Last Sunday after the Epiphany, Year C | Luke 9:28-43a
St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church
March 2, 2025
the Rev. Jonathan Hanneman
Due to technical difficulties, audio and video of the sermon are unavailable.
“This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!” – Luke 9:35[1]
The first Sunday after the Epiphany, as we celebrated the Baptism of our Lord, we dove into this season of light and revelation with an exploration of Roman family structures and the expectations surrounding the ancient understanding of “fathers” and “sons.” All that’s coming back into play today, so we’re going to take a quick detour to review.
In Roman society, a capital-F Father was the singular head of all living male relatives throughout an extended family.[2] Within that structure, he was the only person to legally hold individual rights—everyone else fell into the category of what we would understand to be a minor. As the family’s representative to the world, the Father also held liability for the wellbeing of everyone under him.
One of the Father’s chief responsibilities was to choose a capital-S Son to be heir to his position should he become incapacitated or die. If all went well, the Father’s oldest biological son would automatically inherit that role. However, if the Father found his natural heir to be unworthy of the role, he could choose another person—possibly a younger son or other male relative—which he would then “adopt” as heir. But he could also adopt an heir from outside the family, making someone biologically unrelated the family’s new Son.
The Son’s job was to learn not to become like his Father but essentially to become the Father himself, absorbing family history and rituals, maintaining alliances and traditions, and basically carrying the family’s ancestral nature and commitments into the future.
We needed to understand all that because Jesus’ baptism appears to reflect an imperial Roman adoption ceremony, making the scene quite seditious within the ancient world. Instead of the Emperor appointing his heir, God, the true Father of all Fathers—to adapt a title the Emperor himself used—announced a competing kingdom by proclaiming the installation of his chosen Son above all Sons.
Unlike most Roman emperors up to that point in history, however, God apparently wanted to cross all the legal t’s and dot even the i’s hidden in the small print, because the Transfiguration appears to be a second part to the adoption ceremony, which, depending on the era, formally involved three definitive public announcements of the Son.
It’s easy to get distracted during this scene by turning all our attention to the divine displays surrounding Jesus. In fact, that’s what most preachers and theologians (and songs) emphasize about this text—proof of Jesus as God. But if we look past the apparent temporal disruptions and flashing lights, what we observe is a deeply human moment. As Moses and Elijah talk with Jesus, the wording suggests this was something along the lines of a formal prophecy or divine commissioning, the way an oracle might present an ancient Greek hero with their quest. The “about to” is unusual as well. To us it sounds like a statement of fact, like Jesus is already on his way to Jerusalem and is “about to” arrive. But there’s a volitional aspect to the term which pushes it more into the realm of intention—more like “getting around” to doing something—implying that Jesus recognized the need to go to Jerusalem at some point, but he really wasn’t too interested in what he expected to happen and may have even been trying to delay the inevitable.
This, of course, doesn’t fit well with our ingrained desire for a super-human Jesus. The Church and broader Western culture have overemphasized a supernatural savior for so long that we forget Jesus truly was one of us, facing all the same challenges, weaknesses, and foibles that we still do today. The Church has argued for more than 1800 years regarding Jesus’ divinity versus his humanity. The formal statement about it—the Nicene Creed, which we’ll pledge right after the sermon—says “yes” to both. Yes, Jesus is fully human. Yes, Jesus is fully divine.
Few of us, however, have been very happy with that answer, and we’re still attempting to push Jesus into one box or another. After centuries of arguments, Modern American Christianity has settled on a sort of demigod savior—someone part-human and part-god—or, to be completely honest, a god masquerading as human. That’s the Jesus you’ll hear about who knows everything that is, was, or will be and doles out miracles only to the worthy and never makes a mistake or gets angry or tired or frustrated and who’d hit a hole-in-one every time if he didn’t wink a little to make himself look more normal.
That Jesus never existed, and we need to stop pretending that he did. Jesus, as presented in the Gospels, grew, learned, and changed his mind and approach to the world around him. He had all the emotions and stubbed his toes and said the wrong thing at the wrong time and felt socially awkward and apologized for mistakes. If we stop imposing our self-assured, rugged individual, comic book Jesus onto the texts, we might begin to be able to see all that a little clearer.
Jesus recognizes that things in Jerusalem could turn south quickly and isn’t super eager to get on with the trip, not because of mystical foreknowledge but because, like anyone paying attention, he can read where the signs are pointing. He’s exasperated at the pressure to perform after spending the day climbing down a mountain. He’s rude to a foreigner who’s been bothering him but, surprised at her witty comeback, takes that moment to expand his mission. At Lazarus’ graveside, he’s kicking himself for not showing up earlier. And by the time he reaches the Garden of Gethsemane, where his path forward has become utterly clear, he desperately begs God to disrupt what’s coming. None of those things are sin;[3] none of them stomp on Jesus’ divinity. They’re just human responses amidst opportunities to grow and change and, especially in the case of the Garden, demonstrate a faithful, ongoing commitment to God.
The voice from the cloud actually emphasizes Jesus’ humanity. We read “This is my Son, my Chosen,” but that “chosen” isn’t entirely accurate. The word uses that same structure we ran into in Advent with John the Baptist where the trees being chopped down are actually the ones swinging the axe. That being the case, the meaning would more literally be that of self-selection, or what we might think of as preparation or self-discipline: “This is my Son, who has been disciplining himself.”[4] At his baptism, the voice announced the Heir to the Celestial Kingdom. At the transfiguration, the voice announces that the appointed heir has been undergoing training and is readying himself for his role as the capital-S Son.
By its nature, training suggests growth and change, a concerted effort to prepare oneself for what’s coming, which is a very human activity indeed. And, like Jesus, we too need to continue strengthening ourselves for that which is to come.
This Wednesday we enter a fresh Liturgical Season wherein we renew our dedication to follow God’s guidance and actively attempt to practice how we might better reflect God’s self-giving nature, things Jesus will continue to demonstrate for us as he finally does begin his trek to Jerusalem. So, looking back at just this Church year, did we choose to take the opportunities to prepare ourselves that Advent presents? Having become accustomed to the light of Christ throughout this season of Epiphany, will we be ready as his—and our—future dims? Are we disciplined to hold fast to a path that leads to darkness—and not just darkness, but death itself?
Lent is the season for us to prove our training, to show ourselves heirs worthy of the Father’s confidence and blessing. Will we, like Jesus, accept, and even embrace, the opportunities our humanity provides by continuing to change, grow, and embody the Image of God that God asks us to become?
“This is my Son, who has been disciplining himself. Listen to him!”
[1] All Bible quotations are from the NRSV unless otherwise noted.
[2] Although daughters were included within this family structure, wives were not—they more or less remained property of their biological family’s Father.
[3] The “sin” for the ancient world would have been hubris: the refusal to change and learn and accept advice and consider the effects of one’s actions upon others.
[4] Luke 9:35 | my translation—and a more appropriate phrasing, given the adoptive nature of this scene.