Preaching Texts: Exodus 34.29-35; 2nd Corinthians 3.12-4.2; Luke 9.28-36
The movie Sweet Home Alabama is a favorite in the Johnson household. The basic plot is this: Reese Witherspoon is engaged to marry the son of the mayor of New York City, but before she can get married, she needs to finalize her divorce from her childhood sweetheart in Alabama. She returns home and finds that she hasn’t quite cut all the ties to her former life as she thought she had done. Hilarity, heartbreak and, of course, true love combine to form the rest of the story.
I was thinking of this movie while I was studying this week’s readings from scripture. The childhood sweethearts fall in love by sharing a kiss in a rainstorm at age 10, just after lightning strikes nearby. Years later, lightning strikes again when Reese Witherspoon’s character realizes that she still has deep feelings for this man, and her feelings intensify when she discovers who he really has become in their years of separation. It seems that her soon-to-be-ex-husband, who appears to only be concerned with fixing his airplane and enjoying a beer on the front porch, has developed a thriving artist’s studio in a nearby city. This revelation shocks the both of them and redirects the course of the entire movie.
What does it mean to see people in a new light? Someone once said that character is what is revealed when no one is watching – is that true? How are we supposed to take people at “face value” when no one is actually revealing who they are? How do we find the kind of people we can trust with who we really are? How do we find the strength to reveal our true selves to those people? When will the day come when we can truly live with unveiled faces? Who will bring that day about? Let us pray.
God, we thank you for ways in which we encounter you day to day. We thank you when we see your love shining in the smile of a friend, or the sweetness of a baby’s laugh. We praise you when an embrace from a loved one reflects your love for us. In prayer, in quiet moments captured in the midst of busy days, and in the most unexpected ways – you meet us as we are. We thank you God for these glimpses of holiness and for the sustaining power they bring to the nurture of our faith. Strengthen us as we seek to live the faith we proclaim, and help us to bring the light of your love into the lives of everyone we meet. In the name of Christ we pray, Amen.
Moses had a problem. His problem wasn’t God – it wasn’t Moses – it wasn’t the environment or a lack of food or the Egyptian army or bricks to be made without straw. Moses’ problem was, as usual, the people of Israel. Moses had been speaking with God on the mountaintop, but the people weren’t concerned with that – what concerned the people was the way those conversations changed Moses’ appearance. When Moses would return from his conversations with the Lord on the mountain, his skin would be radiant – shining with the light of the Holy, reflecting the glory of God. Moses had no idea this was happening – he was unaware of how his conversations with God were changing his appearance. But the people were afraid – afraid of the sight of Moses, afraid of being so close to the Holiness of God, afraid to see what contact with their deliverer would do to a person. What if they were called up to the mountain themselves?
Moses didn’t want the people to forget that his commission to them was from God, not just from Moses himself, so Moses would let that shining face radiate the glory of God while Moses revealed the Law to the Israelites. After their meetings, Moses would veil his face for the sake of the people – but not permanently. When Moses spoke with God, Moses spoke without the veil – revealing himself to God and allowing God’s presence to fill his face with light again. Then Moses would let that light shine while he spoke to the people.
It must have been shocking for the people to see Moses, filled with the light of the glory of God and shining so fiercely. They had known Moses as an 84 year-old fugitive shepherd, who hid from the Egyptians until God called him to lead the people out of Egypt. Now this aged prophet was climbing mountains, shrouded in fog and lightning, conversing with God and returning with revelations about how the Israelites were to live under God’s protection and guidance. How would you ever look at Moses without seeing that light, even when Moses wore a veil to hide it? How would you ever think that Moses was just another Israelite?
1300 years later, another man who would deliver people from bondage climbed a mountain to speak with the God the Creator. But this man didn’t go alone – he brought with him three fishermen who had questions about his identity, his teachings and his purpose for himself and for his followers. You can imagine that climbing a mountain in ancient Palestine, with sandals on your feet and robes on your back, would leave you dusty, sweaty and out of breath by the time you finally reached the highest peak. But when Peter, James and John got to the top of the mountain with Jesus, they saw a wondrous thing. Their dirty, dusty, sweaty Teacher, who had caught his breath and was praying, began to be transformed. The drab brown robes slowly gave way to dazzling white. The dirt and sweat and muck disappeared, burned away by a radiance so bright they had to shield their eyes against it. Finally, they saw with Jesus two figures, Moses and Elijah, talking about another exodus – this one an exodus from the people’s bondage to sin and death into the freedom of forgiveness.
