Jesu Juva
“Increasing or Decreasing?”
Text: Matthew 17:1-9
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.
Not long after John the Baptist baptized Jesus, some of John’s disciples came to him and told him that Jesus - or, at least, some of Jesus’ disciples - were baptizing and all the people were going to Him! To which John said: Good! They should. He’s the man, not me. He’s the Christ, not me. He must increase and I must decrease (John 3:30).
We would all agree with that. And maybe it seems as if that’s what the Transfiguration is all about. The guy born in Bethlehem and raised in Nazareth, is increasing. More and more people are hearing of Him. More and more people were following Him. He’s moving up in the world - figuratively, and now literally! Now, He’s on top of the mountain. Now, He is shining in His glory. Moses and Elijah are speaking to Him. Yes! He’s moving up. He is increasing.
But not so. The reality is actually the very opposite of that. What Jesus is doing, what we see testified in the Transfiguration, is not a man increasing but the Son of God decreasing. This glory Jesus shows today is the glory that was always His as the Son of God, His glory from eternity. This is who He is. But He came down from heaven, from His glory, for you. He hides His glory in human flesh and blood for you. He doesn’t use all His God powers, but becomes hungry, tired, thirsty, for you. He decreases, for you. And He will decrease all the way down to becoming a common criminal executed on a cross. All this, for you.
For the Transfiguration is this: that HE must decrease so that I may increase.
Peter, on the other hand, is like us - he’s an increaser. That’s how he thinks. That’s how we think. So here, on this mountain, is Jesus increasing. Here He is in glory! So let’s stay here - this is progress! No, Peter. But it’s not that Peter’s wrong in wanting to build three tents and stay. It’s just that he’s too soon. He will be there, with Jesus in His glory, with Moses and Elijah and all the saints. This is what Jesus came for. But not yet. Jesus isn’t done decreasing yet. He must still decrease more. He must still go to the cross.
So while Peter wanted to build three tents there, to stay in the glory, it is the tent Jesus was already dwelling in, the tent of His flesh and blood, that would enable Peter - and us - to be in His glory. So again, it’s not that Peter’s wrong . . . he just hasn’t quite connected all the dots yet. He hasn’t quite grasped this Jesus-must-decrease-so-that-I-may-increase thinking yet.
We have trouble with this, too. Our world is all about increasing. Climb the ladder, achieve, get to the top, have it all, be the best. There is no end of books, videos, advisors, and plans to help us accomplish that. But Jesus goes against the grain. He is the guy at the top who went to the bottom, and bids us do the same. The glory is coming. In fact, it is yours! Jesus has provided that for you, and promised it to you. He has come to give you His kingdom. But not yet. That day is coming, but not yet. Now is the time of decreasing, of serving.
Moses and Elijah, Luke tells us in his account of the Transfiguration, were talking to Jesus about His serving, about His exodus. Everybody knows about Moses and his exodus, how he led the people of Israel out of Egypt, through the Red Sea, and to the Promised Land. But Moses fell short. He couldn’t get them into the Promised Land. That would be left for another. Elijah, too, fell short. He had a famous battle with 450 prophets of the false god Baal on Mount Carmel and won a resounding victory, but he could not win the full victory over all the hordes of hell. That would left for another, too. The one coming after Moses and Elijah. The one Moses and Elijah preached about and pointed ahead to. The one Moses and Elijah believed in. The one they now stood with in His Transfiguration. He had finally come.
But the victory He would win wouldn’t come from the top, sending lightning bolts down from heaven, but from the bottom. He wouldn’t do it as a military commander, but as a shepherd. He wouldn’t do it by killing His foes, but by laying down His life. For you, and for all people. To save you and all people. He must decrease so that you might increase. He must descend all the way to the cross and grave, to defeat hell and its hordes, to lead us into His Promised Land, to raise us who die out of our graves to life again. That is what the all-glorious Son of God came to do, and will do.
So Peter, James, and John, when you see Him hanging on the cross, bloodied and beaten, this is who is hanging there, and not another. It is the same all-glorious Son of God hanging there, for you.
I think it’s good that Peter didn’t get all this right away . . . that gives me hope! Because even after all the years I’ve heard this story and preached this story and heard the old, old story of Jesus and His love, how often do I still not get it? And maybe you, too. How often do I still think of increasing, not decreasing? Of being served, not serving? Of wanting glory now, not later? Of expecting praise and recognition and position, and if I get them, thinking, Yes, it’s good Lord to be here! And if I don’t, wondering why I’m not getting what I so obviously deserve? And don’t think the disciples didn’t fall into this - they were arguing about which of them was the greatest even right after Jesus instituted and gave them the Lord’s Supper and told them He was going to be betrayed by one of them! I mean, really?
