Pastor Franklin Wilson

2 Kings 2.1–12; Psalm 50; 2 Corinthians 4.3-6; St. Mark 9.2–9

“The company of prophets who were in Bethel came out to Elisha, and said to him, “Do you know that today the Lord will take your master away from you?” And he said, “Yes, I know; keep silent.”

“And [Jesus] was transfigured before them…. Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved, listen to him.’  Suddenly when the looked around, they saw no one with them anymore, but only Jesus.”

“And [Jesus] was transfigured before them.”  Jesus was transfigured.  He was changed, and his clothes shone like the sun, brighter than any earthly light.  “Transfiguration,” a word that derives from a passive verb concerning Jesus on a high mountain—“he was transfigured, changed, transformed, metamorphosed (a single time) before them.”

So Jesus was changed.  And yet, we are told, “Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, today, and forever.”  What does it mean that Jesus was changed and, at the same time, that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever?  How can it be that Jesus was changed before them and that Jesus Christ does not change?

I recently spent three days with my mother and her husband 30 miles north of Portland, Oregon—and then (on the way back home) another three days with our elder son and his family in a suburb of Denver, Colorado.  So last Sunday I was in Denver, and the closest church to our son’s place was the incredibly large and beautiful “Our Lady of Loreto” church on Arapaho in Southeast Denver.

I believe in the necessity of receiving the Holy Eucharist, and I have a commitment to receive the Body and Blood of Christ every Sunday.  It doesn’t much matter the kind of church in which I receive Christ in the Sacrament, so long as that church observes the gathering of the baptized around the Gospel and the Sacraments.  The preaching may be decent or not, but the reading of the scriptures and the proclamation of Christ’s death and resurrection in the Holy Supper are absolutely essential.   And Our Lady of Loreto filled the bill.

It was my first time in the Roman Catholic Mass since the revised language of the liturgy had come into use, and I found it fascinating.  Fascinating, for one, that some of the more routine phrases had changed (i.e., “And also with you” had returned to “And with your spirit”).   But fascinating also to see how some of the less routine words in the Creed had changed, for example, “of one being the Father” has become, perhaps more mysteriously, “consubstantial with the Father”.  Since language is surely one of the most profound means by which we participate in God and God participates in us, such verbal changes themselves bespeak the Transfiguration mystery:  the language of the liturgy changes and yet, on account of Christ himself, the liturgy remains the same.

Some years following my mother and father’s divorce, my mom remarried.  Some years after that, she and her second husband built a modern house at the northwest corner of a five acre hayfield in which I had learned to drive while hauling hay in 1964.  The field itself must be 6 or 8 hundred yards up a gradual slope from the old Swedish farm house in which I had grown up on Bachelor Flat Road, three miles outside of St. Helens, Oregon.  From the top of the field where my mother’s house now stands, one could then see four towering mountains in the Cascade Range: Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Adams, Mt. Hood, and Mt. Jefferson.  When I was learning to drive the hay truck in the summer of ’64, you could also see the Columbia River flowing north toward Astoria and the Pacific—the River some two miles in the distance; Woodland, Washington on the opposite bank.

Today that has all changed. Mt. St. Helens volcanically decapitated itself in 1980, sheering off the top 1300 feet of its elevation—some of which (thanks to Bob Steffen) now abides in a salt shaker in my study.  And, of course, the growth of trees (to say nothing of houses) in the past decades means that now only Mt. Hood remains visible from my mother’s dining room window.

A grove of majestic evergreens stands a few hundred yards to the south of my mother’s kitchen—at the bottom of the old hayfield.  One of them, a massive Douglas Fir—some three or four feet in diameter now—was the site of our main tree fort, the place where my brothers and I entertained honored guests, making them climb blindfolded up a rope ladder for meals of black licorice and berries.  In those days the tree might have been 75 or 80 feet high; during Pacific storms (much to our mother’s chagrin) we would climb to the highest branches and sway back and forth in the gale.

Gazing from my mother’s widow I marveled how those trees have changed.  The fort tree now stands a good 125 feet tall—maybe higher.  The tree has changed, but it is still the same tree—in fact, in some deep sense, it is now more of the tree than it once was.  I walked down through the wet spring grass, ducked beneath overhanging branches, their perimeter dripping with Pacific mist.  I stood beneath the canopy, stood atop decades of fir needles, a fragrant carpet beneath my feet.  I looked up, searching for any sign of our fort, but I saw none—not a single rusty nail, nor even a rotting board remained.  All had vanished leaving only the tree: larger, stronger, more ancient and durable now than it was back then when we trusted our very lives to the strength and durability of the swaying branches.

“Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them anymore, but only Jesus.” In the end, it’s not the change—not the transfiguration itself—that endures, but Jesus: God’s beloved Son.  Listen to him!  What does he say?  He tells them to tell no one about what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead. It’s the resurrection that matters.

