Preparing for Worship - February 27, 2022

This coming Sunday is Transfiguration Sunday and the last Sunday of the Epiphany season. Christ’s light as Lord and Savior clearly shines forth in the Gospel lesson, and all the other readings give insight into that, as well.

The Old Testament Lesson, from Deuteronomy 34:1-12, tells of God taking Moses to a high mountain and showing him all of the land promised to God’s people of Israel. Moses would not be the one to lead the people into the land, though. Joshua, blessed by the Lord through Moses, would become that leader. Moses then died, and the Lord took care of his burial. Moses was the greatest of the Old Testament prophets, whom God knew very directly, but Moses only prefigured the much greater Prophet, our Lord Jesus (Deuteronomy 18:15ff).

The Psalm is Psalm 99, which praises and worships the Holy Lord God, the Lord of the universe and all the earth. He spoke to prophets like Moses and Samuel and others “in the pillar of the cloud,” judging wrongdoing but also showing Himself to be “a forgiving God.”

The Epistle, from Hebrews 3:1-6, says that Moses could only “testify to things that would be spoken later.” Christ Jesus has much greater glory, as the greatest Apostle and High Priest and Builder, Creator of all things, and the true Son of God. (See also Hebrews 1:1-3.) Jesus is our “hope” and “confidence,” and “we are His house,” and He lives and works in us through His Word and the faith and forgiveness He gives us.

That “greater glory” of Jesus is shown in our Gospel lesson, from Luke 9:28-36. Jesus took some of His disciples to a mountain to pray. There, His appearance changed, and He became “dazzling white.” Moses and Elijah also appeared and talked with Him about His “departure,” literally, His “exodus.” Through His coming suffering and death and resurrection, He would accomplish the saving work of rescuing us from sin and Satan and death - a much greater rescue than the rescue of God’s people from slavery in Egypt in the time of Moses. From a cloud that then enveloped those on the mountain, the Heavenly Father declared that Jesus was His Son, His Chosen One (see Isaiah 42:1), and that everyone needs to “listen to Him” and His saving Words and works.