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The Institute of Lutheran theology not only provides programs to train pastors and teachers, but it also provides educational and devotional resources for individuals and congregations. These resources are provided free of charge and made available through our web page. Please subscribe to and use any of these resources.

The Institute of Lutheran theology not only provides programs to train pastors and teachers, but it also provides educational and devotional resources for individuals and congregations. These resources are provided free of charge and made available through our web page. Please subscribe to and use any of these resources.

The Transfiguration of Our Lord A

The Transfiguration of Our Lord A

When Peter, James, and John saw Jesus transfigured before them… when they were enveloped in the cloud and Moses and Elijah made their appearance… when the voice came down:  God himself speaking…  when confronted with the divine presence… these three disciples assumed the traditional posture of worship—that is, they put their faces to the ground, right in the dust.  Perhaps they even tasted of their personal mortality.  Into that fear and mortality, Jesus speaks.  He speaks to them, “Have no fear,” establishing them in a new reality, a new reality in which they had no cause to fear either the divine or their death.  So, too, you when you come into the divine presence in the sanctuary of your church building.  There, the mortality that all sinners… all humanity… receive because of that ancient curse (Ge. 2:17) is imposed upon you by that divine presence speaking through the mouth of your preacher.  You have good reason to be humbled and afraid.   Yet, your good Lord does not confine or desert you in the reality of that humility and fear.  He speaks to you, again through the mouth of your preacher, telling you, “Rise, have no fear.  I have redeemed you” (Mt. 17 & Is. 43).

Prayers from one who would really rather not have to undergo the fear and humility of mortality but still senses and knows there is no redemption without it…

Heavenly Father, you speak two words to sinners—one of Law and one of Gospel.  Grant that each of them will accomplish their appropriate work upon me… the Law to kill and the Gospel to make alive.

Heavenly Father, you speak two words to sinners, grant that I hear your Word of Law and stand beneath its accusation and am convicted of my guilt so that I am driven to my mortality and cry out, “Lord, have mercy!”

Heavenly Father, you speak two words to sinners, grant that I hear your Word of Gospel and rise upon its promise of a reality where my sins are forgiven, my guilt relieved, and my mortality overcome so that I cannot help but cry out, “Thanks be to God!”

Heavenly Father, you speak two words to sinners, grant that my life is so ordered by your Word of Law that I am kept within the boundaries of family, community, and nation.

Heavenly Father, you speak two words to sinners, grant that my life is so restored by your Word of Gospel that I act out of the same love you have shown me.

Heavenly Father, you speak two words to sinners, grant that the Institute of Lutheran Theology is upheld in its teaching of your Word as Law and Gospel in the person of Jesus Christ.

Heavenly Father, you speak two words to sinners, grant that I continue under the authority of your two Words of Law and Gospel, so I await your Son’s coming in glory with faith and hope.  Amen