When you were little, did you ever stick a flashlight in your mouth and turn it on? It looked pretty weird, didn’t it. For more weird, there was also a contest for who could make the most horrible grotesque face, you know, the kind that would cause your mother to warn you that if you didn’t straighten out immediately your face would freeze in that position.
Well, looking weird may be fun when you’re a kid, but it’s not something most of us adults go in for. By the time you’re a teenager you may enjoy shocking your parents, but mostly you want to look just like your friends. Same jeans, same shoes, same tattoos and piercings. Which I’ve never understood, at least since I got my ears pierced in Greenwich Village long ago when I was 17. And I didn’t tell my mother until after it was done, either.
But although we may have enjoyed looking weird, we only want to look scary on Halloween. People tend to avoid you if you look weird, or frightening. And most of us want to blend in, to be accepted. One day early in my corporate career, the director and management of my department, Pillsbury’s risk management department, went out to dinner with our brokers who had flown in from NY to renew our property insurance contracts for the coming year. When we had all taken our places at the table, I looked around, and lo and behold! All four of us from Pillsbury and two of the out-of-town reps were all wearing gray suits with red ties. Slightly different shades of red, mind you, but it just goes to show you what pack animals we are.
That’s one reason why Moses had to hide his face when he came down from the mountain. Let me back up for a minute and remind you of what has happened up to now.
Moses had already been up to the top of Mt. Sinai and brought down the tablets of the law. He had already caught the Israelites mid-orgy and taught them a lesson they would never forget. They had agreed to covenant with God, to be his people and fol-low the law. BUT.
They didn’t want to get too close to God. They wanted Moses to be their intermediary. They knew that coming too near to God was dangerous, that only Moses and the priests were allowed into his presence, but they wanted even more distance than that. They didn’t even want to be able to hear God’s voice. [They] said to Moses, "You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, or we will die." [Ex 20:19] So I shouldn’t be too hard on them, they really did have a reason to be wary. But the evidence will show, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, by and large the Hebrew people did not want to get close enough to God to be changed. They wanted a half-way covenant, with all the privileges, and none of the obligations or risks.
Because we do change when we get close to God. And the Hebrew people - even with their on-and-off allegiance to God - changed enough to be a threat to the people around them. They’ve been pointed at, singled out, jeered at and sometimes massacred because they were different. And difference is threatening.
What happened to Moses when he encountered God in all his glory? “Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.” [Ex 3:6] It’s even more common for people to fall down flat on their faces, as Isaiah did in the vision we talked about two weeks ago. And that’s an uncomfortable place to stay for long periods of time. What we need to learn how to do, as Moses did, isto have the internal condition of humility while still standing tall. Moses was good at that. Scripture tells us that “Moses was very humble, more so than anyone else on the face of the earth.” [Num 12:3] And yet he was no lightweight when it came to upholding God’s honor and enforcing God’s orders.
Acknowledging God as our creator and ruler doesn’t make us smaller and weaker; it makes us taller and stronger. And of course that means we’ll be challenged at every turn. You know the proverb about the tallest tree being the one that gets cut down first.
The second thing that happens is that we will start to reflect the presence of God. Moses, who spoke with God “face to face” shone with a visible radiance. And you’ll note that the Israelites were afraid of him. Why? The only time Moses had been anything but benevolent, just and generous and encouraging, was when they disobeyed God. Was it guilty conscience? Was it - again - reluctance to be changed by too close an association with the “other”? At any rate, Moses had to wear two faces, as it were: one hidden, so that the people could stand to be around him, and one open and vul-nerable, so that he could be intimate with God.
Jesus did much the same. If Moses’ face shone, can you imagine how Jesus shone that day on the top of the mountain of transfiguration that day when Peter, James and John went with him for the momentous encounter that we call the Transfiguration? All this time - about three years - he had gone around looking like just an ordinary guy. Brown and lean and strong from all the walking, long-haired and bearded, dressed in rough country garb like everybody else. He hid his true colors so that he could get close enough for people to accept him, so that they wouldn’t run either run away or suck up. Is that dishonest? No, it’s just tactful. The people had been raised for generation upon generation to fear God, knowing that if the high priest was carrying unconfessed sin around in him that when he went into the Holy of Holies he’d be incinerated in a flash. And they all knew - at least most of them did - that they were sinners. He had to bring them along slowly, until they were ready to get a foretaste of the glory that was ahead of them.
And up there on that mountain in Galilee who Jesus really was became visible to the disciples with him for the first time. What was inside became visible outside. The Greek word for transfiguration was metamorpho, and it means to change form. But you may have noticed that they trusted Jesus enough that they did not fall to the ground in fear when he was so suddenly transformed. It was only when God spoke that they fell on their faces.
Now most American Christians are almost inoculated against responding to the holy. We no longer feel a compulsion to fall on our face in the presence of God. In fact, many spend their lives entirely unaware of the presence of God. In many places, the essence of Christianity is doing good works - which are supposed to be a result of our transformation, not a substitute for it. We are supposed to be changed when we come into God’s presence - but on the inside first.
The same word used for the transfiguration of Jesus, metamorpho, is used twice more in the NT.
"Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God-- what is good and ac-ceptable and perfect.." [Ro 12:2] This isn’t easy. We’re all made up of stubbornly resistant attitudes and convictions and habits. And it often seems that the harder we try to “be good” the more frustrated and dispirited we become. So many of us give up and settle for being the nice people that we really mostly are, and leave our discipleship on the back burner.
The second use of the word tells us the cause of our difficulty in becoming conformed to the image of Christ, and shows us how to get there from here. "And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.” [2 Cor 3:18] The way to become transformed into Christlikeness is to spend time with him. Furthermore, we need to spend our time with him with unveiled faces. Remember what I said before, about Moses wearing two faces? One with the veil, for dealing with people, and the other without for developing intimacy with God? Well, when we come into the presence of Jesus it is absolutely essential that we bare ourselves before him, so that we are actually open to his transforming power. Don’t worry about getting cleaned up first; that’s his job. Just come.
I am NOT advocating hypocrisy. I am simply acknowledging that there is a different level of intimacy between what we normally experience with our friends and neighbors, and what we have offered to us by God. Good marriages approach this level of intimacy.
And do you know what? Spending time with Jesus does result in a glow, an almost visible radiance that does not frighten, but warms. It does not blind, but instead makes vision clearer. Have you ever been in the presence of someone whom you just knew was filled with the grace of God? I have. And I know you have, too, because we have some in this congregation. This is what Jesus said we are supposed to let shine before men in the sermon on the mount: “Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.” [Mat 5:16] We won’t shine as Jesus did on the Mount of Transfiguration; no, that’s not for us. We are not supposed to blaze with the unfiltered glory of God, it’s too much for people. Paul says, in the passage before this one that “God. . . has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not of letter but of spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. Now if the ministry of death, chiseled in letters on stone tablets, came in glory so that the people of Israel could not gaze at Moses' face because of the glory of his face, a glory now set aside, how much more will the ministry of the Spirit come in glory? For if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation, much more does the ministry of justification abound in glory!” [2 Cor 3:6-9]
The people were afraid of Moses, because they were afraid of God, because they knew that if they came too close to God they might be killed. This is what is meant by the ministry of condemnation. God gave the law to the Jewish people so that they could begin to understand the unsurpassable holiness of God. But since noone could keep the law, it became a guilt trip rather than the freedom road. Remember that Paul said, “through the law comes the knowledge of sin.” [Rom 3:20] But we are the bearers of the good news of the gospel, which is forgiveness of sin and reconciliation with God. This word shines with a gentler light.
But we cannot escape the obligation we have to reflect Jesus Christ out into the world. The glory of God is supposed to shine through us, diffused by our flawed humanity, in which we can both approach and warm the people around us. There’s a medieval carol praising the Virgin Mary which I have always loved: ”As sunne shineth through the glass, so Jesu in his mother was.” Can you see how beautiful that image is? Mary is holy with the reflected glory of the one whom she carried inside her. We too are holy, because we carry the holy one within us. We are stained glass: stained, yes, but transformed by God into a rainbow bearing his promise of peace.
Where does the glow come from? Not from being perfect, not from acting “holier than thou” or self-righteous. Not from quoting Bible verses or doing church work or good works. Not even standing on street corners passing out tracts, and particularly not haranguing chance acquaintances about sin. The only thing that produces that un-mistakable shine is being close to God in Christ. We are mirrors - but we have to stand in the right place to reflect the truth of the gospel to the people around.
And we must absolutely not try to get a glimpse of ourselves in that mirror. Because that will only lead to frustration and despair. Have you ever beaten yourself up for a failure - real or imagined - which you are sure identifies you unmistakably to both God and the world as a total loser? First of all, you need to remember that Satan is the accuser. Whatever you are or do, Jesus stands as your advocate before God. And second it’s not about you. If you focus on Jesus, that’s what you reflect into the world. If you focus on yourself, you’re simply setting yourself up for failure, because none of us can be anyone else’s savior. We can only turn the light on and point the way.
People are still reluctant to come into the light, reluctant to be changed. Others don’t trust the good news to be good. Maybe the veil you wear is so heavy that no one can see your light. Maybe you wear a veil in the presence of God, so that you have nothing inside you to give to the world. Maybe don’t really believe that your little light will make a difference.
If you let the Spirit turn your light on, you will be different, as Moses was, as Jesus was. And you will make a difference. Some people will make fun of you, or avoid you, or even attack you. But as Peter wrote to the persecuted church, “Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and reverence. Keep your con-science clear, so that, when you are maligned, those who abuse you for your good conduct in Christ may be put to shame.” [1 Pet 3:15-16]
Do any of you expect to leave this sanctuary this morning shining like Moses, or like Jesus on the mountain? No? Well, I didn’t think so. And the reason is that we’re not supposed to. Our transformation to takes place on the inside. We’re supposed to shine, yes - but we’re not supposed to scare people out of their wits. We’re supposed to be light in the world, but not strobe lights or spotlights, not blinking, glaring lights that confuse or intimidate. We are meant to be little lights - but we are called on to shine. In so much darkness, that’s all that is needed.