In the end, the tree fort was not the thing, but the tree—and even the tree itself points to something else.  It points to the sky, to that which endures beyond its ancient roots.  The Transfiguration is finally not about the Transfiguration, but about God’s beloved Son—Jesus only.  And even he points to something beyond himself—to the resurrection of the dead.  With the disciples, then, we see Jesus only—the Transfigured One—changed for a moment that he might remain the same forever.  Listening to him, baptized into him, we are changed for all eternity.  He is crucified dead, and raised, that we and all creation, in the fullness of time, might share his risen and eternal life, even as Krista Marian now does, in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Wednesday Noon Organ Recitals take place every Wednesday from January 18 to May 16. Feel free to bring your lunch with you.
Parking is available in the Luther Memorial Church parking garage. Enter from the Conklin Place alley off Mills Street in spaces marked “Members Only.”

Note: There will be no organ recital next week (Wednesday, Feb. 22).  All are welcome to Ash Wednesday services at 12:15 and 7:30 p.m.

Lenten Bible Study

Sunday Bible Study: “Washed into Life” 
9:15 a.m., Great Room
Beginning Feb. 26 and continuing through Lent, Pr. Pohlman will lead a Bible study on the five Old Testament readings from the Great Vigil of Easter. The five readings are: Genesis 1:1–2:4, Exodus 14:10–31, 15:20–21, Isaiah 55:1–11, Ezekiel 37:1–14, and Daniel 3:1–29. Pastor Wilson will conclude the series with a study of Romans 6:3–11, the Epistle for Easter Eve.

Wednesday Bible Study: “Living Stones: A study of First Peter”
6:50 p.m., Parlor
Beginning Feb. 29: Long recognized as an ancient teaching in preparation for baptism, the First Letter of Peter will serve as our Lenten study text in preparation for the events of Holy Week and Easter. Pr. Wilson will lead the study. Wednesday evening will conclude with Compline.

Ash Wednesday

Wednesday, Feb. 22
10:45 am  Bible Study
12:15 pm  Holy Communion
5:30 pm  Campus Communion
7:30 pm  Holy Communion

Lent

Sundays
8 am  Holy Communion
9:15 am  Bible Study: “Washed into Life,” led by Pr. Pohlman
10:30 am  Holy Communion

Wednesdays
5:30 pm  Campus Communion
6:15 pm  Soup Supper
6:50 pm  Bible Study: “Living Stones: A Study of First Peter,” led by Pr. Wilson
7:45 pm  Compline

Holy Week

Maundy Thursday at Oakwood
Thursday, April 5 | 11 a.m.

Maundy Thursday Service
Thursday, April 5 | 7:30 p.m.

Good Friday Tre Ore
Friday, April 6 | 12 p.m.

Good Friday Eucharist
Friday, April 6 | 7:30 p.m.

Easter Vigil
Saturday, April 7 | 8 p.m., followed by reception

Easter Eucharist
Sunday, April 8 | 9 & 11 a.m., brunch between services at 10 a.m.

Wednesday, Feb. 22
10:45 am Bible Study (Fireside Room)
12:15 pm Holy Communion
5:30 pm Campus Communion
7:30 pm Holy Communion

Dale Lavelle & Larry Thies, coordinators for The Road Home at Luther Memorial Church

Luther Memorial will host homeless families through The Road Home of Dane County during the week of March 4-11. Please consider volunteering for this meaningful ministry.

The many volunteer opportunities include meal preparation, kitchen anchor, evening host, activity host, overnight host and breakfast host. We also need volunteers to set up the Sunday school suite on Sunday, March 4, and take down on Sunday, March 11. The sign-up board will be available in the narthex beginning on Sunday, Feb. 5, and will be there until the Sunday before the hosting.

We thank all those who have committed their time to this outreach ministry and continue to do so. We encourage new volunteers to try this ministry and experience the feeling of providing this very important service to families who are in need of support at this challenging time in their lives.

Even as we ask volunteers to mark the week of March  4-11 for our next hosting for The Road Home, we also remind you to set aside some time to volunteer for our hosting again on May 13-20.

Please sign up in the narthex or contact Dale Lavell (274-1228, dellbb1@gmail.com) or Larry Thies (845-9267, ldthies@charter.net) with questions. Thank you!

Click to donate a lily or to ELCA  World Hunger for Easter

(Link  to our secure donation webpage)

Or print this form, fill it out and return it
to Luther Memorial with your check.

Members and friends of Luther Memorial Church are invited to honor or memorialize a friend or family member by making a special donation to the ELCA World Hunger Appeal or donating an Easter lily to beautify the church during this season. Each lily plant is $15. Donations to World Hunger may be made in any amount of $15 or more. Flowers may be taken home after the 11 a.m. service on Easter morning, or left at the church to be given to those who are ill or unable to attend services.

The deadline to be included in worship bulletins is Monday, March 12. Names of donors and those they honor or memorialize will appear in worship bulletins on Easter morning.

You can donate on our secure donation webpage or print a form and return it to Luther Memorial with your check.

Bruce Bengtson, organist

Miscellaneous Pieces  J. S. Bach (1685–1750)
Alla Breve in D Major
Trio in F Major

Urbs Jerusalem beata  Jean Titelouze (1563–1633)
Three Verses

Herr Christ, der ein’ge Gottessohn  Johann Pachelbel (1653–1706)

Herr Christ, der einig Gottes Sohn (BWV 601)  J. S. Bach

Ich ruf’ zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ  Johann Pachelbel

Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ (BWV 639)  J. S. Bach

The joy of the redeemed (O quanta qualia)  Clarence Dickinson (1873–1969)