The past two Sundays have coincided with two significant festivals, the Confession of St. Peter (18 January) and the Conversion of St. Paul (25 January), commemorating and celebrating two pivotal events in the life of our Lord and His Church. Some of our congregations observed one or the other or both of these festivals, while others kept the usual readings, prayers, Psalmody, and hymns of the Sundays. Either approach is meet, right, and salutary, so long as Christ Crucified is proclaimed unto repentance and faith in His forgiveness of sins. For pastors and congregations following the historic lectionary, this past Sunday was actually the Transfiguration of Our Lord, marking the transition from the Season of Epiphany to the “Gesima” Sundays preceding Lent. And this, too, is fine, good, and edifying, as the Word of God is preached in its truth and purity.
What struck me as I reflected on these various occasions, especially the Confession of St. Peter, the Conversion of St. Paul, and the Transfiguration of Our Lord, is the persistent link between the “Epiphany” (or manifestation) of the Glory of God and the Cross and Passion of Christ Jesus. Of course this connection is nothing new, nor is it unique to these several feasts, but it is always of significance. And because this “theology of the Cross” is so paradoxical and counterintuitive, we must routinely be catechized in this strange divine wisdom by the Word and Spirit of God.
In the case of the Confession of St. Peter, it was the Father in heaven who revealed to him that Jesus is “the Christ, the Son of the living God.” I have long been convinced that this revelation traces back to the Baptism of our Lord, when He was visibly anointed by the Spirit descending upon Him in bodily form as a dove, and the Father from heaven openly declared Him to be His beloved and well-pleasing Son. But already that great Epiphany of His Baptism by St. John in the Jordan River anticipated and pointed forward to His Cross and Passion. So, then, following St. Peter’s great confession, the Lord Jesus immediately proceeds to catechize His disciples in His own approaching Crucifixion – and in the Cross which they will bear and carry after Him. Though St. Peter did not yet understand the cruciform glory of the Christ at that time, he was taught by the Cross to understand in due season. As “a witness of the sufferings of Christ,” and as “a partaker also of the glory that is to be revealed” (1 Peter 5:1), he writes in his first Epistle: “To the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing, so that also at the revelation of His glory you may rejoice with exultation. If you are reviled for the Name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you” (1 Peter 4:13-14).
Along similar lines, in the Conversion of St. Paul, it is the crucified and risen Lord Jesus who reveals Himself to the one who had been among the persecutors of His Christian disciples. In doing so, Jesus identifies Himself with His people and the very things they have been enduring from the Pharisee Saul of Tarsus. “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting,” He says (Acts 9:5). In turn, the Lord sends Ananias to lay hands on Saul and baptize him, indicating that He “will show him how much he must suffer for My Name’s sake” (Acts 9:10-16). So it is that the Apostle St. Paul suffers many things for the sake of Christ and His Gospel (2 Corinthians 11:23-29), and he bears in his body “the bond-marks of Jesus” (Galatians 6:17). Yet, he glories in his weakness and rejoices in his sufferings (2 Corinthians 12:9-10; Colossians 1:24), knowing that “the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us,” and, baptized by the Word and Spirit of God, we are “heirs of God and fellows heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him” (Romans 8:17-18).
Likewise in the case of the Transfiguration of Our Lord, whether observed this past weekend or several weeks from now (for those pastors and congregations using the three-year lectionary), it is the divine glory of the coming Cross and Passion of Christ that is manifested on the high and lofty mountain. Not only do the Words of God the Father at the Transfiguration echo those that He uttered at the Baptism of our Lord (St. Matthew 3:17 and 17:5), but St. Luke (9:31) records that Moses and Elijah, “appearing in glory” with Jesus, “were speaking of His departure (exodus) which He was about to accomplish in Jerusalem.” What is more, it is after His Transfiguration that Jesus “set His face toward Jerusalem” (St. Luke 9:51), that is, toward His Passion. For “was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into His glory?” So is it written, “that the Christ would suffer and rise again from the dead the third day” (St. Luke 24:26, 46).
So are we catechized to take up our cross and follow after Christ Jesus, in the joyful hope and confidence that the Lord who loves us is thereby accomplishing His purposes in us, according to His good and gracious will, to conform us to the Image of His Son (Romans 8:28-29). Whatever we are counted worthy to suffer for His sake resounds to the praise and glory of His Holy Name, and by His grace we pass with Him through suffering and death into the Glory of His Kingdom!