there on the shore, all trying to elbow their way to hear God's Word that Jesus is teaching better.

So Jesus has an idea. Fishing was a major industry in this part of Galilee, what with the large, fish-filled lake so close. Jesus noticed a couple of fishing boats just sitting nearby, while their owners were cleaning the nets from a night of fishing. Taking the opportunity the boats presented, Jesus puts his idea into action. "He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little from shore. Then he sat down and taught the people from the boat." (Lk. 5:3)

I guess we shouldn't be surprised that the Son of God had an ingenious idea. With the boat out in the water a bit, no one could crowd him. His voice probably carried quite well across the open water to the crowd at the shore. Jesus turned this shoreline into his own personal lecture hall, with a fishing boat as his pulpit! Now Jesus was able to teach God's Word to this huge group of people in a more effective way.

But there's one person in this crowd I want us to focus on more closely. It's the fisherman, Simon -- or, as we know him better, Peter. This wasn't Peter's first meeting with Jesus. In the gospel of John we see how Peter's brother Andrew first introduced him to Jesus. (Jn. 1:40-42) And just in the previous chapter of Luke, we hear that Jesus went into Peter's house in Capernaum and actually healed Peter's mother-in-law. (Lk. 4:38-40) Peter knew Jesus, and he had heard Jesus' teaching for a while now.

But Peter gives us a great example of how to follow Jesus already here at the beginning of our text. Peter was a fisherman by trade, and he was there cleaning his nets as the text began. That's when Jesus asked him to take the boat out onto the water a bit. At the point Jesus asked this, Peter must've been awfully tired. We hear later that he'd been fishing all night. (Lk. 5:5) He was also in the middle of the long, tiring task of cleaning his nets. You'd almost understand if Peter had said, "Thanks, but no thanks, Jesus. I'm tired. I just gotta get this done and go get some rest. Can you use one of the other boats?"

But he doesn't! He follows Jesus, despite his fatigue. He follows Jesus into the boat. He's willing to take the time to hear Jesus teach God's Word again as he sits there in the boat with him. It's not that he thinks his job isn't important -- the fact that he'd been working all night shows that -- but he shows how important following Jesus is, he shows that following Jesus doesn't become impossible because of his job. He still follows Jesus and hears his Word.

Are you following Jesus that way? All of you have things that you need to do and like to do outside of church, and that's not a bad thing. We need to work, we need to spend time with our families, those are responsibilities that God gives us. Of course, we also need time to rest from those responsibilities, time to sleep or just time to be doing something that's not work. But Peter shows us that we don't want to let our responsibilities and our fatigue keep us from continuing to follow Jesus. Of course we want that close relationship with our Savior in our lives. Of course we never want to stop hearing his Word.

Right? The truth is, sometimes we stop following Jesus, even just for a little bit. We're tired. We're busy. There's so much to do. Fitting Jesus in isn't always on the list. You know, you work hard all week, you run here and there, and then Sunday is your one day to rest. Is that really so wrong? You know, as long as I go once in a while, that's good enough, right? Or, when we're here in church, we might tell ourselves that we're doing pretty good. But being here physically doesn't mean our minds are here. So we don't pay attention. Our minds wander. And suddenly the service is done and we don't remember any of it.

Then there's studying and hearing God's Word. Sure, we all probably own Bibles, we could read them, but there's so much to do. We have opportunities to attend Bible studies. And I realize that no one can be reading the Bible constantly or make it to every Bible study. But when we look and see that months or years have gone by and we've never cracked our dusty Bible once... Who are you following?

Because when you're not following Jesus, you're following yourself. Your own desires and thoughts have become more important. And when that happens, even for a moment, that's a sin. That's following the devil and his temptations. That's not following Jesus with your whole heart. And that's something we are all guilty of every day.

But here what Jesus has left to teach Peter -- and us -- in our text. "He said to Simon, "Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch." Simon answered, "Master, we've worked hard all night and haven't caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets." (Lk. 5:4-5) Once the teaching session is over, it seems like Jesus is up for a bit of fishing.

Everything must've been screaming inside Peter that this was a bad idea. He'd been fishing all night and caught nothing. Night was generally thought to be a better time to catch fish, and if they caught nothing then, it certainly didn't seem like they'd get a lot now. Plus, again, they'd been up all night. Peter was tired. He probably wasn't looking forward to fishing more right now. But since Peter had been following Jesus all along, since he'd been listening to his teaching, he's willing to at least humor Jesus' request.

Turns out the Son of God also knows the best fishing places. Because they got a lot. "They caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break." (Lk. 5:6) Peter even had to call his partners over to help him haul it all in. Jesus did not have a lucky guess at this fishing spot. This was not beginner's luck. This was Jesus, the Savior, the true God himself, showing his power over all things by catching a lot of fish for Peter and his partners.

Jesus is just as powerful today. He's still the true son of God. He still has power over all things. And yet we don't always follow him! Yet we often have better things to do! Yet we sometimes doubt that things will really work out the way he says they will! Yet we find his Word boring or out of touch! When we realize that, it's scary! We've been unfaithful, not to some great teaching man, but to a great teaching man who is also the all-powerful true and only God. Is he really going to put up with us? With our sins?

Peter was afraid, too. We hear that when he saw all the fish "he fell on his knees and said, "Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!" (Lk. 5:8) Peter recognized he wasn't perfect. He knew he was sinful. He knew he didn't deserve Jesus to be anywhere near him, and neither do we!

But Jesus' words to Peter are also for us: "Don't be afraid." (Lk. 5:10) Don't be afraid; because Jesus has forgiven you. Don't be afraid, because Jesus was perfect when you couldn't be. Don't be afraid; Jesus knows the awful price of sin, because he paid it when he suffered and died for us on the cross. Don't be afraid; death will never catch you, because Jesus destroyed it when he rose again. The Savior that we have followed imperfectly not only forgives us, but he comes to us. He reaches out to us in his Word. He comforts us with his words of love and mercy.

And he tells Peter, "from now on you will catch men." (Lk. 5:10) Now that Jesus has revealed who he really is -- the true powerful God -- and what he really does -- forgive sins -- he now calls Peter into service. He's calling you, too.

Sure, you probably won't drop everything to follow him like Peter and James and John did. Not everyone is called into full-time ministry. But you can still follow Jesus and be a fisher of men in your life now! Being a fisher of men means telling others what Jesus has done. It means testifying to the truth of what God says. It means pointing others to the truth of your Savior.

I know that can be a scary thought. Will someone really listen to me? Will they laugh at me? And while people very well might reject that message of the Savior when it comes from us, let's never doubt what God can do through us. He taught Peter that he can pull a big catch out of nothing. Can't he do the same thing with the people we talk about Jesus to? Those people who you think will never come around, will never turn to God, Jesus can do amazing things with them. The same Savior that pulled a net-load of fishes out of a bad fishing spot can turn sin-hardened hearts into believing hearts. I know that because that's exactly what he's done for all of us.

So, friends, let's follow him. Follow Jesus in his Word and Sacrament, as you fill yourself up again and again with the good news of how he's rescued you. Let's follow him in the mission he's given us. Let's cast our nets into the waters of this sinful world and be amazed and what our Lord can find. Let's put our sins and selfish thoughts behind us, and let's follow the one who didn't let us go, who didn't drive us away, but followed the road to the cross so that we could follow him to eternal life. Trust him. Thank him. Work for him. Follow him.