We have a long gospel passage for the fourth Sunday in Lent. In the congregation I preach in, I will typically read the entire gospel passage prior to the message. I have not previously preached on this passage for lent, but three years ago when I preached on John 4 for the third Sunday in Lent, I showed the clip from that scene in The Chosen instead of reading the passage. Here is the YouTube clip of healing of the man born blind from Season 4, Episode 3.
Jesus repeats his “I am the light of the world” statement in 9:5 (originally spoken in 8:12), which seems to close the loop on that description of Jesus and his actions. The miracle of bringing light to the man’s eyes for the first time is definitive proof of that claim. In the broader context of Scripture, this harkens back to Isaiah 9, as I’ve indicated in other passages where light is a significant theme. This also seems to be the final proof that John offers for his opening statements in chapter 1 about Jesus being “light,” especially the “light” of Genesis 1:3, the firstborn of all creation. Jesus would be the physical, visible representation of God’s divine nature in his incarnation.
This passage is unusual in that a large section of it (vv. 13–34) happens apart from the presence of Jesus and his disciples. This only happens a couple times in John (the other occurrence is in 11:45–57, where the Jews are plotting to kill Jesus after he raised Lazarus from the dead). It would seem reasonable that the healed man would have relayed the story to Jesus or his disciples when Jesus sees him again in 9:35. The greater the miracle, the more intense the religious leaders’ desire to take Jesus out.
This section of the passage gives us some sense of how the Pharisees seemed to operate to protect their legalistic view of the Law. It shows how they participated in the darkness, having important discussions about the nature of sin and the impact of healing on the Sabbath behind closed doors and coercing (unsuccessfully) the healed man to recant his claim of Jesus healing, especially on the Sabbath. Worse yet, they were trying to get him to say something damning about Jesus, but he was too excited and too grateful to turn his back on the savior. You can almost feel the power of the Pharisees draining from their fingertips before their very (blind) eyes.
The healed man’s courage to speak the truth about who Jesus is and what he’s done for him is a testimony for all believers in this day and age where Christian persecution seems to be increasing in the heartland of America and elsewhere. But people are responding with a desire for faithfulness in Christ in great numbers in spite of (or because of?) it.
I’ll close out here with a couple links to my articles on “I Am the Light of the World” if you want to dig deeper into that topic. Peace to you in the next week. May God richly bless your ministry as you proclaim his word to those within your influence.
Lectionary Help for Third Sunday in Lent, March 8, 2026, Year A.
Taking a look at the literary context and historical setting of the account of Jesus speaking to the woman at the well in Samaria can help answer a few questions people may have about this passage. For example, why was Jesus so insistent that he “had” to go through Samaria? Consider the following points.
John begins his gospel by saying Jesus is the light of the world and has been around “from the beginning.”
Jesus shows his earthly authority over the Temple at Jerusalem by overturning the tables of the money changers, yet that doesn’t seem to be enough for him to insist that Jerusalem is the proper (or only) place of worship.
The well where he meets the woman is Jacob’s well. Jacob, of course, is one of Jesus’s earthly ancestors, so Jesus is in the land of his ancestors when he first reveals (at least in John’s gospel) he is the Messiah. That fact shouldn’t be overlooked.
“He establishes Jesus is fully divine and that God is his Father. Since he’s God’s “only begotten” on Earth, Jesus then is the primary authority in the Temple, which the Jews believed was home of God’s presence. Finally, Jesus, having been established as the authority for the Jewish religion, essentially abolishes the long-standing prejudice against Samaria by going to the place where his ancestor Judah’s father, Jacob (renamed Israel) first established himself in the Promised Land after returning from Laban’s home. I think this aspect of the story lends to its credibility and to the principle of worship he puts forth.”
The epistles passage is Romans 5:1–11. This is where Paul makes the point that Christ died for us “while we were still sinners.” This ties in nicely with the woman at the well story, of course, as Jesus is offering the woman living water in spite of her current social and relationship status.
A few Old Testament passages can provide some background for the “living water” Jesus speaks of. Isaiah 49 (esp. vv. 6 & 10) speaks of springs of fresh water, while Jeremiah 2:13 and 17:13 both describe the Lord as the Jews’ “spring of living water.” Of course, we can’t forget Ezekiel’s prophecy in 14:8–9:
“On that day living water will flow out from Jerusalem, half of it east to the Dead Sea and half of it west to the Mediterranean Sea, in summer and in winter. 9 The Lord will be king over the whole earth. On that day there will be one Lord, and his name the only name.”
I pray this helps you prepare this week. I’m updating my previous message, which includes both NT passages, to reflect some of the things I’ve learned or rediscovered in my recent work in Romans.
Option A is John 3:1–17, which I’ll cover in this post.
On “born again” in John 3:3, 3:7:
A word study of ἄνωθεν (anōthen) along with the context of the discussion between vv. 3 & 7 suggests that the more likely meaning here would be as an adverb of place (“born from above”) as opposed to an adverb of time (“born again” or “born anew”). “Born of water” (vs. 5) most likely refers to natural birth, while “[born of] the Spirit” refers to being renewed by Spirit through his infilling, which of course can only come from above.
