“THE TRANSFIGURED FACE OF GOD”
Saint Matthew 17: 1-9
The Transfiguration of our Lord: 5 February Anno Domini 2017
Father Jay Watson SSP
The great symbol of the Evangelical Catholic Church, The Apology to the Augustana, reads in Article 24: “In our churches The Transfiguration is celebrated every Sunday and on other festivals…” No, no it doesn’t. Rather, It “believes, teaches, and confesses” that THE MASS is celebrated every Sunday! Not the glory of God in unapproachable and blinding light, but God The Lord in the face of the bruised and bloody and scarred Savior giving you the fruit of The Passion stained Crucifix in His Body and Blood!
You just confessed “God of God, light of light” in regards to The Christ. That confession of faith—the evidence of things not seen—by you, is the gift of The Holy Ghost. James, Peter, and John did behold with their eyes. Saint Peter went on to write it in his epistle.
The sad false teaching, and even more lamentable false believing, that so many sectarians have, is the result of sinful flesh looking for glory rather than in simply receiving the Shepherd Who is The Lamb. Not king but Shepherd not lion but Lamb. All theology is Christology. Not because we deny The First or Third persons of the Godhead but because The Trinity has deigned to be known among you in, with, and under The Word. The Lord reveals His mysteries in the Scriptures (the Word) and in the Word attached to solid, concrete, and visible elements.
Why do “non-denominational” groups blather on and on about “Father-God” mixing and matching Mormon-talk with casual (disrespectful) anthropocentric “look-at-me & how I feel” “worship?” Why do Pentecostals and Charismatics, who understand neither term in a truly Biblical exegetical way…you know…the way Christ’s Church always understood them for 18 plus centuries… babble, shake, and bark about The Spirit? The only Father you know is revealed to you by Jesus The Only-Begotten Son. The only Holy Spirit you know is shown to you and given to you by Jesus. The fanatics do what they do because it is at the heart and soul of every man. There exists in everyone the Schwarmer (enthusiast) of Eve in Eden at the tree; listening to the King of Lies and Murder. Even the bold and brave future martyr, the Prince of the Apostles, Saint Peter himself, did not want to leave the scene of light, power, transcendence, and glory to return to the way of suffering and weeping. Old Adam always yearns for mountain tops of glory rather than modest hills of blood, sweat, and gore. The devil doesn’t want people to look at the crucifix, any more than he wants them to understand what The Mass is really about. If there is no actual, real, and Bodily presence of The Lord in the assembly than what does it really matter? To hell with it.
Christ Jesus was “transfigured” on the mountain. His visible appearance to the disciples was changed. He still looked like Jesus, because, after Bethlehem He will always and forever look like and be Jesus the Son of Mary, but “His face did shine as the sun, and His raiment was white as the light.” And this does testify to the three, to all disciples, that The Nazarene was God…an amped up super-miracle if you will. Elias and The Law Giver were with The Lord to also demonstrate that all of the Hebrew Scriptures testify to Christ, and that all of The Law and Prophets come to fruition, completion, and eternal preservation…not in “god” and not in sovereignty and glory, but in The God/Man Who is the Paschal Lamb. That Paschal Lamb is believed on and eaten and drunk. God has a Name for you to call Him by and to be known of you by, and it is not the Holy Tetragrammaton which He shared with Saint Moses; it’s not the Fiery Whirlwind and Chariot which He assumed Elias with. His Name is Jesus and Jesus Saves by suffering and dying. Jesus saves you by then feeding you with this salvation—concretely and bodily. Moses and Elias talked with Jesus not about said Transfiguration but about the upcoming Exodus to Jerusalem—to the “place of the skull.”
Yes, The Lord, the Blessed and Holy Trinity, is omnipotent. His power and majesty of uncreated light and life are truly demonstrated in all that is visible and invisible through His creative and sustaining might and providence. Yes, one sees the divinity of Mary’s Son in the Transfiguration between the Old Testament Saints. But all theology, all talk and import of God, “for you,” is found in Christology. Not just the Person of Christ but the work of Christ. We genuflect during the creed not for the first part of the phrase: “and was incarnate by The Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary,” but because of the second clause (the “homo factus est”) “and was made Man.” The true glory of God, the real transfiguration that matters for you, is in the blood, spittle, and sweat drenched face of The Crucified One. And with the Apostle, that reality, and all that it means (Incarnation, Nativity, Transfiguration, Resurrection, Ascension) is what we preach for the forgiveness of your sins and for your strength and preservation both in body and soul to life everlasting.
Come to the supper and be transfigured, as you continually are, in The Word made flesh. Lift up your eyes and see the Man…the God/Man…Jesus only.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of The Holy Ghost
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