But that’s our way of thinking in this fallen and sinful world. So when Jesus comes and teaches and lives so completely different, so completely upside-down . . . it’s hard for us to grasp. It’s hard for us to get our minds around. But if we can . . . if we can believe that the very Son of God came to serve me, that He didn’t just sit up in heaven and demand I become worthy, like all the other gods in this world, that He decreased for me, that He took not just all my sin, but all my filth, all my disgusting thoughts and desires, all my failures, all my screw-ups, and He took all the mocking and shame that I deserve for them, that He got kicked to the curb and thrown under the bus for me, that the lightning from heaven that should come down and strike me struck Him instead . . . that instead of staying on that mountain, in that glory, Jesus came down to go to the cross, to decrease so that I might increase . . . that changes everything.
And suddenly, seeing Jesus in the Transfiguration, and then seeing Jesus on the cross, doesn’t make the cross look worse, but more glorious than ever. That Jesus decreased . . . like that! From Transfiguration to cross . . . that I might increase, from cross to glory.
That, then, it seems to me, is the defining moment of your life. You are not defined by your sins, you are not defined by your successes, you are not defined by what you do, or who you think you are or want to become. That’s what the world focuses on, and tells you to focus on, and that that’s what matters. To chase after that. And people do. Maybe you. They listen. And it doesn’t work. Because when you’re an increaser, there’s always more. Another step, another rung, another achievement. You’re never there, you’re never good enough. And the world moves on. Keep up or get left behind.
But in the Transfiguration, the voice of the Father said: Listen to Him. Listen to Jesus. Because you’re going to hear something very different. Not more rules. Not more that you have to do. Not more that you have to be. Not keep up or get left behind. Not achieve and be a success. Not be good enough. When you listen to Jesus you hear: You are My beloved son, My beloved daughter. You became that when I baptized you. I forgive you all your sins. I came to do what you could not do and could never do. I will decrease so that you can increase. I will die that you can live. Eat My Body and Drink My Blood that My forgiveness, My glory, My life live in you. And when this world ends, or when this world collapses on itself, blows itself up, or implodes from all the other crazy things going on . . . when you die, it will be you standing there, with Me, in glory.
That, it seems to me, is a word worth listening to. A word the devil says not to listen to, not to believe. A word the world says is just a fairy tale, a word for the weak and stupid. But a word which the empty tomb says is true.
And when you look around this world, there are a lot of graves that are full, and only one grave that is empty. Maybe we should listen to Him.
When you look around this world, there are a lot of increasers, and they’ll gladly step on you! But how about the one who decreased so that you might increase? Maybe we should listen to Him.
When you look around this world, there are a lot of different truths all trying to convince you to believe them, and follow them, and say they’ll get you to your promised land - whatever that means for you. But then you find out they’re lying, and where you wound up isn’t that great and no different from where you came from. Or maybe even worse. Maybe we shouldn’t listen to them . . .
So we’re going to enter the season of Lent on Wednesday. Ash Wednesday. And we’re going to repent. We’re going to repent of listening to wrong truth and believing it, of following the world, or thinking like and being an increaser, of all the times and ways we thought and we tried to make a go of it without Jesus and apart from Jesus and even against Jesus. And we’re going to confess that we are dust and to dust we will return. Rightfully. Justly.
But we’re going to do all that for this reason, and this reason only: not to earn anything, not to prove anything, but to listen to Him. To listen to Jesus. To listen to Him say: I forgive you. To listen to Him say: I love you. And to see Him decrease so that I might increase. To descend all the way down to me, to lift me up to Him; all the way down to hell, to lift me up to heaven.
And we’re going to learn - hopefully we’re going to learn! - that maybe it’s better to be a decreaser than an increaser. To serve rather than be served. That if Jesus did that for me, then maybe I could for others. Because I have all I need. Forgiveness, life, glory - it’s all mine, it’s all yours, now, in Jesus. But others are still in need. Maybe instead of trying to climb over them, I should decease so they may increase, too.
And learning that - hopefully learning that! - we can say with Peter: Lord, it is good to be here. Here, in the trenches, with You. Here, where You and Your gifts are for me. Here, under Your cross of love and forgiveness. Here, where You have, in Your love, put me. Until one day Jesus will take us to see Him in His glory, with Moses and Elijah, with Peter, James, and John, with the angels and archangels and all the company of heaven. And it will be good to be there, too.
We got a glimpse of that today. A glorious glimpse. But for now, we look up and see Jesus only. Flesh and blood Jesus. Decreasing Jesus. Serving Jesus. Dying Jesus. And we know: ’Tis good, Lord, to be here.
In the Name of the Father, and of the (+) Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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