Regarding the Serpent on the pole:
God told Moses to fashion what in Hebrew is called a saraph (שָׂרָף śārāp̄), a bronze serpent that itself must have had a fiery appearance in the desert sun and put it on a pole so the Israelites who were bitten could look upon it and live. However, it did nothing for those who had already died. This bronze serpent was not an idol originally[1] but rather something akin to a sign of judgment on the Israelites. It couldn’t save them from the pain of being bitten by the snakes, but it would save them from the poison that had entered their bodies. Something else was absorbing the fatal penalty of their disbelief. It’s a bit of a mystery why the word for the winged angels, or seraphim, of Isaiah 6 is also translated snake or serpent elsewhere. Regardless of the specifics of what it looked like, it must have fostered some measure of fear among the Israelites. “You can look at the scary bronze snake, or you can die from the real ones.”[2]
The serpents were cursing the Israelites with death, but if they would look upon the image of the curse, they would live. Jesus took on the curse of sin for us by being lifted up on a cross. We need to look to Jesus to be saved.
May God bless your sermon and lesson preparation this week as we settle into the season of Lent.
I preached this message on February 22, 2026, the First Sunday in Lent, Year A.
When you think about it, Satanism, the worship of Satan, is an oxymoron. I know what you’re thinking, and you’re right. “That’s a weird way to start a sermon, preacher!” Yep, guilty as charged. But seriously, why would anyone want to put their “faith” in Satan when all the evidence points his core nature? He’s pure evil. He’s deceptive. He hates those who worship God. I would dare say he’s more interested in getting you to not worship and serve God than he is having people worship him. But he can ignore those people, because they’re already solidly in his camp.
John says this about the devil when he confronts the Pharisees in the Temple in John 8:
44 You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. 45 Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe me! 46 Can any of you prove me guilty of sin? If I am telling the truth, why don’t you believe me? [1]*
Adam and Eve had a first-hand encounter with Satan in the very beginning. He lied about what eating the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil could do for them. Yes, after eating the apple, they did experience the shame of their nakedness, so at least that much of what Satan said was true, but it was a half-truth at best. The lie that Satan told Eve was “You will be like God.” That was a lie in so many ways, and here’s why:
God is not just omniscient, knowing all that can be known, but he is omnipotent and omnipresent as well. Adam and Eve, relatively speaking, only got a fraction of the knowledge that God had about such things and NONE of the power or presence that God had. Their shame at disobeying caused them to fear the presence of God when God had designed Eden and the world for them to live in his presence. They lost power, because at that point, death became a necessity for survival. An animal would have to die to clothe them. Blood sacrifices became necessary for temporary atonement. And God’s son would have to die to redeem them forever from the curse.
Satan won that first round with God’s precious new creation, but out of that came the first prophecy of Satan’s defeat at the hands and feet of God’s son. It’s no wonder, then, that he thought he could try and pull that off when God’s one and only son came on the scene. If he could get Jesus to stumble, the world would be his, or so he thought.
In the garden, Eve had become convinced somehow that the forbidden fruit “was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom.” It shouldn’t surprise us that Satan used those same three categories to tempt Jesus in the desert as in our Gospel passage this morning. “I know you’re hungry for some food, Jesus. Go ahead and turn these stones into bread.” But Jesus knew, unlike Adam and Eve, that there was more to God than producing a little supernatural “manna” to satisfy what must have been an intense human experience of hunger. “Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.”
Satan tried to trick him by twisting a promise of God into a perversion of wisdom. “Come on Jesus. You know God will catch you if you jump off the top of the Temple here! Imagine the scene when the crowd watches the angels swoop you up at the last second! You’ll be a superhero!” But Jesus knows it is foolish to put God to the test like that, and rebuked Satan with that fact in no uncertain terms.
Satan had one more chance. He took Jesus to a high mountain where he had a “pleasing sight” awaiting him—”all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor.” But once again, Jesus knew the price was too high to go along with Satan’s schemes, and he knew none of them would bring about what God had promised him when he fulfilled his mission. “You know the commandment, Satan. I will have no other gods before me. He was there to “worship the Lord God and serve him only.” The liar failed at trying to fool the one in whom there was no lie and only truth.
And that was the beginning of the end for Satan. Jesus won that battle, but Satan didn’t give up that easily. He had to switch his focus to others, and most of you know who that would be: someone from his inner circle. The signs would be there early on that something wasn’t quite right with Judas. Even Peter gets some of the blame, but that, it seems, may have been more to his impetuous nature at times, and Jesus had other plans for him anyway.
The power of death was defeated at the cross. I’m sure that was something that Satan actually felt. Jesus had even told Peter that the gates of hell could not withstand the coming of God’s kingdom, and I think for a while anyway, as the church began to coalesce after Pentecost, God and Jesus kept Satan at bay to give the fledgling believers a head start at getting the gospel out.
I want to turn now to Romans 5:12–19, the other New Testament passage in the Lectionary readings today, to look at the results, if you will, of Jesus’s victory over death and how he, as the New Adam, broke the curse brought on by the First Adam, who through passivity allowed his wife to give in to the serpent and joined her in her disobedience. Romans 5 has a powerful message about how you and I can be strengthened in our own faith walk because of what Jesus accomplished on the cross and in his resurrection from the dead.
