Week of Transfiguration
Now as they came down from the mountain, He commanded them that they should tell no one the things they had seen, till the Son of Man had risen from the dead. So they kept this word to themselves, questioning what the rising from the dead meant. Mark 9:9-10
After the Transfiguration, Jesus came down from the mountain and turned His face towards Jerusalem. Unlike Peter, James, and John, He knew what came next. He knew the agony that awaited Him there. Yet He went anyway. For this was the purpose of Jesus’ ministry. By His death and resurrection, He would conquer death forever, winning eternal life for those who trust in Him. Paul puts it this way: “For since by man came death, by [Jesus] also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive.” (1 Corinthians 15:21-22)
Moses, standing on the mountaintop with Jesus, proved this true. Moses had died over a thousand years earlier—and yet here he was. Moses was alive. Yes, Moses had died, but he was not dead. Through faith in God, Moses’ death was simply a door into greater life.
The same is true for everyone who has put their trust in Jesus. There is no such thing as a dead Christian. Jesus states this clearly in Matthew: “But concerning the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was spoken to you by God, saying, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.” (Matthew 21:31-32)
Abraham is not dead. Neither is Isaac, Jacob, Moses, or Elijah. Neither is anyone who has died in Christ. They may be absent from us, but they are by no means dead. They are alive, with Jesus, in paradise, having escaped the power of death forever.
Praise be to Jesus, the God of the Living, who has bought our lives with His death and resurrection.
Fulfiller of the past,
Promise of things to be,
We hail Thy body glorified
And our redemption see.
The Lutheran Hymnal 135:3