Based on the sermon for March 2, 2025 (Transfiguration Sunday) at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church – Buffalo, NY .
Sermon Video | 8:30am and 10:30am Worship Services
Scriptures | Exodus 34:29-35 and Luke 9:28-36
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen!
In Buffalo at the beginning of March, many of us have had just about enough of clouds. For the most part, clouds have been a constant part of our lives since October!
During winter, fewer hours of sunlight coupled with constant cloud-cover can affect our mood and overall sense of well-being. They obscure the rays of the sun so we don’t see or feel their full effect.
I was thinking this week what it must be like being an airplane pilot flying through clouds for the first time! Hurtling through the sky at over 500 mph, pilots slice through the clouds while they can’t see anything! Pilots have no choice but to trust their instruments and the guidance of air traffic controllers to safely navigate in spaces where they can’t see for themselves.
Clouds are not only high up in the sky. Clouds also settle near the ground as fog. If it’s thick fog, we may not be able to see very far, which can make driving and even walking scary and sometimes dangerous. Cloudiness can cause fear, uncertainty, trepidation, and more.
Clouds also appear in the Bible 159 times! For example, after the Great Flood, God put the rainbow in the clouds. God led the people through the wilderness with a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.
In the readings from Exodus and Luke, we hear that God is present and is communicating to people through the clouds. In Exodus, God communicates the Ten Commandments among many other things in a cloud. In Luke, Jesus’ appearance changed as he was with Moses and Elijah before a cloud came upon them. Scholars believe they were present because Moses represents the Law and Elijah represents the prophets.
When you hear the words “law” and “prophets” together, you may recall what Jesus said when he was asked, “What is the greatest commandment?” He said it was to love God with all that you have and all that you are … and to love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus concluded by saying that these two commands summarize everything written in the Law of Moses and everything said by the prophets.
As the conversation between Jesus, Moses, and Elijah concluded, the disciples who were witnessing this heard the voice of God from the cloud say, “This is my Son – my chosen. Listen to him!”
I was talking with a friend this week about clouds. He said, “Notice what happens when you’re in dense fog. You really can’t see the things that are off in the distance, so you are left to focus on the things closest to you … the things that are in shaper focus.”
He pointed out that, although the fog obscures and disorients, the simple fact of being in the middle of dense fog where you can’t see everything for yourself forces us to slow down. It heightens our awareness and causes us to rely on “instruments” beyond ourselves to help us navigate.
As I considered my friend’s perspectives alongside these readings, I realized that we all have our own personal clouds, too. The clouds that you and I experience are no less disorienting, confusing, and fearful than clouds high up in the sky or fog along the ground. Our personal clouds can be difficult to navigate, too.
In our personal clouds as with the dense fog, might it be best to slow down and take note of the things we can see right around us? Might we intentionally focus on the present moment and notice that God who is with us inside the cloudiness is revealed to us in new and sometimes unexpected ways? From within the clouds of uncertainty in our lives, God helps us to see differently … helps us to re-examine what we trust as our instruments that guide us through.
For many, the world around us may feel cloudy, unsettling, uncertain. Just turn on the news and you’ll see the cloudy and unsettling realities playing out before your very eyes. Just like pilots can’t avoid flying through clouds, we often can’t avoid the foggy times in our lives. While pilots have instruments they can rely on to give them confidence as they fly through clouds because they can’t see everything for themselves with their own eyes, we, too, can’t always see everything for ourselves.
Loving God with our whole selves, loving our neighbors as ourselves, faith, community … these are among the instruments God gives us to bolster our courage and confidence to navigate when our sight is limited to what is right before us.
Lent begins this week. In what ways can this season of Lent be cloudy? How can being fully present in the season and experience of Lent help slow us down and focus us on the presence of God with us now? Is it possible for us to experience peace in the middle of the confusing and disorienting clouds of life? Jesus meets us in our cloudiness to help us navigate our lives centered in his love.
In the name of Jesus. Amen!
Epicurious Lutheran 