Hear what Paul has to say:
12 Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned—
13 To be sure, sin was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not charged against anyone’s account where there is no law. 14 Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who is a pattern of the one to come.
15 But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many! 16 Nor can the gift of God be compared with the result of one man’s sin: The judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation, but the gift followed many trespasses and brought justification. 17 For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ!
18 Consequently, just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people. 19 For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.[2]
Even though Paul says plainly in 1 Timothy 2:14 that it was Eve who was deceived and sinned first (sorry, ladies, I’m just the messenger here), Paul considers the blame for “original sin” to be squarely on Adam’s shoulders. Adam had one command, and he (and Eve) blew it. But because it was a single command and the Law had not come yet, God could not permanently charge Adam with a violation of his law. Instead, they were expelled from the garden because they could not be trusted. That doesn’t mean they weren’t loved, though. God would declare even as he announced their punishment that the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent.
Paul demonstrates that Jesus fulfilled the role that Adam never could. Adam’s disobedience or lack of faithfulness brought sin into the world, but Jesus’s one act of faithful obedience, submitting to crucifixion, is the only act that could defeat the power of sin once for all and bring righteousness to all who would follow him. It took one sin by Adam to mess up things for everybody, but one faithfully obedient savior to restore us to God in his righteousness.
Romans says that Jesus Christ is our righteousness. He earned that designation by fulfilling the whole Law of God. But God still needed that once-for-all blood sacrifice that would make the animal and grain sacrifices of the Old Testament completely obsolete. Jesus was the only one who could be that spotless lamb. But it wasn’t just because of his 100% obedience to the law. The crucifixion had one more element that made it absolutely effective and impossible for the devil to challenge or destroy: It was love, pure and simple.
“For God so loved the world.” Only a perfect man with a fully divine nature who showed us beyond a shadow of doubt how he and his Father loved us in person and face to face could make that sacrifice. The bulls and goats and birds that were sacrificed under the Old Covenant could not ever love us the way Jesus did and does, which is why his sacrifice stands not only above the old sacrificial system, but above every other religion as well. Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, was a real person, but he never loved anything about the world that should have mattered to him. He just tried to obtain a state of nothingness, a very selfish goal that no one else, by definition, could help him achieve. There’s no personal connection there and no promise of any help from the supernatural realm. Jesus’s sacrifice was by far the most superior of any that could have happened on this world God created with love, and the only one that can guarantee us eternal life in God’s glorious new kingdom.
As believers, then, know that you are “in Christ” in every sense of the concept. We are baptized “into Christ,” which means we are baptized into his death. So we share in his death so we can be free of the requirements of the law, beneficiaries of grace, and servants of righteousness. As you go forth in the world from here, declare God’s word unashamedly to those who need to hear the hope of his good news. Amen.
[1]The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan. *I didn’t say it in my message, but I sure thought about adding: “The Pharisees must have had Jesus Derangement Syndrome.”
Welcome to Lectionary Help for the first Sunday of Lent, February 22, 2026, the temptation of Christ in the wilderness. The celebration of Easter/Resurrection of the Lord is on April 5 this year.
I’ll just pull a relevant quote from the sermon linked above, as I think it’s succinct enough to give you the sense of the words used for “temptation” and “testing.”
Word Study (from the sermon linked above)
Tempt, test (πειράζω peirazō)
Temptation, testing (πειρασμός peirasmos)
So why do three of the versions I mentioned use “test” instead of “temptation” for the same Greek or Hebrew word? Well, as I tell my students when they ask me questions like that, the answer is “context, context, context.” If you follow the use of the words in their respective story settings, you find that “testing” has to do with the relationship between God and humans. The general thrust of the verses in question goes one of three ways: either God is testing his people to see how they respond, or the people are testing God by NOT doing what he’s commanded them to do, or one person is testing another’s character. And consistent with the concept of testing, sometimes there’s a judgment or “grade” on how we responded to the test.
“Temptation” is a subset of testing. That is, all temptations are tests, but not all tests are temptations. The word “temptation” is used by these English translation committees to indicate a situation in which some personified evil power or influence is at work.
Application
In the message above, I offer three ways after the example of Jesus to fight against temptation and weaken their influence in your life:
Pray! (Hebrews 4:15–16)
Live in the will of God; Live “in Christ” (1 John 2:15–17)
Memorize and proclaim God’s word (Psalm 119:11)
Epistles passage (Romans 5:12–19)
If you’re looking for a different angle to approach the theme, consider using Romans 5:12–19 as your starting point. I’ve had Romans on the brain for the past couple months because I gave the kickoff message to our 2026 first semester church-wide small group study in Romans (Romans 1 & 2: Jesus Our Righteous and Faithful Savior (StoneBridge small group kickoff) | Sunday Morning Greek Blog). I side with the subjective genitive approach to Romans when it comes to talking about both righteousness and faithfulness, so Jesus is “the righteous one who lives by [his] faithfulness” and we’re saved through the faithfulness of Jesus, the Righteous One.
Having established my foundation for my understanding of Romans, I’ll give some quick hits here.
The “sin entered the world through one man” concept is countered by Jesus, the Righteousness of God, the “one man” through whom all are made righteous by being “in Christ.” Jesus’s faithfulness secures that for us.