Do you think Peter, James and John were as shocked as the Israelites had been, seeing their leader unveiled and radiant as the sun? Do you think they trembled with fear and wonder? Do you think they held their breath in anticipation, to hear what Jesus would say when his conversation with Moses and Elijah was completed? Nope – they were falling asleep, unaware of what was about to be revealed to them. Such is the strength and power of our attempts to climb to the mountaintop by ourselves.
BUT – a revelation did occur. The light of Christ did shine for Peter, James and John to see. The unveiled face of Jesus was revealed to them and they saw Jesus in all his glory and radiance. Peter, James and John were privy to a moment that changed the destiny of God’s creation: they spent time on the mountaintop with the holy Son of God, and they were changed forever by the sight of Jesus in this new light. The fact that we are here today to listen to this story shows how they were changed and how they began to reflect the radiance of Christ in themselves, much as Moses reflected the radiance of God when he came down off the mountain in the wilderness.
But what does this mean for us? After all, we haven’t been on the mountain with Jesus, have we? We certainly haven’t walked up Sinai with Moses and come down with shining faces, have we? What does it mean for us today, Transfiguration Sunday, to see the unveiled face of God?
Well, I told myself I wasn’t going to do any more baby illustrations in my sermons for a while, but this one came to me from Irv Arnquist, so it’s really not my own. You, however, will have to suffer through it anyway. It seems that infants, especially newborns, have a very limited range of vision for the first few months of their lives: around 18 inches at the most. So if you were to ask a newborn what Mommy and Daddy look like, and they had the language to do so, they would describe Mommy and Daddy from the neck up. That face is the only thing they know of Mommy and Daddy for the first few months of their lives, and hopefully, that face is beaming with love and joy. Children develop their relationship with their parents very early – they learn to mimic what they see in Mommy and Daddy’s face, so if they see smiles, they learn smiles. If they see joy, they learn joy. But most of all, if they see that unveiled face as one they can trust, a face that comforts them when they cry, changes them when they are dirty and feeds them when they are hungry, they learn that the unveiled faces of Mommy and Daddy are good, that those unveiled faces are filled with the light of love, comfort, trust and safety. And the child learns to unveil their own face as well – to be confident enough to express need and love and joy to the face of Mommy & Daddy.
In the same way, the unveiled face of God in Jesus Christ is meant to do the same thing for us. When the radiant light of Jesus was revealed to Peter, James and John, they heard a voice from heaven: “This is my Son, my Chosen: listen to him!” The voice from heaven said that Jesus’ unveiled face radiated the light of heaven itself, and that his voice carried the weight and impact of heaven itself. As an infant learns to trust the radiant, unveiled face of a good parent, so Peter, James and John were to trust the radiant, unveiled face of God in Jesus, the Christ, God’s only begotten Son.
So Peter, James and John brought the radiance of God with them when they came down off the mountain. It wasn’t the same as Moses coming down from Sinai; in fact, the radiance planted in Peter, James, John and the other disciples took time to grow, and it also took time for people to be able to see it. But in time, with the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection and the commissioning of the church to reflect the light of Christ into the world, the radiance of Christ began to fill the church, and they began to see each other in a new light. A few years after Jesus’ death, the apostle Paul wrote that “all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed in to the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord; the Spirit.” As the church began to see the light of Christ in each other, it grew in trust and hope and love and learned to live with unveiled faces – to reflect the light of Christ all the better.
Today, we are called to do the same. Paul said that “if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” Our benediction reminds us that “the Lord’s face shines upon us and is gracious to us.” What we’ve known of each other in our daily life is not nearly as important as what we know of each other in Christ and how we see in each other the unveiled face of God, radiant with love, hope and trust. The glory of Jesus on the mountaintop is about God revealing Himself in Jesus, and the glory of our own unveiled faces is about God revealing Himself in us to a world shrouded in darkness. In Christ we have been given the light of the world – let it shine before others, that they may see our good works and glorify the unveiled face of our Father in heaven. In Christ we pray, Amen.
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