Tuning Into Jesus

March 2, 2025

Rev. Mary Erickson

Hope Lutheran Church

Luke 9:28-36

Tuning into Jesus

Friends, may grace and peace be yours in abundance in the knowledge of God and Christ Jesus our Lord.

We’ve been journeying through the season of Epiphany. The thrust of this liturgical season is to shine light on the person of Jesus. Exactly who is Jesus? How do we understand him?

The season began on January 6 with the Day of Epiphany. The foreign-born Magi see a star in the sky. We had a big star in our sanctuary on this front wall. The star was a sign that something with cosmic significance had entered the world. The Magi followed the star to Bethlehem and there they found the newly born Jesus.

The season continued with Jesus’ baptism by John. The heavens were rent asunder and the Holy Spirit took the form of a dove and landed on him. A voice spoke from the heavens. In the succeeding weeks we witnessed Jesus’ miracles of healing, acts of power over the created order, and his revolutionary preaching. Each one of these stories shed further light on the question “Who is this?”

And now we end on this final Sunday in Epiphany. It climaxes with this remarkable story of Jesus’ transfiguration. All of the previous texts indicated that Jesus was someone pretty special. A Messiah king? A man with healing capabilities? A remarkably wise sage?

But this story about what Peter, James and John witnessed puts Jesus in an entirely different category. He is revealed as divine.

Jesus takes Peter, James, and John along as he goes up a mountain to pray. And while Jesus was praying, his appearance was transformed. He began to shine with a heavenly radiance. He looked not of this world.

And as if that wasn’t enough, two key figures from Israel’s past joined him. Beside him stood Moses and Elijah. Both men had experienced mountaintop encounters with God. Each of them represented the canon of Israel’s holy scriptures: Moses with the Torah and Elijah with the prophets. Israel had revered the legacy of these two men and the words of the Law and the Prophets.

But then awe turned to terror when a mysterious cloud lowered onto the mountain and enveloped them. And then the voice from the cloud: “This is my Son! Listen to him!”

And then, just like that, the cloud was gone, Moses and Elijah were gone, and Jesus looked like plain old Jesus.

The voice from the cloud instructed the disciples to listen to Jesus. There he was, standing with Moses and Elijah. The voice said to listen to Jesus. It doesn’t mean: listen to Jesus and shuck the Old Testament. What it does mean is that Jesus is the interpretive lens through which we take our understanding and direction, and that includes how we interpret the Hebrew scriptures.

Listen to Jesus. The words from heaven instruct us to keep our ears tuned to Jesus. Above all other voices, all the world’s urgings and siren calls, we are to keep our hearts and minds tuned to Jesus.

The story is told which took place during the days before telephones. The telegraph reigned supreme for long distance communications. One day, a young man saw an advertisement for a job as a Morse Code operator. On the appointed day and time he showed up at the indicated address to apply.

When he arrived, he walked into a large office area. The room was filled with the sounds of people busy at work, and the tap-tap of a telegraph echoed throughout the room.

A sign was there: Applicants for Morse Code Operator, please fill out a form and wait until you are summoned.

He sat down and filled out his form. Seven other applicants were already seated in the area. They were waiting to be summoned for an interview.

Suddenly, the young man stood up. He entered into the office and the door shut behind him. Surprised, the seven other applicants looked at each other because nobody had asked the man to go into the office.

A few moments went by, and then the telegraph boss walked out with the young man. The other applicants assumed he’d be escorted out of the building for barging into the office unannounced. But to their surprise, the employer said to them, “Gentlemen, thank you for coming today and applying for our position of Morse Code Operator. However, I need to tell you that the position has just been filled.” He looked to the young man.

The other applicants were flummoxed. One of them spoke up, “I don’t understand. He was the last one of us to arrive, and none of us even got a chance to interview. And yet, he got the job.”

The employer said, “Well, all this time you’ve been sitting right here. And the telegraph you hear in the room has been signaling the following message: If you understand this message, then come right in. The job is yours.