Verse 19 makes the connection to the stated theme of Romans (leading the Gentiles to the “obedience of faithfulness”; 1:5 & 16:26): “Through the obedience [of faithfulness] of the one man the many will be made righteous.” This is the set-up for Paul’s discussion of baptism in chapter 6: If we’re baptized into Christ, we’re baptized into his death. That “death” is how we’re freed from the law (Romans 7), and our subsequent emersion (coming out of the baptismal waters) results in life “in Christ.” Our righteousness is not something separate imparted to us; it’s something we walk in when we walk “in Christ.”
Blessings this week as you enter into the Lenten season. If you’re in a tradition that gives up something for Lent, try giving up those things that keep you from drawing closer to your Savior. I’ve preached the above sermon twice in the last four years, so time for me write something afresh.
This Wednesday marks the beginning of the season of Lent, a time when Christians worldwide anticipate the remembrance of Christ’s death on the cross and the celebration of his resurrection from the dead on Easter Sunday. I can’t help but think there must be a small bit of irony that we celebrate the birth of Jesus and his resurrection, the beginning and ending of his life on earth, only about three or four months apart. Jesus is that special to us that we choose to recognize both those events as holidays in our culture and in Christendom more broadly. Most people who have holidays today only get them for their birthdays, like President’s Day tomorrow, or Martin Luther King Day last month.
We don’t have a holiday that I’m aware of where recognize the death of an individual. We do have Memorial Day, Veterans’ Day, and Pearl Harbor Day to recognize the sacrifices of our loved ones and heroes who’ve served and in many cases given their all for this country for our freedom. Of course, as the old hymn goes, “Jesus gave it all” for each of us as well, but for our spiritual freedom and eternal life with him in Heaven.
Jesus knows what his end goal is: the cross. But he also doesn’t want his disciples to be taken by surprise by that event either. In Matthew 16, Jesus begins to warn his disciples that he must be handed over by the Jewish leaders who hated his disruption of their power over the people to the Romans for the death penalty. The first time Jesus says this, Peter is indignant: Most English translations have Peter saying something like “Never!” or “God Forbid!” The one word that Peter utters is the word for “Mercy!”
It was a dire prediction after all, and I’m sure the disciples weren’t ready for that just yet. That’s when Jesus responds to Peter, “Get thee behind me, Satan!” Keep in mind that just a few verses earlier Jesus said he was going to build his church on Peter, or at least on the truth of his confession that Jesus is the Christ.
But Jesus doesn’t stop there. In all three gospel accounts of this first prediction, Jesus goes on to say something about each of them having to take up their own cross to follow Jesus. In other words, they need to “die” too. But for those who would come to Christ later, that experience of “dying,” that is, “taking up the cross,” will look very different. That has got to be pretty earth shaking for a young group of disciples who thought that Jesus was going to lead them in breaking away from Roman rule. This background is important to emphasize here for what is about to happen.
About six days later, according to Matthew’s account, it’s at this point that the story from our gospel reading this morning kicks in. Jesus chooses what is apparently his “inner circle”—Peter, James, and John—to go up onto a high mountain, and he wastes no time getting to the reason he came: He transfigures himself before them to reveal his heavenly glory. Matthew says Jesus’s face “shone like the sun” and his clothes were “bright white.” Luke is much less dramatic: he just says Jesus’s appearance was “different.” In fact, Luke doesn’t even use the word for “transfiguration” in his account. That word is one that should be familiar to you: it’s the Greek word from which we get the English word “metamorphosis” (μεταμορφόομαι metamorphoomai, μεταμορφόω metamorphoō).
Mark is the only other gospel writer to use that word in his account. It simply means to change form. I don’t think anything “physical” happened to Jesus in this event. I think the divine nature of Jesus overpowers the physical nature and manifests its form on top of Jesus’s human form. For added excitement, Moses and Elijah show up in their heavenly forms to chat with Jesus.
But why Moses and Elijah? Luke tells us this: “They spoke about his departure, q which he was about to bring to fulfillment at Jerusalem.”[1] Elijah is not the first prophet in the Old Testament, but he is the most famous, and he never died. Maybe Elijah is sharing his experience of having his human form whisked off to heaven and what Jesus should expect at his resurrection. Elijah also represents John the Baptist, the last of the prophets under the old covenant, as Jesus would go on to explain in Matthew 17:12.
Moses’s presence is easy to explain. Moses was the one who was initially given the Law by God that he passed on to the Israelites, so it makes sense that he would be present to see the one in whom all that law is fulfilled. What did Jesus say in the Sermon on the Mount? “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.”[2] The apostle Paul would say some 25 years later, “Christ is the culmination of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.”[3] Both Moses and Elijah together represent the full experience of how God revealed himself in the Old Testament, and both of them get to see the fulfillment of their respective roles in that revelation firsthand.
The transfiguration event doesn’t seem to take very long, maybe a few minutes at the most, but then again, the disciples seem to be in a bit of daze at the whole event. It’s not long after they come down from that mountain-top experience that Jesus again repeats his prediction of dying. This puts a closing bracket on the transfiguration story and provides a final clue as to what we can take away from that story.
