Nature is an incredible thing. Most of us have likely had our breath taken away at the site of something in creation. Barb and I spent a lot of time gasping at the beauty of the Scottish Highlands this summer, the gorgeous lochs, the stunning mountain ranges, the beautiful if slightly disturbingly hairy Highland Coos (cows).
England itself is nothing to sneeze at: the Lake District with is rolling pastoral hills and dales, and enormous hilly pastures covered in sheep. Sheep were everywhere. Wales as well is even lovelier with deep green mountains and valleys. We were moving so much, though (11 cities in 20 days), that we didn’t spend a whole lot of time looking up close at the finer aspects of creation.
One of the most impressive though, smaller, wonders is the simple butterfly. It’s lovely and pretty and all that, but the way the butterfly becomes a butterfly is even more incredible.
There’s this amazing metamorphosis that happens. Let’s take a peek. [Show video: http://youtu.be/6984R3d_QUs]
I thought today we could have a look at one key verse from the passage in 2 Corinthians that we read.
18 And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect[a] the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
I’m currently reading through the whole Bible, hoping to complete it in one year. It’s quite the adventure, actually. As I read it I read it more and more as the book of the story of my people.
I feel this strong connection to the stories and the hopes and aspirations and even tragedies of the people of the book. It is truly an epic read.
The Jews are our spiritual forebears, the ones who carried God’s promises and the ones through whom God chose to bring about His incarnation in Jesus Christ, who was born to a young Jewish teenager and her husband, the step-father of Jesus.
When I say I read it as the story of my people, I mean by that that I take it quite personally.
I see myself in their struggle, in their disobedience, in their obedience, in their tendency to wander from God and in their continual returning to God. It all rings true to me at a very deep level.
One of the challenges of reading the New Testament accurately is that the writers of the NT were themselves steeped in the Old Testament, which is also called the Hebrew Bible.
They wrote the new having been deeply familiar with the old. They experienced the new thing the God was doing, in the sending of Jesus Christ and in the sending of the Holy Spirit, in the light of all that God had done already as conveyed in the Old Testament.
So it’s necessary for us as Christians to read and, I would suggest, become steeped in the stories of the Old Testament if we really want to grasp a fuller picture of what the NT talks about.
So in today’s passage that we’ve already looked at, for the purpose of helping the Corinthians better understand what God was doing among them, Paul refers to something really important in the Old Testament.
It’s important in part for how much things have changed now that Christ has come.
13 We are not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face to keep the Israelites from gazing at it while the radiance was fading away. 14 But their minds were made dull, for to this day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read. It has not been removed, because only in Christ is it taken away.15 Even to this day when Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts.
When Paul refers here to Moses and the veil, he is talking about this passage in Exodus:
Exodus 34:29 When Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the Testimony in his hands, he was not aware that his face was radiant because he had spoken with the Lord.30 When Aaron and all the Israelites saw Moses, his face was radiant, and they were afraid to come near him. 31 But Moses called to them; so Aaron and all the leaders of the community came back to him, and he spoke to them. 32 Afterward all the Israelites came near him, and he gave them all the commands the Lord had given him on Mount Sinai.
33 When Moses finished speaking to them, he put a veil over his face. 34 But whenever he entered the Lord’s presence to speak with him, he removed the veil until he came out. And when he came out and told the Israelites what he had been commanded, 35 they saw that his face was radiant. Then Moses would put the veil back over his face until he went in to speak with the Lord.
So this is what Paul refers to when he writes in today’s passage.
PPT: 2 Corinthians 2:13-15
Paul says this, to explain why many of his own countrymen and race did not understand that Jesus is the fulfillment of OT prophesy, He is the Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
It also perhaps helps us to understand why it is that some reject Christ.
He was also speaking of himself before his conversion. Not only did he not understand that Jesus was the Messiah promised in the Old Testament, but Paul was the worst and most feared of the persecutors of the church, before his conversion.
And what Paul speaks of is a veil. The veil Moses wore among the Israelites was not by command of God, rather it was a concession to the people.
As Exodus says, after Moses came down from talking to God on the mountain, his face was radiant because he had spoken with God.
Because of that radiance, the people were afraid to come near him. So the veil was a way to both mask Moses’ own radiance at having been in God’s presence, and a way for the people to be comfortable in Moses’ presence.
So that’s some background. The main point is that such a thing as a veil exists that makes people dull, as Paul says, to the full reality of God. That veil is only taken away when a person is in Christ, or perhaps as a person is in the process of coming to Christ.
Another way of saying this is that the lights go on for a person in whom the Spirit of God is at work, both to bring them to faith in Jesus, and to continue to reveal the goodness of God in the glory of Christ.
So...going back to our key passage today, what questions do we want to ask about this passage?
Well, the first one might be: “How are our faces unveiled?”, and “What might cause our faces to be veiled sometimes?”
The thing I’ve noticed as I’ve been reading through the Pentateuch, the first 5 books of the Old Testament, is that in most ways, the people were just plain unsettled. They were jittery. There were kinda flighty.
There was something in them that had not completely attached themselves to God. And part of that was the constant exposure to idols that they faced as they mixed with other people groups.
