March 2025

Dear Friends,

“In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea, With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me.”-Julia Ward Howe The Battle Hymn of the Republic The first Sunday of this month is The Transfiguration of Our Lord. This is a day that celebrates the divinity of the Lord Jesus being revealed in stark display to Peter, James and John and to every reader/hearer of this sacred text. The God incarnate was momentarily unveiled to appear as He truly appeared and for a moment the disciples were awestruck and extremely afraid. Moses and Elijah had appeared with Jesus yet when the disciples looked up they were gone and Jesus only remained. This lesson is a powerful one; apart from Jesus the Law and the Prophets cannot save. They can only point and foretell; Jesus only is the substance. Only through Christ’s atoning work can humans be saved. Jesus did not reveal Himself to us as He truly appears because we couldn’t handle that, so He came in flesh so that we could look upon Him without fear and even more that we could see Him and be saved. The Transfiguration shows us how deeply God wanted to save us. He would even come in flesh so that we wouldn’t be alienated by Him but rather that we would come to Him as one of us. Jesus only. These words provide the theme of a sermon by Henrik Schartau the Awakener of Lund. Schartau powerfully uses the redundancy of these terms to hammer home his point. It is Jesus only, the Christ for all of fallen Adam’s race, who shows the true desire of the Father. His desire is to save, even if He must personally fulfill the requirements of His own regulation, even if He must pay the price in full for Adam’s transgression passed down through many generations, even if He must offer the atoning sacrifice and indeed be sacrificed, He will do it and indeed has. Schartau depicts this as a gigantic cross overshadowing the world promising redemption to all those who would come to God. It is Jesus only and no other, Jesus only minus all the vain imaginings of humans, Jesus only apart from even the most holy of religious constructs. It is Jesus only, He is the Son with whom the Father is fully satisfied. Hear Him. Hear Him we shall and do whenever one dares to take up the Word and boldly declare the message of Jesus only. Yet this message always leads to incredible opposition. People may often choose to hear Jesus together with Moses and Elijah, Jesus together with the old regulation, Jesus interpreted by the Old Testament instead of the Jesus who fulfills the original covenant in totality and now provides a new and living way; a New Testament in His blood and no other, Jesus only who takes away the sin of the world. Still nothing else provides satisfaction to God and nothing else will ever do. It is Jesus only or nothing. There is therefore no other option but to proclaim Jesus only and so by God’s grace we will endeavor to do so and by God’s Spirit succeed. So that, as Julia Ward Howe indicated, we would all be transfigured in Him. All for Jesus only.

God’s Peace,

Jay Weidner