Jesus reveals his divine nature to his inner circle in the transfiguration event so that they can have assurance that Jesus’s death will not be the end of the story. The disciples see that Moses and Elijah are still alive, so there is proof of life after death. For the disciples to both see the glory of God in Jesus and hear his voice also puts them in the same unique class as Moses and Elijah, men who have seen the glory of God, have heard his voice, and have lived to tell about it.
There are at least three takeaways for us in this story, then.
Heaven is real and the patriarchs are alive and well in that realm;
Jesus himself will be resurrected when the time comes; and
Jesus has the fulness of divinity in him, i.e., he’s the Son of God.[4]
It’s possible this event may also be a sort of looking forward to what will happen on the Day of Pentecost. The tongues of fire I’m sure looked a bit different than what Peter saw in the transfiguration, but there would have been no doubt in his mind that this was God at work. In fact, Peter mentions this event in his second letter:
16 For we did not follow cleverly devised stories when we told you about the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in power, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. 17 He received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory, saying, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” i18 We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with him on the sacred mountain.[5]
Now I’ve been calling this event the “Transfiguration” because that’s the fancy, $20 religious term that’s in the Lectionary and that has been used for hundreds of years in English translations. I do believe it deserves that special designation, because it’s not something you see every day. But in everyday usage, this word simply means “transform,” and we find it in two other passages that have significance in our own faith walk. In 2 Corinthians 3, Paul is writing about the “greater glory of the new covenant” (NIV heading) and how we are being “transformed” into the image of Christ as we follow him and live in him:
“And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.”[6]
In other words, our transformation, our heavenly visage when we finally meet our Savior in glory, will be glorious in and of itself. We really will have a “glow” to us, so it seems. I’m looking forward to that day, and I pray you are too.
The other passage where we find this word is Romans 12:1–2:
Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.[7]
The “therefore” in this passage is important, because it follows on the heels of Paul’s 11-chapter treatise on righteousness and faithfulness. At the center of that argument is the event that triggers our transformation from being world-focused to being God-focused: baptism. Paul says that those “who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death.”[8]
This is what it means to be the “living sacrifice” Paul speaks of in Romans 12. Not only are we “buried with Christ,” but we’re raised up to live a new life. When we’re in Christ, he can begin and continue the work of transforming us into his image through the working of Holy Spirit. This is how much Christ loved us and continues to love us. He will never leave us nor forsake. Even if we blow it sometimes, he’s still faithful to continue loving and guiding us into his way.
As we transition from Epiphany to Lent this week, let us consider how we can improve our focus on Christ and living for him in service of others. May God bless you and yours this week. Amen.
My, how time flies! Next Sunday, February 15, 2026, is “Transfiguration Sunday,” the last Sunday before the Lenten season begins. Thank you for reading my new Lectionary Help series. Last week’s post was the most popular post on my blog for the week, almost twice what it was the week before. If you’re sharing these with your congregation or colleagues, a double dose of thanks for that! Now, let’s look at Matthew 17:1–9.
Word Study
We can’t talk about “transfiguration” without talking about the Greek word Matthew uses to describe the event, and it should be a familiar one to you: μεταμορφόομαι (metamorphoomai), μεταμορφόω (metamorphoō).[1] Those of you who studied Greek may recognize that this verb occurs in deponent form (usually implies no direct object or perhaps middle voice, suggesting the action of the verb is focused on the speaker themselves) and active voice, at least in the lexical entry.
New Testament authors only use the verb four times.[2] In addition to today’s passage, we find it in Mark’s account of the event (9:2). Luke does not use this word in his account (9:28–36) but only mentions that Jesus’s “appearance” changed (“The form [εἶδος eidos] of his face [was] different”).
Paul uses the word in Romans 12:2 (“be transformed by the renewing of your minds”) and 2 Corinthians 3:18 (“And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.”[3]). In both instances, the passive would seem to be appropriate since it refers to changes you and I undergo because of what Christ is doing in the lives of the faithful. Although Paul was not yet a follower at the time of the Transfiguration event, it seems clear in the 2 Corinthians passage that he’s alluding to that.
In all four occurrences, the morphologies I checked[4] all identified the forms as passive voice. However, I would argue that the two occurrences in the gospels should be identified as middle voice, because Jesus has the power within himself to control the event. I don’t know that this is a huge thing theologically, whether God was doing it or Jesus was doing it, but as I’ll discuss below, I think the events leading up to this suggest Jesus initiates this for his inner circle.
The other NT reading for the Lectionary is 2 Peter 1:16–21. Peter references his participation in the Transfiguration event, which he is now free to do since Christ has risen. It’s in the opening chapter of his first epistle, so I wonder how long he was holding on to that little tidbit waiting for the opportunity to publish it! It’s not a boast, though. He’s merely establishing his credibility as an eyewitness to the event, so we can, I think, safely say that the Transfiguration is a genuine event and not resort to some psychological, metaphysical, or naturalistic explanation for the event.