Their allegiance to God was often tested as they encountered the religious practices of others. It wasn’t just tested.
More often than not, the people would not just become aware of the existence of idols and false deities; they would start to worship these false objects.
And that would make them blind to God. That’s blunt, but it’s true. So if I wonder if my face is veiled, so to speak; if I feel like God is a million miles away, if I just cannot seem to connect with God, that might show up in my countenance.
But that’s less important than the fact that there are idols in this world, things that want to take the central place of God. Things that, if I let them, will compromise my passion for God and my ability to feel His presence, to know with confidence that He is here.
If I give in to those idols, whatever they are…and an idol can be anything that takes too much of our time or attention or even love…TV, drugs, sex, Facebook, whatever. If I give in, as long as I give in, I’m going to be and feel unsettled. I’ll be double-minded, unstable as the Scripture says, in all my ways.
I’d suggest that this is something that we can’t safely assume we’re immune to. In fact God calls us to examine ourselves often. In the Scripture passages that talk about communion for example, there are warnings about taking communion when things are out of alignment in our walk with God. So for whatever reason, it may be that our ‘faces our veiled’ sometimes.
Something gets in the way. God’s goodness is somehow not as evident in our lives as it wants to be. But this is not the way God intends it to be, nor is this suppose to be normal for Christ followers.
In fact, Paul makes the bold and encouraging statement that as believers, we reflect the glory of the Lord. That’s pretty amazing when you think of it. In fact, we never think of this ourselves.
I don’t know anyone who would use those words. I’ve performed the funerals of many Christians, and often the comments that people sincerely make during those funerals suggest that in many ways the person who has passed into God’s presence WAS a reflection of God’s glory, and DID point people to Jesus.
But if Paul says that we reflect the Lord’s glory, was is that glory? Well, in part it’s the beauty of God; it’s that a person reflects in some way the reality first of all that God is real, and that God is good.
I see this for sure in many people in this church. I see it in the sincere, consistent passion for God that many have here. I see it in the honesty about struggles with our flesh that people have here.
I see it in the longing for justice and the anger at injustice that many of us share. I see it in our children, from our youngest, to little Joshua who was baptized last year at the age of 6, to our youth who love God, to a lot of our adults.
That’s an amazing thing - to reflect God’s glory, to actually BE evidence of God’s goodness and God’s existence. But at some level, reflecting God’s glory is mostly about what’s going on deep inside us.
It’s about the transformation that’s occurring inside each Christ follower that’s making us more like Jesus.
Now a lot of transformation is subtle. It’s hard to see. The video we watched of the caterpillar becoming a butterfly was sped up a lot. In real time, most of the evidence of the change that goes on inside the cocoon is nearly impossible to see for humans, too slow to track. Because of that it’s possible to say that we don’t see change going on in a person’s life. We’re not aware of fruit of the Spirit that’s growing in someone’s life.
For God, of course, who is not in any way limited Himself by time, He is fully aware of every nuance of change that’s happening inside of us.
And I think that He celebrates those signs of progress that no one else can see, because He delights when we become more like His Son.
And that transformation in the life of a believer does have outward expressions. I’m sure you’ve heard of them. Paul talks about them elsewhere as the fruit of the Spirit which are: But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. (Galatians 5:22)
It’s interesting that there’s nothing here that refers to religion directly. The fruit of the Spirit, the evidence of transformation, is not, notably, increased religiosity. It is not supernatural manifestations. It is not what you would call ‘power’. Instead the fruit of the Spirit, the evidence that points to a life inhabited by the living God, is ALL ABOUT character. It’s all about WHO we are. Not what we do. Not what gifts we have or don’t have.
There is, because of Jesus, “Nothing between us and God, our faces shining with the brightness of his face. And so we are transfigured much like the Messiah, our lives gradually becoming brighter and more beautiful as God enters our lives and we become like him”. That’s from The Message
So, let me ask us all a question. I ask this of myself first before I voice this question.
Are we content to stay as caterpillars, or are we content to stay as cocooned, entrapped in some way - perhaps by sin - in a mid-way stage of development, forever uncontent, unfulfilled, settling for less than God through Jesus Christ has made possible for our lives?
When I ask myself that question, I think: That’s no way to live. Why would I chose to live short of the fullness and abundance of life that God wants for me?
There is a fuller way to exist - and that is by living the life of a true disciple of Jesus, living free and living what we believe with ever increasing intensity - not fanaticism - but with ever increasing love for God and for the people who populate this planet by His will.
By His power and grace breaking free of the cocoon and realizing and living the true purpose for which we exist.
The path to this is in serving one another in humility. It is in following the example of Jesus. It is in seeking the face of the living God in prayer, by reading His Word, being immersed in it as much as possible.
It is in growing in stark honesty with ourselves, with God and with others. It is in pursuing holiness. It is in pursuing Jesus.
So, church. Together we are a reflection of the Lord’s glory. Together we are being transformed into the likeness of God’s dear Son. May we embrace that reality with humility.
May we encourage one another as we see the fruit of the Spirit coming alive in us. And may we continue on the path, together as the Church at the Mission, to answering God’s call upon us to serve Him faithfully, and by going out into the world to make disciples.