Context
In the synoptic gospels, all three authors have the Transfiguration story closely tied to Jesus’s first and second predictions of his death. Matthew and Luke have it immediately after that prediction, while Mark inserts the pericope about taking up the cross after the prediction. All three follow the Transfiguration pericope with a pericope of Jesus healing a demon-possessed boy followed by Jesus’s second prediction of dying. Luke adds after the second prediction that “Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem,”[5] which establishes the historical setting for the rest of Luke’s gospel. I don’t think it’s too much of a leap of faith to say that Jesus is using the Transfiguration event to assure his disciples that:
Heaven is real and the patriarchs are alive and well in that realm;
Jesus himself will be resurrected when the time comes; and
Jesus has the fulness of divinity in him, i.e., he’s the Son of God.[6]
Those are the highlights I noticed as I begin my own preparation for preparing a message for next Sunday. As always, feel free to comment here in the blog or on my Facebook page for the blog. Also watch for the Reel as I’m going to dive into creating some video content for these Lectionary Help posts as well.
If you want to see past Lectionary Help articles on the blog, just search “Lectionary” from the blog search feature, usually on the right side of your computer screen. Peace to you all!
An analysis of the gospel passage for the Fifth Sunday After the Epiphany (Year A), February 8, 2026. Please feel free to comment and give feedback below or use the comment section as a place to exchange ideas for communicating the message of this passage.
It’s been a busy couple weeks for me as I’ve been hard at work wrapping up my message on Romans 1 & 2 for our small group kickoff at my home church on February 4. It will be the longest message I’ve ever preached to the largest crowd I’ve ever been in front of. But I’m ready for the challenge, and I know a lot of people in the audience, so I’m not nervous at all.
The gospel passage for the Fifth Sunday After the Epiphany is Matthew 5:13–20, part of the Sermon on the Mount, and I’m sure very familiar to most preachers. Verses 13–16 about being salt and light are almost second nature for those who share the gospel, but I’ll still offer a few comments. However, in light of my just finishing up (at least for now) an intense study of Romans, I did want to focus on the last half of the passage in which Jesus discusses his and our relationship to the Law and the Prophets.
Salt had many uses in the ancient world that most of us are familiar with. But Jesus here focuses particularly on salt’s ability to add flavor to something (“If the salt has lost its saltiness”), so we should consider that aspect of it as Jesus’s primary intended meaning by referencing it. What are the ways in which believers can “add flavor” to a conversation or to life in general? I think most of you can answer that question based on your own experience and the demographic you minister to.
The use of the term “salty” to mean, essentially, “cussing like a sailor” or just using crude or unfiltered language generally did not arise until the late 19th century, so we should be careful to avoid reading that meaning back into a first-century text!
Jerusalem was built on a hill, so the image of light here may have a dual meaning. Borrowing from themes we’ve seen in previous weeks of the Epiphany season (e.g., Isaiah 9:2, 42:6, 49:6), we can see why Jewish tradition considered Jerusalem to be the light of the world. The Law held that distinction as well: “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path” (Psalm 119:105; see also v. 130).
With this in mind, it seems to be a natural transition from talking about “salt and light” into talking about the Law. Jesus says his mission is to “fulfill” (Greek πληρόω plēroō) the Law and Prophets. Not only, then, is Jesus the promised Messiah in prophets like Isaiah and the Psalms (Psalms 22 and 110 come to mind), but he also claims he has fulfilled the Law of God, something no one before him had ever dared to claim.
Since I mentioned I’d been working in Romans, some of you might know where I’m going with this last section of the gospel passage. Leviticus 18:5 says “5 Keep my decrees and laws, for the person who obeys them will live by them. I am the Lord.”[1] Paul cites this passage in Romans 10:5. But Romans 1:17 says “The righteous one will live by faithfulness.” So what’s the connection?
In Romans 10:4 (NIV), Paul says “4 Christ is the culmination (Greek τέλος telos) of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.”[2]The Common English Bible (CEB; a version you may see me quote more from since I discovered it this week) translates it this way: “4 Christ is the goal of the Law, which leads to righteousness for all who have faith in God.”[3]That’s essentially what Jesus means when he says he is fulfilling the law. Christ was faithful to the whole law of God such that he is declared “righteous” in the sight of the law, which allows him to qualify to be faithful to death on the cross for our salvation (Philippians 2:8).
This adds another layer of meaning, then, to “the righteousness of God [that] is being revealed” in the first part of Romans 1:17. Righteousness is not a “what” (or not just a “what”) but a “who.” Jesus Christ is the Righteousness of God! If we are “in Christ,” as Paul regularly says, especially in Ephesians 1, then we are walking under the umbrella of his righteousness. It’s not something “imparted” to us (at least not while we live), but something that we actively live in. Verse 20 then makes a lot more sense. How can our righteousness exceed that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law? Only by being in Christ, the righteous one who perfectly fulfilled the whole law.
Thank you for reading! Share this with your pastor friends. I encourage you also to leave comments below and use those comments as a way to share and exchange ideas about how to communicate the truths of this passage. Your feedback is always welcome as well.
Peace to you as we approach the end of the Epiphany season on February 15 with “Transfiguration Sunday.”
I presented this message on January 25, 2026, at Mount View Presbyterian Church, Omaha, NE. On the liturgical calendar, it was the third Sunday after the Epiphany, Year A.
Good morning! The Lord be with you!
Much of today’s gospel passage from Matthew is very similar to the events and themes we covered in last week’s Gospel passage from John. As such, I’m not going to spend much time in that passage today and instead want to look at our Old Testament reading, Psalm 27.
However, I will say a just a few words about the Matthew passage because there is a story in Matthew 4 that appears at first blush to disagree with John’s account about a similar encounter. Last week you may remember that Andrew was the first one of the disciples to want to follow Jesus, and he had meet Jesus at the place John the Baptist was baptizing in the Jordan River. He in turn went and got his brother, Simon Peter, to share the news that he had found the Messiah. After Peter met Jesus, John says they went and spent the day with Jesus.
Matthew’s account, as you heard, also has to do with the calling of Andrew and Peter, along with James and John, the sons of Zebedee as they’re fishing in the Sea of Galilee. However, in Matthew’s story, this comes immediately after Jesus spends 40 days fasting, praying, and being tempted in the wilderness. It seems clear then, that one of the things Jesus was praying about was who, among all the people he had met and interacted with during John’s “baptism revival,” would make the best choice for his band of 12 disciples. After all, Jesus had been in the wilderness 40 days, so it’s possible Andrew and Peter may have wondered what happened to him by that point. I’m guessing the four of them were pleasantly surprised to get the call from him, even if they didn’t yet understand the kind of commitment they were making.
The important takeaway for us in the choosing of Matthew is that Jesus wasn’t apparently looking for the well-educated scribes and well-respected, Pharisees, and Sadducees to be his followers. They surely would have argued with him the whole time given what we learn about them in the gospels and Jesus wouldn’t have gotten anything done. Although Jesus did come to preach repentance and a proper understanding of what our relationship to the Law and eventually Grace would look like, he was even more concerned about bringing people eternal hope, love, and joy in the midst of a religious structure that had grown increasingly legalistic and impersonal. The religious leadership of the Jews seemed to have a stranglehold on what the Jewish faith should look like, with hundreds of extra rules in place to keep you from even coming close to breaking the law.
This is where Psalm 27, a psalm of David, comes in. David’s leadership helped establish the nation of Israel as a regional powerhouse after 40 years of wandering in the wilderness and a few hundred years of rule by regional judges. It was during the period of Joshua and Judges where they conquered and in some cases wiped out nations that had “earned” the wrath of God for their wicked practices and animosity toward God’s chosen and beloved people.
Psalm 27 is filled with confident assertions and positive desires from David that he and perhaps the rest of Israel are in a right relationship with God. The Israelites were still adjusting to being a unified “kingdom,” not just scattered tribes ruled by local judges. But the attitude and the joy expressed by David in Psalm 27 seems to reflect a different mind set in his day than what comes across in the gospels. After all, you don’t see any of the Herods writing these kinds of psalms of praise! On the contrary, we get the impression that the Herodian Dynasty, which had descended from the Maccabees who had overthrown Greek rule almost 200 years prior to Jesus’s ministry, had become corrupt and heartless toward their own people in trying to appease their Roman overlords.
Our reading this morning left out a few verses from Psalm 27 this morning, so I would like to read through the whole Psalm a few verses at a time to talk about what it has to say to us this morning. We’ll start with vv. 1–3:
David didn’t have Pharisees and Sadducees telling him how to interpret God’s word and who added a “hedge” around the law. The “hedge” was a set of rules that rabbis had established much later in Israel’s history, probably sometime around 200 B.C. They were not strictly biblical commands, but they were guidelines intended to keep you out of situations that might increase the temptation to sin. It’s sort of like how some denominations today don’t want their members to dance because it might lead to “other things.” One such example from the Bible is when Jesus criticized the Pharisees because they tithed their mint, dill, and cumin—the smallest spices they knew about—but did nothing about justice, mercy, and faithfulness (Matthew 23:23).
David knew where his power and protection came from in Psalm 27: it came straight from God. He is emphatic that he has no need to fear. He knows his enemies will stumble and fall regardless of who comes after him. That is true faith, true confidence in God’s sovereignty. It’s no wonder he was called a man after God’s own heart.
4 One thing I ask from the Lord,
this only do I seek:
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord
all the days of my life,
to gaze on the beauty of the Lord
and to seek him in his temple.
5 For in the day of trouble
he will keep me safe in his dwelling;
he will hide me in the shelter of his sacred tent
and set me high upon a rock.
6 Then my head will be exalted
above the enemies who surround me;
at his sacred tent I will sacrifice with shouts of joy;
These three verses are interesting in that David speaks of God’s dwelling, his temple. Yet at this time, the first Temple had not been built yet. But twice, David references God’s “sacred tent.” This is a reference to the Tabernacle that the Jews had carried around in the wilderness for 40 years and was in use by David and the priests right up to the time Solomon built the Temple (1 Chronicles 6:32; 2 Chronicles 1:5)[3].
David understood the importance of a leader being present at worship regularly as an example to the people. David had brought the Ark of the Covenant back to Jerusalem, so had been in the visible presence of God at least one time in his life. That is how he knows how awesome it is to gaze on the beauty of the Lord.
How does that apply to us today? We know when Christ died that the veil was torn in two, from top to bottom, so God’s presence no longer “hid” behind a thick curtain. God’s new way of working in his people after the death and resurrection of Jesus was to give each of us the Holy Spirit. So we most likely will not see a manifestation of the presence of God inside our four walls here, but we can see how the Holy Spirit is working in each of us as we fellowship, worship, and serve together in his name and for his glory.
David also realized in times of trouble that being in God’s presence allows him to call upon the Lord for mercy, protection, and strength. He asks God to “hear my voice” and for God not to “hid your face from me.” He desires to be taught continually so he is better able to serve God and lead his people away from and protect them from the dangers of the surrounding nations. He knows that people are out to get him. He knows God is the only one who can protect him from those aggressors.
We do this as well on Sunday mornings here, and throughout the week, by praying together for those things that are on our hearts. As a fellowship we can seek support from one another to receive comfort and strength. In all my years as a minister, I’ve lost track of how many people have told me they don’t have to go to church to be a Christian. Technically, that may be true, but it sure makes the Christian walk much easier when you have others around you who share the struggles and joys of human existence.
This is David’s concluding benediction, which seems to serve the same purpose in worship as something like our “Gloria Patri” or the Doxology choruses. David reaffirms the confidence he had in vs. 3. He calls on all the worshipers to “Wait for the Lord.” The most common translation for the Hebrew word translated “wait” [קָוָה qāwā(h)] is “hope.” David is waiting, hoping with confidence that the Lord himself will act to keep him and his people safe in the land of the living. David also calls the worshipers to “be strong and take heart,” something both Joshua and Jesus said in their respective ministries.
Early in Joshua’s account of taking the Promised Land, he writes to his fellow Israelites:
6 Be strong and courageous, because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their ancestors to give them.
7 “Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go.
……….
9 Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”[6]
Jesus said in his final instructions to his disciples just before his prayer at the end of the Last Supper:
33 “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”[7]
So I leave you with those words of encouragement this morning. May the peace of God reign in your hearts as you go from this place. Amen.
[3] In 1 Chronicle 23:26, David relieved the Levites of their responsibility to carry the Tabernacle since Israel was permanently settled in Jerusalem.
Thank you so much for reading “Lectionary Help.” This installment is for the Fourth Sunday After Epiphany, Year A, February 1, 2026.
The following is an excerpt of my message on the passage from three years ago, along with a link to a one-minute video clip where Eugene Peterson tells the story I reference. The link for my full message is at the end of today’s article.
“Blessed”
Eugene Peterson, author of The Message, a contemporary paraphrase of the Bible, tells the story of how he wanted to translate this passage. He mentioned that after preaching one Sunday, a woman came up to him afterwards and mentioned how “lucky” she felt to have found his congregation.
Peterson ruminated on that a bit, as he was in the process of writing the paraphrase at the time, and thought “lucky” might be a more contemporary word that could be used in place “blessed.” However, when he floated that idea with his publishers, they shot it down pretty quickly because there’s a large segment of Christianity that associates the word “luck” with “Lucifer.” That might be a buzz kill for someone wanting to publish a Bible translation.[1]
Whether that connection [between “luck” and “Lucifer”] is true is not relevant to understanding the word μακάριος (makarios), however. The word “blessed” implies that something is coming from someone who has the power to give you something special or grant you a special permission in his kingdom. “Luck” has nothing to do with that. Peterson eventually accepted the word “blessed” here, because he recognized the word best represented the meaning of the text.
Respecting the Form of the Text
My textbook for Preaching class in seminary was Fred Craddock’s Preaching. Our seminary had a vast cassette tape library (yeah, that dates me, I know) of sermons from a variety of preachers, but I always loved to check out Craddock’s messages and consume them on my weekly drive to and from Lincoln, IL. One chapter in Craddock’s book was on the “form” of the sermon. He made the point that at no time in Christian history has there ever been a “standardized” form for the message given on Sunday morning (or whenever the saints gathered). But I do remember him talking about how it might be a good idea for the sermon to reflect the form of the passage it’s based on in certain instances.
When I preached on this passage three years ago, I had a choice, then, it seemed. I could robotically work my way through each of the individual Beatitudes and share the results of the appropriate word study for the key word in each, or I could shape the message more poetically as it seemed Matthew (or at least Matthew’s record of Jesus) had done. Most of the key words in the Beatitudes seemed to begin with one of three consonant sounds, so there was at least some hint of alliteration in the passage. I wound up crafting my own “amplified” version of the Beatitudes to capture some of the nuances of the various key words. It all came together rather quickly, as I recall, maybe two hours tops.
Here is the amplified form of the first Beatitude as I wrote it for my message that day. The entire message (including audio file) is found at the link at the end of this post.
When doubt creeps in
Because you see so much sin:
Blessed are the poor in spirit.
When your vision gets blurred
And you can’t see God’s word:
Blessed are the poor in spirit.
When life drains you
But God’s hope sustains you
And His people maintain you:
Blessed are the poor in Spirit,
For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
“Meek”
Just a quick note on the Greek word for “meek” [πραΰς praus] in vs. 5. The word is used three other times in the NT (Matthew 11:29; 21:5; 1 Peter 3:4), all of which are translated “gentle” in the NIV. But if you look at the context of each of these verses, you’ll see that it has nothing to do with passivity. Psalm 37:8–11 is a good OT passage that parallels (and is perhaps the source for) Matthew 5:5.
Sunday Morning Greek Blog 